Weekly RoundUp 5-21-2013 (1 Viewer)

[Charles Smith]

It's possible that if BB stops selling packaged media, I might never set foot in the store again. Sad.

This would pretty much be my situation, too. Talk about end of an era. Of course, that era was mostly compromised/crippled a few years back...

I have no idea whether it's going to happen at my store, but we'll be finding out soon enough.

 

[Mike Frezon]

If true--and I guess it's still very much an "if" without any such announcement being made by the company--that would leave many of us with only Target & Wal-Mart as brick & mortar stores with inventory of DVDs and Blu-rays.

At least that would be pretty much true for me. Although I do have two FYE (TransWorld) stores still located in local malls.

I realize that some people have Fry's...and also warehouse clubs. But it is staggering to see the dwindling of software retailers in my own area. I used to have a refuge in nearly every community I would visit while my wife was shopping for clothes or craft supplies, etc. I almost always would have an interesting media store to browse while waiting for her to finish. Not the case any more.

 

[TonyD]

For what it's worth, my local Best Buy just confirmed they're dumping blu-rays and DVDs for a Samsung section. Sigh. I guess the good news is they are trying to compete with Amazon online and usually match the prices and have free shipping now, no minimum. But a lot of good that will do us for the (probably not) next Upgrade & Save program.

My local has added a Samsung section as all of them are if one can go by the advertising I have seen.They have kept the same floor space for the movies as before the Samsung area.

 

[TonyD]

One more thing, I was in a local mall a coup,e weeks ago and the mall did not have one single media store. No movie store and no music store.There was a time when I was younger, early 80's into late 90's that the music or movie stores were huge reason to go to the mall.And another thing, this was the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey which may have been the first indoor mall Built and was at least the first indoor mall on the eastern half of the country and at the time after it was finished in '61 was the largest in the country.

 

[Charles Smith]

Mike, you can actually consider yourself lucky to still have two FYE stores in your area. I lost my local one a year ago, maybe longer, the couple that are 40 minutes away have never been very good ones for me, and the one nearly an hour away that was always a great one for me, just now closed.

 

[Charles Smith]

One more thing, I was in a local mall a coup,e weeks ago and the mall did not have one single media store. No movie store and no music store.There was a time when I was younger, early 80's into late 90's that the music or movie stores were huge reason to go to the mall.

Yep. Those, and book stores.

 

[Jason_V]

There was a time when I was younger, early 80's into late 90's that the music or movie stores were huge reason to go to the mall.

Well...I probably shouldn't even be admitting this on the HTF and ya'll can go ahead and laugh me right off the board...

But growing up, I'd always check the mall directory to see if they put in a new media/book store in the week since my last visit. Waldenbooks, B. Dalton, Suncoast... Yeah, and the name Frederick's of Hollywood always caught my eye. Obviously, it was nowhere near the "Entertainment" section on the directory, but the Hollywood in the name got me every time.

I'd always walk by with my mother and wonder why they didn't sell movies. I never asked, of course, because of what they actually did sell. My mother probably would have been embarrassed having to explain it to me...but considering the man I am today, she might have been okay with it if she thought it would change me.

So yeah...how about them 4k discs...

 

[RolandL]

Fry's has the following for $14.99Captain America: The First Avenger 3DMadagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted 3DThor 3DTop Gun 3DAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 3DAvatar 3DIce Age 4: Continental Drift 3DLife of Pi 3DPrometheus 3DThe Amazing Spider-Man 3DArthur Christmas 3DHotel Transylvania 3DMen in Black 3 3DThe Last Airbender 3D

 

[Adam Gregorich]

For what it's worth, my local Best Buy just confirmed they're dumping blu-rays and DVDs for a Samsung section. Sigh. I guess the good news is they are trying to compete with Amazon online and usually match the prices and have free shipping now, no minimum. But a lot of good that will do us for the (probably not) next Upgrade & Save program.

That's too bad, hopefully its not everywhere!

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Just a quick announcement, there used to be a link to the most current WRU under a "Deals" tab on the menu bar. We have replaced that with a link on the top of the sidebar, just under the search box.

 

[Malcolm R]

One more thing, I was in a local mall a coup,e weeks ago and the mall did not have one single media store. No movie store and no music store.There was a time when I was younger, early 80's into late 90's that the music or movie stores were huge reason to go to the mall.And another thing, this was the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey which may have been the first indoor mallBuilt and was at least the first indoor mall on the eastern half of the country and at the time after it was finished in '61 was the largest in the country.

Yep, in my college years in the early 90's, I used to spend a fair amount of time at the Livingston Mall in NJ, prowling through Alwilk Records (where I always bought a bunch of 12" vinyl singles), Sam Goody, Sound & Vision, and the bookstores.

There's really no reason to go to a mall these days, unless you need to go to one of the big anchor stores.

 

[TonyD]

Sound And Vision was Wall To Wall Sound and Vision later just The Wall.I still have a handball of CDs that havetheirlifetime warranty sticker on them.

 

[Mike Frezon]

HERE's a bit of news as to why Best Buy is cozying up so closely to Samsung.

And Forbes article on Best Buy's quarterly results mentions Samsung and BB's new "Low Price Guarantee."

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Yep, I remember when malls were fun, too.

We still have FYEs around here, but their prices are usually laughable. I used to like browsing through the metal CD section, but most of the non-mainstream stuff isn't available at the listening stations anymore and Spotify has rendered it mostly obsolete anyway.

 

[Charles Smith]

For me, FYE's value was in the used stuff. I scored a lot of good hard-to-find and out-of-print DVDs there. When it was something I really wanted, the price always seemed reasonable. And it was well worth taking in my own unwanted stuff for store credit.

As for their new stuff, I can't imagine who would buy from there on any regular basis. Or at all, really. Except for the discounted sections, where the selection never seems to change. It's list price all the way, man.

 

[Malcolm R]

For me, FYE's value was in the used stuff. I scored a lot of good hard-to-find and out-of-print DVDs there. When it was something I really wanted, the price always seemed reasonable. And it was well worth taking in my own unwanted stuff for store credit.

As for their new stuff, I can't imagine who would buy from there on any regular basis. Or at all, really. Except for the discounted sections, where the selection never seems to change. It's list price all the way, man.

My local FYE closed in January, but they were usually competitive on new releases if you had their Backstage Pass rewards card and with the occasional rebates. I also loved the used section. Most new release Blu's would appear in the used section a couple weeks after release. The nearest FYE now is about 45 miles away, so I let my Backstage card lapse. My only local option now is Walmart, and that's the only major chain store in town so their prices are not very competitive.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

From another article about it: http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=0d087177-fa7a-4300-8fbf-6494e9320eda

Basically, the more space Best Buy can allocate to high-end products from these folks, the less space it has to dedicate to lower-return items like CDs and DVDs -- which basically still occupy floor space for lack of other options. Instead of appearing like a relic of a big-box electronics store, Best Buy would rather serve as a mall for brands or a department store in which individual companies own the departments. Because those concepts aren't dated in the least.

 

[Mike Frezon]

My local FYE closed in January, but they were usually competitive on new releases if you had their Backstage Pass rewards card and with the occasional rebates. I also loved the used section. Most new release Blu's would appear in the used section a couple weeks after release. The nearest FYE now is about 45 miles away, so I let my Backstage card lapse. My only local option now is Walmart, and that's the only major chain store in town so their prices are not very competitive.

Malcolm: Is the FYE in the University Mall (in South Burlington) still open? Is that the one you are referring to?

From another article about it: http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=0d087177-fa7a-4300-8fbf-6494e9320eda
Quote

Basically, the more space Best Buy can allocate to high-end products from these folks, the less space it has to dedicate to lower-return items like CDs and DVDs -- which basically still occupy floor space for lack of other options. Instead of appearing like a relic of a big-box electronics store, Best Buy would rather serve as a mall for brands or a department store in which individual companies own the departments. Because those concepts aren't dated in the least.

I'm really having a hard time believing that this could be happening--that Best Buy might stop selling media on its sales floor.

 

[Malcolm R]

Malcolm: Is the FYE in the University Mall (in South Burlington) still open? Is that the one you are referring to?

As far as I know, the FYE's in UMall and the Town Centre Mall downtown are still open (and, I believe, the only two remaining in VT). The one near me that closed was in the Berlin Mall. The store at UMall is now my closest FYE, but I don't get there very often.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I guess we're spoiled in LA. There's Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Fry's, Target, Wal*Mart, Amoeba Music, occasionally Costco, and a pretty good lineup of used stores. With my project of buying all the Criterions (84% done in just under a year) I've started to eBay and Amazon purchase more than I ever have but I've used all of these options at one point or another.With us losing our freebie on sales tax in CA, I tend towards buying in a store when I can but even with shipping costs sometimes they win out.