Weekly RoundUp 11-29-2005 (1 Viewer)

[EricSchulz]

My Target did not get the Jurassic Park Set; do the copies they were shipped include the King Kong ticket?

 

[Bill Thomann]

Mike, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is terrific. I'm passing on it like so many others simply because I'm waiting for the SE (& the F4 too). Even at its low price I've got enough to keep me busy & not have to worry about how to get something out of the first copy when the SE comes out.

Everybody having trouble finding Frighteners should give K Mart a looksee. If my rinky dink one had a half dozen copies I'd say they chain probably is carrying them whereas it appears NO ONE else is. I thought I would have to order it from Amazon or DDD & only checked K Mart as an afterthought.

 

[David Williams]

Over in the Film Software section, the producer of the 2 discer has already confirmed he's working on it (IIRC it's the talented David Prior). With all the other releases on the plate, it's easy to wait. The movie was fantastic and I can't wait for the sequel.

I wish Fox would be more upfront on double dips.

 

[Al (alweho)]

The Best Buys here in West L.A. only got three or four copies each, as did all my local Targets. Needless to say they sold out rather quickly.

After a bit of a drive/search I found it in plenty of stock at Circut City, and they price-matched Target's ad at $14.99. The Kong movie ticket was enclosed.

The only other place that had it in stock was Tower, but they wanted $26.95 for it. I don't remember seeing their copies stickered with the ticket either.

 

[Jeff Meyers]

Thanks as always Mike & Patrick for all of your efforts in putting together the Weekly Round-Up.

Mike - Excellent suggestion! I grabbed the last copy of the JPAP (at least the last copy on display) at my local Target tonite. Great way to score a KK movie pass for me and a nice Christmas present for my nephew. I did not see any copies of, or shelf tags for, the Mummy Collector's Set at Target.

I also picked up Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Sky High.

Reminder: Don't forget to use the $3.00 off coupon from December's Better Homes & Gardens magazine if you're picking-up Sky High this week. Link with details in case you missed it:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=245667
Thanks to Patrick.C for this info!

 

[EricSchulz]

Oops, thought I had posted earlier that Target is not carrying it, just the JP Set.

 

[Jimmy M]

I found 4 copies of it at my Best Buy...in the Science Fiction aisle.

Jimmy!

 

[Dah-Dee]

I saw a post somewhere that Target has Office Space SE on sale for $10 this week as part of a large group of $10 titles, only some of which were pictured in their ad (as is the norm for them). Anybody find it for this price at Target? My closest Target was sold out of it, can't tell whether it was part of the sale (I suppose the sold-out status is a hint, hmmm? :b )

 

[TonyD]

well i tried it today but it didnt work.
one other idea is if you can find one of the gift cards with the disney coupon on it you can get $15 off all 4 instead of the $12 off all four offered in this weaks add.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I just came to post about this, John...so I'm glad you asked!

It's not listed in their ad...but I was in my local Target tonight and saw the shelf tag for Office Space at $10! A little background: I posted in a RoundUp or two ago that Office Space was priced at my local Target for $13.87 Full Frame and $14.99 Widescreen. That pricing continues still a couple of weeks later except for the $10 sale tag...WHICH STATES FULL FRAME ONLY!!! I even did a scanner check and the FF was, indeed, $10 and the WS was $14.99. They had similar $10 tags up on The Aviator (FULL FRAME ONLY) and Mean Girls (FULL FRAME ONLY)! I am starting to wonder what's going on with the thinking at Target. This kind of deal may cause me to stop shopping there altogether for DVDs. And, to make matters worse tonight...they didn't have a single copy of March of the Penguins on hand.

That's the second week in a row they had NO copies on hand (the evening of release day) of some of the major releases of the week. Last week, my Target had NO copies of King Kong (2-disc, CE or Collection) AND NO copies of Leave It To Beaver: Season 1. And, my store had only one copy of the 2-disc Polar Express. A check again tonight makes it appear as if Target has no plans to carry LITB at all. I've been in a couple of local Targets and none of them have it. EricSchulz reported earlier that target will also not be carrying the Mummy Collector's Set released this week with the movie cash for King Kong.

My Target also had none of the Jurassic Park Adventure Packs released today...and has had none of the 2-disc War of the Worlds (2005) released last week.

I'm a little confused and greatly disappointed.

I went, instead, across the street to Wal-Mart where I picked up March of the Penguins (WS) for $16.87 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (which had been competitively marked to $14.87) for $13.99 with a price match on the Circuit City flyer.

 

[Al (alweho)]

I'll bet that the problems with the WB titles are due to orders not being fully shipped Mike. The following Video Business article singles out WB for recurring stock problems:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6286492.html&

Add to that the DVD manufacturing crunch that always hits everyone this time of year and it may explain a lot of the stocking issues.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I don't know, Al.

Would WB not fully ship target's orders but ship orders to other retailers? I'm not hearing about shortages of these titles anywhere else. But I could definitely be wrong. It could just be poor ordering on the part of management at my local store.

 

[Al (alweho)]

Could be that too, although Target may have all their stores bought via the computer.

Target also told Wall Street their sales may be down this year, which may have been a signal they may not be on their best footing with suppliers this season.

I used to work in the music biz many years ago, if a retailer was late or behind on payments their new release and restocking orders always got put back in the shipping queue while we favored the accounts that were current.

The VB article indicates it may just be stock issues though, since they hint WB isn't the only one with problems.

But maybe the studios are also worried about overstock after all those announcements earlier this year about major titles such as Shrek 2 and Incredibles not selling all the way through.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Al: That is all VERY intresting and could very well explain the phenomena I'm running into. Although it certainly would indicate tough times at Target.

On the other issue, I still don't like the way my local Target is treating differently its pricing patterns on split OAR & MAR releases. It is very frustrating to stand there looking at desired titles and to see the MAR versions on sale and the OAR versions at regular price. Bad form.

Maybe Eric will weigh in on some of these observations.

 

[Patrick.C]

I ran into this Target issue with MAR vs OAR the night before last. My son received a copy of Madagascar for his birthday from some friends of ours. It was full screen and had the rubber bracelets attached so I made plans to swap it out at Target. The lady at the returns desk was helpful when I told her I wanted to swap it, but she got a confused look on her face as she was keying it in the POS machine. Thats when we both found out that the MAR version was cheaper than the OAR. She figured it must be a mistake (as did I at the time, until I read the last couple of posts) and did an override and made it an even swap out.

 

[GarySchrock]

I've seen Target frequently do the different prices on full screen and widescreen discs, especially when they run the $10 sales. These days I generally don't even bother to pay attention to their $10 ones, because the odds are it's full screen only.

 

[TravisR]

I don't think the managers have any say in what they get. I went to the Target in my area because I wanted to pick up CSI: Season Five (since it has a $10 giftcard). Unfortunately, they still haven't gotten it on the shelves yet. According to an employee, the store hasn't been able to unload all their trucks so it's essentially just sitting on a trailer on the outside of the store instead of being sold.

Maybe it's a similar problem at your store.

 

[Mike Frezon]

What I think is really wierd about all this is that Target has always had a really good vibe/reputation in these threads. Even if they don't have the lowest price, they could always be counted on to have items in stock, have good, competitive prices, friendly service and clean, well-organized stores.

Now apparently, all the sudden (at least to me), they are not ordering enough items, running out of items, screwing up pricing on OAR/MAR lines, AND deciding just-not-to-carry certain high-profile releases. Odd.

 

[David Podjasek]

Interesting... so does anyone know what this refers to:

"VBG’s Engen speculated that part of the problem is studios overreacting to returns on Shrek 2 and The Incredibles with heavy cutbacks on shipments."

 

[TonyD]

yes, a little.

video buyers guide and engen is a the author of an article in that mag.
the shrek 2 and incrdibles thing was that there were orders for those titles based on projected sales numbers
the sales did not meet the number so someone got sued and there were huge numbers of returns on those titles.

so because of that revenge of the sith and several other titles may have been short ordered because of that.