Whoa! Anybody check out Wal-Mart's CD prices??? (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey Noel]

Holy crap! I went in there the other day just to browse their selection and maybe buy the Moulin Rouge soundtrack and was freakin' blown away by their prices! $16.88 Weren't they just $13.88/CD not too long ago? Now they're right up there with those damned Sam Goody prices! I sure hope Best Buy's prices stay the same!

 

[KeithH]

$16.88? Good grief! What's next? Toilet paper for $3 a roll? Seriously though, I have never seen a CD that expensive at Wal*Mart. In the past, I recall seeing some CDs for $14.88. The $16.88 price is ironic. About a month or two ago, I posted here great prices for CDs that I saw at Wal*Mart. They had a $9.88 sale on several great titles such as Madonna The Immaculate Collection. During that sale, I picked up Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits and Prince The Very Best of Prince, two recent Warner compilations, for $9.88 each. Wha' happen'?

 

[Jeffrey Noel]

Dammit! Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits for less than $10?? Missed that thread unfortunately.

But yeah I was sure surprised. At first I thought it was just the soundtracks that were $16.88 since every soundtrack cd was tagged at that price, but what do you know, all other cds were that price too. What in the hell is Wal-Mart thinking?

 

[KeithH]

Jeffrey, let's just hope this is not the start of an awful trend at Wal*Mart. Next time I am near one of their stores, I will have to stop in and check CD prices. I expect to be disgusted with prices when I venture into Sam Goody, Borders, and Barnes and Noble, but not Wal*Mart.

 

[Robert Burkes]

I live in a small town, but I attend a college in a fairly large city. In the small town, CDs are around $16-$17 at Wal-Mart, but in the city where I go to school, they're around $12-$13. I don't know what the deal is, but as I see it, Wal-Mart isn't worth our hard-earned money (for CDs anyway). They require artists to alter their work before they'll sell it, but they can easily sell movies with the dirty words they so hate. Hell, they can even sell guns to anyone with the money and a fake (or real) ID. For me, censorship = no sale. But hey...that's just me. Later!
Rob

 

[Jeffrey Noel]

Rob, I was wondering if they had these ridiculous for small towns only. Cuz the Wal-mart with the outrageous prices I saw is in a small town. Now that's a bunch of BS!!

 

[Alex Shk]

On Long Island, Wal Mart has plenty of competition from nearby K-Mart's, Target's, Best Buy's, Circuit City's, Tower Records and Virgin Megastore's. The prices for Wal Marts edited and censored CD's remains fairly low. They also do not drive away too much of their competition here.

However - that's a pretty good strategy. Wipe out all your competition in rural areas until you are the only game in town, the jack up the prices. If Circuit City decides to take residence 1 mile up the road, you can always drop the prices back down....

 

[Mark Romero]

I used to buy CD's online from cdnow or Amazon. I would shop both looking for the best price. Then all of a sudden, Amazon's jumped up close to retail and even full retail on some CD's. So I switched back to CDNow and their prices weren't much better. So I began to think, did the recording industry have something to do with this?

I purchase most of my mainstream music from military PX's since I live overseas for about $12.95. On my recent trip back to the US, I decided to check out Circuit City and was pleasantly surprised with their prices. I bought about 10 CD's from them. I hope they are not next in line to increase their prices.

 

[Marshall Alsup]

Robert summed up what I think perfectly, but I'll say it anyway
I hate the fact that Wal-Mart edits their CDs and so I dont buy from them. They do it because their supposedly "family friendly". My question is why dont they make directors edit their movies? Its complete bullshit!
I put a personal ban on buying cds from Wal-Mart, Shopko, and Kmart for this reason. But, for many reasons (most summed up nicley here ) I dont buy very many cds.
-Marshall

 

[Rachael B]

IMO, Wal-Mart prices things that women buy alot of (make-up, shampoo, clothes) low to suck them into a buying at Wal-Mart habit. There are plenty of higher profit items sprinkled around their stores, CD's would typically be among those items I believe. Women contol the purse-strings in alot of families and I believe W-M plays on this. CD's are an impulse buy for teenagers, atleast that's what I think W-M thinks, hopes. I'm not too impressed with W-M in big or small cities.

 

[John Watson]

As we used to say, THE WALMARTIANS ARE COMING!, THE WALMARTIANS ARE COMING!!

Sure, use your massive power to get the suppliers by the neck (the suppliers don't get paid until Walmart sells the stuff), kill the small retail competitors, then jack up prices and enjoy the cash flow! The remarks about bringing in the women for the low prices on some things, and relying on impulse and convenience (hell, in these big box malls, you have to drive to the next store!!) for the others, is pretty shrewd.

 

[Clint B]

How can you tell if a Wal-Mart CD has been edited without listening to it? Do they do this with all CD's they sell?

 

[Pete_S]

I hate the fact that Wal-Mart edits their CDs and so I dont buy from them. ... I put a personal ban on buying cds from Wal-Mart, Shopko, and Kmart for this reason.

Kmart carries the uncut (Parental Advisory) CDs; You just have to be 17 to purchase them. In the event that they also stock edited versions the edited CDs are clearly marked right next to the price, and Parental Advisory versions are still stocked right alongside the edited versions. In my experience with the CDs (I work there and often get to put out the CDs when they're shipped to us), where we get both versions we always have FAR MORE of the unedited.

 

[Marshall Alsup]

I didn't realize that Kmart also carries uncut CDs. I still wont buy from them however because they carry the edited ones. Its the principle of it man
Clint, I'm not sure how you can tell. The last CD I bought in there was an Everlast cd about 5 years ago. I didn't even know there was such a thing as edited CDs! When I got it home and discovered it was edited I was pissed and put the ban on. I've never looked ad a CD in Wal-Mart since so I'm not sure how to tell.
-Marshall

 

[Alex Shk]

Sometimes the CD itself is not edited, but the packaging is. I have Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins, and no where on the cover, booklet, inserts, or on the CD itself is there a tracklisting. This was a Wal Mart version from several years back - they didn't want the name of the song Silverf*ck to be visible on the package. The band eliminated the tracklisting in it's entirity.

The actual CD is NOT censored.

 

[LarryDavenport]

$16.88 is high, but $18.99 plus 9% sales tax is worse (Seattle, Tower Records).

 

[KeithH]

9% sales tax?! I'd be taking road trips to Oregon! No sales tax there. That's what I love about Delaware!

 

[Ron Etaylor]

Didn't we hear about six months ago that cd prices were going to start coming down a bit? WTF?

 

[KeithH]

Ron, I've seen some low prices at various stores in recent months. In fact, as I stated elsewhere in this thread, I reported a couple of months ago a good CD sale at Wal*Mart. They had several greatest hits compilations, including Madonna The Immaculate Collection, Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits, and Prince The Very Best of Prince, for $9.88 each. I've also seen some good sales at Best Buy. Within the past couple of months, they had the remastered version of Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell for $5.99 and The Very Best of Christopher Cross for $7.99. These sale prices were good for one week. Finally, I saw a number of classic rock CDs on sale at Sam Goody a couple of months ago for $9.99 each. I had never seen quality CDs that cheap at Sam Goody before. So, good prices have been coming along from time to time.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Oregon is a three hour car ride from Seattle, and I don't have a car.