Malcolm R
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2002
- Messages
- 25,231
- Real Name
- Malcolm
WTF is up with the B&M electronics stores (for me, that means Best Buy and Circuit City, both of which are a 35 mile drive away) and their DVD inventory? I know CC sucks, they always have, but BB is usually very good about having most titles in stock. However....
Both chains this week prominently advertised "The Usual Suspects" at a very nice price, and BB was running an additional Gift Card promo that has been much discussed on HTF. I visited both stores, neither of which had a single copy of US in stock. Why is it so difficult to have enough copies on hand of advertised items? BB also had "Chasing Amy" prominently advertised, but not a single copy in stock. Both stores had stacks of "Bull Durham" though. Apparently they overestimated the demand for that title, and underestimated the demand for US.
Week after week we hear stories of stores/distributors "underestimating" demand for a wide variety of new catalog titles. Isn't it common sense, given the ever increasing penetration of DVD players into homes, that anytime a catalog title is released on DVD, that there will likely be hundreds of thousands of people who will want to buy that title on DVD?
It just blows my mind that this happens week after week. Doesn't anyone in the retail business ever learn from past shortcomings? And if it's some ploy to avoid having to actually provide the sales/deals advertised, just stop advertising them!
I'm getting sick and tired of having to drive so far only to find everything I want sold out. Seems pretty stupid to me to pay the overhead and salaries necessary to run a B&M store, then not have anything to sell to the customers who show up.
Both chains this week prominently advertised "The Usual Suspects" at a very nice price, and BB was running an additional Gift Card promo that has been much discussed on HTF. I visited both stores, neither of which had a single copy of US in stock. Why is it so difficult to have enough copies on hand of advertised items? BB also had "Chasing Amy" prominently advertised, but not a single copy in stock. Both stores had stacks of "Bull Durham" though. Apparently they overestimated the demand for that title, and underestimated the demand for US.
Week after week we hear stories of stores/distributors "underestimating" demand for a wide variety of new catalog titles. Isn't it common sense, given the ever increasing penetration of DVD players into homes, that anytime a catalog title is released on DVD, that there will likely be hundreds of thousands of people who will want to buy that title on DVD?
It just blows my mind that this happens week after week. Doesn't anyone in the retail business ever learn from past shortcomings? And if it's some ploy to avoid having to actually provide the sales/deals advertised, just stop advertising them!
I'm getting sick and tired of having to drive so far only to find everything I want sold out. Seems pretty stupid to me to pay the overhead and salaries necessary to run a B&M store, then not have anything to sell to the customers who show up.
