TV on DVD/Blu Ray @ Big Lots: Anyone Confirm?

My store has plenty of Popeyes, Tracy Takes On Season 1, a few Wacky Races, a few OPENED Flintstones 1 and 3. 
I bought 2 Lois & Clark season 3s.  Both had a floater that I didn't notice until I got home.  I'll take them back this weekend if nobody wants them so I can get something else or money back.  

I haven't found any opened sets. All of the sets that I have bought, Dukes of Hazzard, Flintstones, Top Cat, Lois and Clark, Popeye have all been sealed sets. 

I've got to say that I am envious of these deals you guys have access to there.  Those are some pretty good titles there.  We don't have anything like a Big Lots here in Canada.  That really sucks!!!  

Flintstones were the only opened ones that I saw.  I think....?

Plenty of "Tracey Takes On" sets at my Big Lots, along with Dukes, Dallas, OC, and West Wing.   All the other mentioned titles have been quickly snapped up.  Now seeing those 100 movie collections from MillCreek, such as "Chillers", "Musicals", "Historical", "Burn Rubber", etc for 9.00 I think.  The TV show collections seem to be drying up.

Has anyone seen any recent shipments at any Big Lots? I'm hearing reports that maybe Warner Brothers is upset over these sets appearing at BL stores and that they may have sent out notices to BL distributors.

I'm hearing reports that Rite Aid stores also received some of these boxed sets as well. Check them out, guys. 

All those Mill Creek sets are 50 movie sets except for "Hollywood Classics" which is an 80 movie set.  I'm very dissapointed that the Sci-Fi 50 movie set is not among the selections.

That's what I've read, and that the opened seasons vary from store to store with some stores getting all sealed sets.

 
At the store here all the S3 sets were opened.  I picked one out and did a visual check on all the disks in that set, swapping out disk 4 for one in another set as the one in the set I selected appeared to have some pit type "scratches" close to the hub.  While the defect didn't look like it would cause problems I wasn't in the mood to find out.  The checker was very nice about it and helped me look for a better D4 in other sets (several had similar "defects" on that disk).

Does anybody know if there is a good freeware DVD surface check?  The only one I know of is this...

http://download.cnet.com/Emsa-DiskCheck/3000-2086_4-10285211.html

And it doesn't seem too good.  I had it tell me all was okay with a Rocky II DVD I had.  Then I watch the thing and it pauses several times during playback.  I think it can only detect really bad errors that cause the laser to jump into another scene or to the end.  I was told the only sure why to know is to fast forward the DVD. 

The fat lady hasn't sung yet...at least she hasn't at my BIg Lots.

Just picked up...

Huckleberry Hound Golden collection.  Vol 1.  LAST ONE THEY HAD.
Josie and the Pussycats.  (I may return this, or trade it since someone else got this for me already).  ONE MORE LEFT AT THE STORE.
Birdman & the Galaxy Trio.  LAST ONE.
Perils of Penelope Pitstop.  4 OR 5 LEFT.
Mission Hill.  LAST ONE LEFT.
Best of Larry King.  This is almost as cool as that History of Rock & Roll set I got for $6 a few weeks ago.  Anyway, PLENTY OF THESE.
Still some Tracys left. 
Still some Wacky Races.  
NO FLINTSTONES LEFT.


And the JACKPOT!!!

Tales from the Crypt.  I bought all they had and got 1-5 for myself. 

Here's what I have for trading.  
S1.  2 of these.
S2.  1 of these.
S3.  1 of these
S4.  None except the one I got for myself.  Bummer.  But I'm looking. 
S5.  2 of these. 

I'm thinking I'll only trade for Looney Toons (except vol 1) at first.  Would that be mean and cruel?  Well, this trading is serious business and these Crypts are hot!  But once the smoke has cleared from this I'll make these available to whoever wants them. 

Radioman, did your Big Lots get a new shipment? I stopped by the Big Lots I've been buying my sets from and they didn't get any new shipments. I'm just wondering if any Big Lots are getting new shipments.

I didn't ask.  They may have more boxes in the back and they aren't putting stuff out until the stuff already out sells.  However, there is plenty of room on the shelves since I've been buying so damn much.  Hahahaha! 

But all this new stuff appeared since Thursday.  And Thursday there was new stuff since the time I was there before...Saturday I think.  I'm going to visit that place as many times as possible.  Maybe every other day.  Never can tell when some Looney toons appear.  More H-B cartoons I don't have yet.  

Why would WB's be upset they are the one shipping them making the distribution deals, otherwise they already got paid and why would they care

Supposedly, Warner sold 2 million DVD sets to a company that was supposed to destroy them. They instead saw an opportunity and sold them to BigLots.

I suspect Warner won't have any luck. What I'm about to mention is a quite different deal, but with some parallels besides taking place in the Canadian court system. A Canadian shipping firm sold a retired freighter to a grain company for use as additional storage capacity. The contract explicity stated that it couldn't be resold by that grain company for use as a ship, only for scrap. They ended up selling it for reuse a couple of years later to a competitor of that shipping line, and the classic freighter is still sailing the Great Lakes today and the case the original company took to court was thrown out.

I suspect Warner will experience something similar if they actually are going to file charges.

Hopefully they settle their differences and no one will be harmed from it, with WB suddenly having thousands of people that have experienced some of their DVD content and hopefully wanting more in the future at full retail prices, and the distributor with a nice profit, BigLots with some money and maybe customers that will return in the future after experiencing their store, and many fans that have gotten nice DVD's that were otherwise consigned to the dump.

I don't believe Big Lots has actually been named in any of the news stories (there actually seem to be multiple retail chains offering these discs; in addition to Big Lots, others have mentioned seeing them at Rite Aid and Dollar Tree).  But given how many Warner discs and sets BL has been selling in the past month, it seems to be implied.

And I agree with Leo.  Instead of getting in a snit about it, Warner should look at this as an opportunity to hook people into possibly buying additional sets at regular prices.  I know that now that I have "Flintstones" S2-S5, the completist in me is probably going to have to buy S1 and S6, likely from a source other than Big Lots and at a higher price.  They should also think about selling to liquidators like Big Lots directly in the future to make some money and keep the discs out of the landfills.

 Why would Warners be upset? If Warners wanted to make a deal with Big Lots to dump this stock, they could have received more than what they paid the other people to destroy them and what the company received from Big Lots to sell them.

Warners would have been better off having their warehouses carrying these DVDs burning to the ground.

The thing is that Warner Brothers sub-tracted the destruction of these over-surplus and damaged DVD sets to IWMB, Inc., who in turn, sub-tracted out to another company. That company, then, turned around and sold those DVD sets, approximately over one million sets. While it's estimated that 750,000 sets have already been sold, 250,000 sets were stiull unaccounted for.

By estimates, Warner's lost an estimated $40 million dollars because of this debacle and since those sets weren't destroyed, it devalued the sets at other brick and mortar retailers. FYE, Best Buy and other retailers have temporarily dropped prices on some of their older boxed sets .... what's even worse is that Warner is now required to report this to the IRS since they not only reported it as lost income (destroyed merchandise) but that this is going to have an effect on their investors as well.

The last couple posts hit the nail on the head:  WB reported these as destroyed and was able to claim it as a business loss, not only to shareholders but the IRS.  Now someone has taken that merchandise that has supposedly been destroyed and sold it.  Despite what some of you think, I believe it cheapens the other product out there the retailers like Best Buy still offer.  Someone might think "I'll just wait until I can get [inset title] at Big Lots for $6 buck rather than spending the $25 on it at Best Buy or Target."  And as collectors of TV sets, we KNOW that those early sales are a good indicator of the chances of a series being continued.

 Congratulations James!
I'm glad you were able to find you TFTC sets. It's looking pretty dead over here and my car is going to need to go into the shop so I won't be able to make the rounds again anytime soon.

Congratulations Warner Brothers/Big Lots, you're now the front runners for my 2009 DOH! Award!

Great "nut shell" Mark.  Well thought out. 

Malcolm, your comments are interesting as well.  I know I"m excited to get this stuff dirt cheap.  But truly, it does make me think of the possibilities.  Seeing as how there is a market for all this old stuff I hope WB will get on the ball and put moderately priced stuff in the stores.  I still want UNDER THE RAINBOW, the bad Chevy Chase movie from the 80s, on my DVD (or BD?!!) shelf asap.  I'd pay $15 for that privaliage.  


I walked in, saw those, and grabbed them ALL off the shelf, quickly hid them behind some discount furnature near the door, RAN to get a shopping cart, and snatched them back, then proceeded to load up.  It was all pretty comical.  Somebody probably thought I was the stock boy. :) 

I haven't seen the show since the 80s and maybe early 90s.  I love the Amicus film though, perhaps even better than Creepshow, my other most most favorite anthology.  Btw, yesterday I ordered the region two 2-dvd SE of Creepshow for viewing in October.  It's cheaper to get that shipped to the states from amazon.co.uk than amazon.com.  I paid about $10.50US total.  It's about $30 for the same thing through amazon.com.  

Malcom, you're absolutely right about these sales stimulating more retail sales from consumers who might have previously been on the fence. While I did get the opportunity to buy Dukes of Hazzard Season 6 as well as Flintstones Season 1-3. As a result, I picked up Dukes of Hazzard Season 4 ($9.99), Dukes of Hazzard Season 6 ($22.99) at FYE as well as the fact that I'm planning on picking up Flintstones Season 5 ($19.99) and Flintstones Season 6 ($19.99) at FYE.

While this is good news for retailers and for spurring growth in sales, it still doesn't absolve these two companies of the fact that created this whole mess in the first place. I do think that all of these studios who release these boxed sets need to start spurring sales by allowing retailers to sell selected DVD boxed sets at $9.99 and rotate those sales on a weekly basis. It wouldn't definitely increase their sales on other sets in that particular series.

Stopped at Rite Aid today and saw a "Flintstones" Season 3 for $12.99.  Saw some other Warner discs (mostly at $7-8), but no other sets.  Not sure I would have jumped on these sets at the $12.99 price, but I definitely would have been willing to go up to about $10 each, which I think is pretty good considering they were not even really on my radar of possible purchases at all.

I also agree that the company that filed the false report that they destroyed the discs needs to be held responsible if the are in breach of what they were contracted to do.  But I also think there are definitely other outlets for Warner, and the other studios, to get rid of excess inventory other than just having them destroyed.

Obviously they are not destroying all of their excess, as Wal-Mart consistently has a good supply of discs for the $5 dump bin, as well as a multitude of other titles to sell anywhere from $3 to $13.  Also, as I mentioned in the Costco thread, Costco is currently stocking many of the Warner 2-disc classic titles (such as Giant, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin' in the Rain, East of Eden, etc.) for only $8.99.  Best Buy frequently advertises a batch of discs in the $3-6 range in their weekly circulars. 

So it's definitely not unheard of for studios to dispose of these discs at bargain prices.  Why they didn't think they could follow the same route for this batch of discs, and wanted them destroyed instead, still seems odd to me.


Any collector of DVD's knows that if they're patient enough to wait a few months to a year, they'll be able to get the titles at significantly reduced prices through the regular markdown schedules used by the studios.  I just got Season 6 of "Monk" at Costco for $19.99.  It was right next to the new Season 7 release at $34.99.  I passed on S6 when it was released last year at the $35-40 price point because I knew the studio would reduce the prices in the months to come. I'll wait and buy Season 7 next year, when they cut the price in half before Season 8 comes out.

I don't see why the Big Lots issue would cause any different response.  Not to mention the business model of Big Lots is completely unpredictable regarding what they offer, in what quantities, and when, so for anyone to try and plan their purchasing around what may someday appear at Big Lots would be an exercise in frustration.  Also, if the studios are concerned about "cheapening" their product, they should keep everything at the original MSRP forever.

I also buy a lot of previously viewed/used discs and sets.  As far as I know, the studios receive NOTHING for these sales, yet they don't seem to do anything to try and quash the used disc market.

I doubt that the secondary market will ever be eliminated because, while the music, music or gaming industry wants to admit it or not, the secondary market does help spur growth in the primary market (Best Buy, Target, etc). Most gaming fans will purchase their newly released games from retailers that carry the street date releases because they can generally get them at a sales price.


I think maybe if these studios are looking to dump this excess inventory that I don't understand why they don't sell this inventory through their website for discounted prices. The reason why should be obvious. Studios like Warner Brothers often sell their DVD sets at full retail through their website stores with maybe a $5-10 discount. Now, this strategy is a little lopsided since these studios sell thesir titles to retailers for more than 50% off. I think the charge is around 25% of the retail price, which gives the retailer a chance to make a profit at selling these sets.


I know that some retailers, discount retailers, like Best Buy, Walmart and Target often sell their DVD's at discounted prices because of the fact that they're able to get a volume price and are able to sell these sets at discounted prices. Just take a look at Knight Rider Season 1, which was recently released. While it retails at $59.99, Target lists it at its everyday SRP at $39.99.


But, if Warners needs to liquidate its inventory, then set up some kind of program with retailers or allow discounted chains like thoseretail stores that don't normally sell DVD's like Kroger's, Rite Aid, Big Lots, and other supermarket chains to purchase this excess stock and allow them to sell it as a sort of impulse buy in markets that don't normally sell this merchandise. Not only would this open up a brand new market for studios like Warner Brothers but it would allow Warner's to sell off this excess inventory and get more consumers to visit other local stores like Best Buy, Walmart and Target and they could easily spur more sales among their previously released titles.


Just look at the titles that many found at Big Lots. Flintstones, Lois and Clark, Dukes of Hazzard and many others which had already been published years ago, Warners could sell these excess titles in these other markets, sell the titles for $10-20 for each set, and they would definitely sell. Most of these consumers would probably never otherwise walk into Best Buy or Target. Studios would definitely benefit and they wouldn't need to send new releases to these new markets but rather some of their earlier "catalog stock" which would consist of any DVD series/title published, say, anytime before 2005. They could also decide on which titles to allow these markets to sell.

For instance, the studios would be able to start off with titles that aren't fast movers. If they sell, they haven't really lost anything and it would serve as a test market. However, I would probably start off with Warner Titles like Flintstones, Dukes, Adventures of Superman (60's version), Walton's, Wonder Woman, Kung Fu, Gilligan's Island and more.

 You don't remember a few years back when Warners had a major sale of their TV on DVD titles (around $17.99 a set at Walmart and other places) and had their 50th anniversary TV rebate that gave you $50 on the purchase of 6 DVD sets? 

I actually remember that sale. How do you think I purchased Wonder Woman, Kung Fu, Gilligan's Island, Lois & Clark and a few others. 

What has been found at the Dollar Tree?  My Big Lots are pretty drained now and I'm wondering if its worth my time to check out DT.  Any seasons or just movies?

I found nothing at my dollar tree.  I forgot to go by Rite Aid.  Although I think I can beat the $12.99 price online with a little research.  :)  

I forgot to go by Kroger in my area or the Dollar Tree.  Will try them this wek.  I was enjoying the company of my girlfriend and did not have the time.