The Great Disappearing Wal-Mart Blu-ray Bargain Bin..Hhhhmmm (1 Viewer)

Has anyone else noticed that the $7.88 Blu-ray bargain bin seems to be disappearing from Wal-Marts?

My job involves some travel and I have gone into some Wal-Marts in Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas and Texas. Only one of those (I think it was Indiana) still had their Blu-ray bargain bin. As did the ones near my home on the Space Coast in Florida.
I've been going in looking for the Blu release of Legend of Billie Jean (like some folks have noted it appearing in the WM Blu Bargain bin) but no Bargain Bin. No LOBJ either.

I gave up and ordered LOBJ online. Only $1 more (due to shipping) than what I would have paid at Wally World.

Oh and another Blu-ray WM oddity. A new Blu-ray "Bargain Rack (or kiosk)" has appeared in the Bargain bin's place featuring 3-movie Blu-rays (of 3rd tier movies most folks never heard of) going for $2.96 apiece. Only one I was remotely interested in was Galaxina (1979) (a Dorothy Stratten "remake" of Barbarella (1968), sort of ). Nothing else though.

Thoughts??

Kyrsten Brad said:

Thoughts??

Click to expand...

I've noticed this at my local Wal-Marts too, and just see it as one more excuse to stay out of there.

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Blu-rays have all but disappeared at my Walmart. Only a few new titles and maybe a couple top sellers. Mostly back to DVD now. I don't even recall ever seeing a Blu-ray bargin bin at my Walmart in podunk PA.

I've noticed that too at a few Walmarts, that they're stocking more DVDs where there used to be Blu-rays. I was thinking "that's not supposed to happen". At least Target is stocking more Blu-ray than before, but DVD still remains resilient.

I stopped looking through those $7.88 bins long ago -- same old stuff every time I went in, maybe 1-2 new titles here or there, but not worth searching for a half-hour to locate. Our local (Maine) Wal*Mart has plenty of Blu's left -- they have been scattered all over the video department for years so you have to pretty much glance at every shelf of every aisle, which is a big pain.

Who cares. All they ever had in there was Without a Paddle 2: Nature's Calling.

I avoid Wal-Mart like the plague.I go once every few months for generic Claritin. I always buy the biggest one, this time two 180 count bottles in one package.I did buy an Air Rifle. Bought it online so I could pick it up at guest services.

I avoid Wally World as well. I even transferred out my prescriptions from their slow pharmacy. I only go there for home video if they have a ''Wal Mart exclusive''. There is no organization to the videos at all.

I just went there to get a pair of glasses. My eye doctor wanted $200...Walmart...$38! A no brainer.

They may have moved the bargain bins to Canada...there are more than ever, varies by store, but individual ones for games, TV DVD, DVD, BD have been spotted around here. I have noticed that some of the items in the bins are labeled for sale in the U.S. only, but that's not new for the bins. Neither is "dumping" stuff that's discontinued in the U.S. in Canada. e.g. Sony stuff that has recently been licensed to Mill Creek is in the TV DVD and BD bins.

They just re-did the whole software display setup at local stores, quite neat now but never really was that messy. They have about as much variety as anybody around here, perhaps Target slightly edges them out, but WM has always been extremely light on TV on BD, and they pretty much refuse to stock the "bargain" BDs e.g. like the WB double and triple features though they have lots of the DVD ones. I speculate based on observation they had a minimum DVD selling price of $5 and ~$8 for BD. They just recently lowered that to ~$4 and $7 respectively for the bins, and ~$8 for PS3 games.

As for their pharmacy: they need to get a better service model. I swear there were no more than two customers in the whole store one winter weekday mid-afternoon and they told me it was still an hour wait to get a simple in-stock/pre-packaged item prescription re-filled, yet there were 3 people working behind the counter and one "taking orders". I was in their system already. Never went there again. I'm not in retail, but it seems to me that customers who are actually there should probably be served first...seems all-round practical, but IDK the ins and outs.

I'm semi-retired and have been working at an East Appleton, WI supercenter for 7 years now. Our blu-ray selection: cut-out bin 7.88's, catalog titles, HBO selections, as well as other studio new releases are as robust as ever. I do know that individual W-M's vary their inventory as you can't go from 1 state to another and find identical merchandise, including music/movie software. Each brick & mortar's management team determines what does/doesn't sell, and will stock accordingly.
Thanks,
Chuck

No Walmarts in New York, so I've never seen the bargains I've read about on the internet. I was in my local FYE yesterday and I had to look for the Blu-ray section. They'd moved it from the more prominent spot where it had been, which is now filled with DVD sets of TV series, probably the biggest seller for the store. Don't know what this means, but I'd be surprised if Blu-ray was ever a big seller in my neighborhood. Heck, both Rite-Aid and CVS still carry blank VHS tapes (TDK and Maxell) and keep them in stock. Lots of old-timers (yours truly included) who never gave up their VCRs.

Thankfully I don't have any Walmarts in my area. I have enough B&M stores that sell everything from groceries to movies that never have anything I'm looking for so I don't need another "supercenter". I am curious, though. Why do people hate Walmart so much? They're all over the place and always seem to be heavily-trafficked. Is it a general dislike of big corporations?

They're the retailer consumers love to hate. It's a cliché, but it's true. Cannibalizing competing hometown retailers; cheap foreign-sourced apparel; stifling advancement opportunities for women; I've heard them all. I do know this: in the time I've been there, I've witnessed a plethora of women co-managers advance to obtain their own head-management position(s) at other stores. And, whereas Target stores eliminated health care benefits for their parttime employees(there's speculation this all came about due to that company's credit card security breach in Q.4 of '13), W-M continues to offer HC coverage for ALL their people, along with a 401K retirement package. Being an A/V enthusiast, would I buy my next flat panel television from them? No, I wouldn't. When you're particular about video performance - as most AVS forum members are, I suspect - I would head to an A/V specialty shop. Sure, W-M offers names like Samsung, Sony, LG, but in stripped-down versions i.e. limited HDMI ports, inferior video-processing, etc. Generally, it's quality goods at a fair price.
Thanks,
Chuck

My local Wal-Marts (in the three cities I've visited in Wisconsin) have gutted most of their blu-ray shelves and replaced them with DVDs. The only blu-rays I could find are on one shelf at the front of the store solely devoted to new releases of recent blockbusters and a separate bin for Mill Creek Entertainment blu-rays.

Seems like DVDs have a better staying power than we thought. Remember those that said DVDs would be dead by 2012? More like 2022 at this rate.

No real surprise that Walmart is not a modern state of the art technology purveyor. The majority of the incomes that shop there are more concerned about lower prices, and DVD is just that. DVD is good enough for the average Walmart shopper. If the opposite were to happen, then that would really be thread worthy. There were some good days in the past for Blu-ray at Walmart; I even remember seeing older catalog titles there! Borders was another one; in the heyday of DVD (I'd say late 90s/early 2000s), I remember 8 feet high shelf rack after shelf rack of new releases, boxsets, catalog titles, and even obscure titles at your fingertips for a fair price. This continued into the early years of Blu-ray, but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know - just reminiscing. I don't miss Borders Blu-ray prices though. Sorry, gotta go order my streaming devices before I'm left out in the cold.