Alan Smithee

I'm only laughing because they're doing it to themselves.

"Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away..."

Vipper II

While Best Buy has gone downhill, I'd hate to see it go. I buy most of my big box electronics online, but I still like being able to look at them ahead of time in the store, and around here Best Buy's in-store inventory kills the competition's. Plus, they still occasionally come through and I give them my business.

kd5

Went to our local Best Buy yesterday to peruse DVDs (in general), they've done the integration in ours too, it's such a clusterfuck. Not only are they combined and therefore more difficult to look through, but they had sale shelf tags on top of other sale shelf tags in numerous places forcing me to pick through the shelf tags just to find out which ones were on sale (+ DVD vs. BD). Not only that, anytime I would find a sale shelf tag for one I might've been interested in, they were out of it. If I wanted to order it I'd've just shopped at BB online. What an absolute mess. Fuck Best Buy. -kd5-

Timber

If the discs are spine out there isn't enough room for the sale tags, or even regular tags.

Alan Smithee

Saw the new setup for the first time yesterday- what a mess! And of course they had some discs I would have bought, but they came in unsealed slipcovers and Best Buy went ahead and stuck their price stickers on them, so I ordered them for the same price on Amazon.

Something that REALLY cracked me up was they had an endcap with 3D titles- they had included Jackass 3 and Friday the 13th Part 3, which are NOT real Blu-Ray 3D discs but the crappy red/blue format! Way to say "We don't know what the fuck we're doing!"

Didn't get approached for DirecSpam this time though- someone's gonna be fired for that!

Texan26

Apparantly the employees are confused also. I ordered a blu-ray for in store pick up. When I went to pick it up, they had the DVD set aside instead. They told me to hold on while someone pulls the correct copy. Waited 5 minutes until I decided to go find it myself.

ProfessorEcho

The Best Buy in Burbank, CA had 6 copies of ROSEMARY'S BABY and a single copy of NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH and that was it as far are Criterion titles go! This used to be a store with a separate section for all the Criterions, now they have next to nothing. When I commented about that to a blue shirt he told me that the section is going to dwindle even further, that there will be no more standard DVDs for sale in all the stores. He also said, as was posted above, that the reorganized sections were done by a separate company Best Buy hired and that BB is no longer in charge of how those sections are set up. My guess is that they will eliminate all the disc sections either after the holiday season or soon after that.

Alan Smithee

And their customers are going to dwindle even further.

Alan Smithee

Just saw someone post this on Best Buy's Facebook page: "When did your DVD/Blu-Ray selection become so pathetic? Seriously you used to be my go to place for movies. Now my local grocery store has a better selection."

Best Buy's response: "I empathize with you completely. Sadly most of our customers are now downloading their music and movies making the actual hard copies unneeded. A sign on the times, I'm afraid. Marti"

Yes, because CinemaNow is SUCH a superior experience to Blu-Ray! They truly have lost it. Well I'm glad they came along to help put the Sacramento Virgin Megastore out of business, and now decide that media is "unneeded." Soon THEY will be the ones who are unneeded- I'm going to go hug my media collection now!

bunkaroo

My post from page 1:

Oh Best Buy, you're so predictable.

ProfessorEcho

I noticed Amazon in their infinite wisdom raised the price of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but BB still had it for $4.99. So I placed an online order for my local BB who had it in stock. 45 minutes later I got an E mail saying I could go pick it up. I went and the guy at the pickup counter can't find it and then answers the phone and starts a long conversation helping that customer! I finally signal him that I'm still waiting so he ends the call and says "Sorry man, I guess I have to go to the back room to find your Blu Ray."

Hello? Retail 101: You NEVER take care of the phone customer before the customer right in front of you. You know I really don't want Amazon to be the only game in town, but I still can't stop wishing Best Buy would just go under already.

Mickactual

I don't so much mind the Blu/DVD integration, but what really galls me is the genre divisions. Seriously...if You've never seen a film, how are You to know what genre it is? Even if You have an inkling, You'd have to be a swami or a psychic to guess where BB might decide to place it. ...So now You have to waste the time checking every section. A simple A-Z would be far more logical & efficient.

terrycloth

My Best Buy just did this...again not the biggest fan, but ill get over it.

however as I went in with a list to pick up for my sister I realized they had NO horror section so I had to shift thru it and figure out all the sub genres of the horror movies on my list.

the cd selection is still worse however since its sorted by genre but they dont bother to alphabetize it.

PhantomStranger

Some stores still have a very small horror section, some do not. I have said it before, but Best Buy won't be selling media products by 2014, if they are still in business.

terrycloth

Thats what annoyed me the most as this store actually had a decent horror selection as oppose to the other two in my area that have a shelf or two with random titles thrown on em where as this one had almost two rows. o well

dvduser6

I noticed this at the Costa Mesa store a couple of months ago. Personally, I don't like it as I find I'm constantly double-checking items I pull from the shelf to check the price. Once their doors finally close, I'll just do my B&M browsing at Second Spin and make the trip to Amoeba once a month. Glad I bought my new TV earlier this year. After they're gone, there will be a very small handful of stores to even do comparison shopping on home theater equipment, especially TV's and home theater equipment. Sign of the times, I guess.

Mattflix

Splitting by genre will always yeild frustration. There are always the debatable borderlines and in the end will always boil down to somebody's opinion that hopefully some customers agree with. Even within Genres there's such a range of movies. The Exorcist and Jeepers Creepers are very, very different movies, yet you'll find them both under horror.

Then you get crazy stuff like Anime showing in the Childrens section because only kids watch cartoons of course


As far as combining the DVD's and Blu-Rays, I think BB is asking for headaches. There are few stores (not just BB) where I can buy a Blu-Ray and the clerk doesn't ask me if I own a Blu-Ray player to make sure I'm not buying the wrong disc. To many old ladies buying Blu's unknowingly then trying to return them later. You'd think they'd split them for that reason. Also you'd think having a nice spiffy Blu section would help sell Blu-Ray players.

Brent L

Am I crazy, I guess I must be, but isn't Rosemary's Baby an all time classic HORROR film? I must be totally wrong on that. According to Best Buy it isn't a horror flick at all. It's not even a drama of any sort. No, according to Best Buy is is an action/sci-fi movie and it belongs right between Red and Red Heat.





And here is a shot from when I was in earlier today (bottom shelf)...

asianxcore

Saw the layout for the first time 2 days ago. Didn't bother me. Then again I worked Retail in the past so, dealing with layout changes doesn't bother me.

PhantomStranger

It does appear that some stores will have much bigger media sections than others. There are two Best Buys I have visited in the past week with a media area almost as large as prior years, though it's clear the CD section is being pushed out. Most stores though have very small media sections now, including BDs and DVDs. I suspect the ones with severely reduced media sections will be the first ones closed down as the chain shrinks.

Josh-da-man

I don't know. Media -- CDs and DVDs -- aren't high profit items, so the more floor space you have these things taking up, the less revenue it generates per foot.

I would assume that the larger media sections are in the larger stores. The larger stores probably cost a lot more to run ... more rent, more employees, more utility bills ... and the future of Best Buy is probably in smaller stores that sell phones and laptops, and maybe a smaller number of superstores that are larger and sell appliances, too.

I would also reckon that the "media" sections will be reduced to nothing but new releases and best sellers, with a few dump bins for bargain CDs/DVDs/blu-rays.

milo bloom

Since my personal collection is straight alphabetical, Blu and DVD mixed, I'm not overly upset about this, but the genre thing is the real kicker. There's so many flicks that can ride the edge of two genres, like the Terminator films can be put in either action or scifi, certain Shakespeare films could be either comedy or drama. And then something like all the South Park seasons are in TV, but the movie is in movies.

mndtrp

It didn't bug me, either.

slop101

My local BB had Rosemary's Baby in the horror section.

GreenVulture

You sound like a tremendous crybaby. If their new layout is such a hassle, can't you sidestep all of this by placing the order online and doing an in-store pickup?