CompUSA & Harry Potter WS vs. FS (1 Viewer)

[John Bryant]

Went to CUSA about 10:20, no dice.

Wal-Mart would not pm, saying it was an in-store coupon.

Called BlockBuster, they said the most they would take off their price is $5.

Called Best Buy, and they said they would PM. Went there, they had about 500 copies, probably 2/3 of which were WS, and they PM'ed without a call. Very nice.

 

[Rob Lutter]

Went to Target... got HP and a 12 pack of Coke for $15.99

 

[Steve Owen]

Matthew Chmiel, a friend of mine had nearly the same Wal-Mart (central MA) experience you did. She went to Wal-Mart and among the dozens and dozens of full-screen, there was 2... TWO!... widescreen copies (at least the had some, so she was happy). It's absolutely clear that they're stocking only very few OAR copies.

And you know what's coming next... "Full-Frame Harry Potter DVD Out-sells Widscreen at Wal-Mart". Of course WE know the data will be bogus, but some clueless marketing dweeb will make the statement nonetheless.

-Steve

 

[Carl Walker]

Unfortunately, at my local Target today, the P&S seemed to be far outselling the Widescreen... They had a display endcap for the videos at the end of one of the checkouts. The top shelf was P&S and the 2nd shelf was Widescreen. There was only 1 P&S copy left on the top shelf while it appeared that only 3-4 copies of the Widescreen version had even been sold... :frowning:
The good news is that I got my Widescreen copy for $15.99

 

[Alf S]

Best Buy priced matched Compusa for me..$9.97..Sweeeet!

 

[DavidEC]

Wichita, KS -- Was the at my local CompUSA store at 8:30 AM (they open at 8:AM) and they had plenty of the "PAN & SCAM" versions and was told that they never even recevied any Widescreen versions...

Drove down the street to one of six local Wal-Mart stores.. had to search for the widescreen version of 'HP' got to the check out and before I even had a chance to ask about a price match the checker asked me if I had a copy of the CompUSA advert, which I did in my back pocket, and rang up the movie at 10% less ($9.00) than the CompUSA price!!! Go figure...

--David

 

[Jeff Kleist]

It's very obvious that no matter what, the numbers are going to be horribly skewed

Just keep reporting those numbers. Please post your finds to the OAR Action Squad thread so it's easy to collate

 

[Scott Leopold]

Just for the record, regarding the number of each version I found while searching out my 9.97 copies yesterday, Wal-Mart was horrid. The most I found at one store was 8 copies, while one had only 2. The store that had only two copies had cases and cases sitting in a cart next to the display--each and every one was P&S. I saw lots of people come out looking for the WS version, but settling for the P&S when they couldn't find it. I was able to direct a couple of these to the one bottom shelf where the few WS copies were. That's another thing that will skew the numbers, is that at each of the WM's, the WS versions were on the bottom, or second-to-bottom shelf of the display. At one of the stores, I had to circle the display three times before seeing them. CompUSA's numbers will be skewed as well since none of the WS copies made it out to be sold.

I went to one Target yesterday, and both main displays were nothing but WS. I saw a guy restocking in the main DVD section (the only place I could find P&S), and he was putting out more WS. I asked him and he said that that's all he'd seen purchased that morning. Their displays were skewed in nearly the same proportions as WM's, but in a good way. The BB I went to seemed to have equal numbers of each.

 

[Malcolm R]

Very sneaky of Warner not to label "Full Screen" as such. Most people will not know it is a P&S version until they watch, and most will not bother to exchange it.

My local Wal-Mart had a fair amount of WS, but they were mostly on the bottom shelves of the display unit, hidden behind P&S copies.

I fully expect the next sales chart to show P&S HP outselling the WS version, due to the lack of proper labeling on the package and heavily skewed ordering and shelving in favor of P&S by Wal-Mart.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Well which ever company, Disney I think, did Princess Diaries, it was the same way. A big bar across the top front "Widescreen", but the Pan and Scan you;d only know it by reading the fine print in the 'Features' box on back. So if you only ever saw that one, and didn't know better, you could easily miss that and get stuck with P&S. I think the forum needs to use its considerable clout in forcing the studios to do better marking, if they insist on putting out 2 versions.

If a DVD is released in both formats and separate SKU's they need to PLAINLY, CLEARLY, KNOCK YOU OVER THE HEAD, mark each version, such as this.

THIS IS THE WIDESCREEN VERSION! (not the Pan & Scan version)


and

THIS IS THE PAN AND SCAN VERSION! (i.e. chopped up so you get less picture to fit on your square TV), ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T REALLY WANT THE WIDESCREEN VERSION?

This will help people avoid buying the wrong version.

 

[RichardK]

i bought the widescreen version at walmart...they had a good number of ws copies, but the majority were ps (3x more at least)...oh well at least walmart has one ws version sold....

 

[MartinTeller]

I like the way the releases are labelled actually. The P&S has no banner, while the WS has "SPECIAL WIDESCREEN EDITION". Someone looking at them side-by-side might think "oh, I want the SPECIAL EDITION one and not the non-special one" and grab the WS.

 

[Michael Reuben]

This thread strikes me as more about retailers than about software. Accordingly, I'm moving it to the Retail Vendors forum.

M.

 

[Ted Lee]

no problems at best-buy. i didn't even know about the compusa deal, but the cashier was totally cool about it. walked out for under 10 bucks...

 

[John Geelan]

I actually bought the last copy of HP at my local CompUSA but it unfortunetly was the Standard Version. But for that price and the fact that people were ready to kill to get one, I picked it up.
I can always get the WS version later.
Didn't feel like going thru the hassle of a Price Check at the other B&M retailers.

JohnG

 

[Ric Easton]

Hey Peter Kim!

Don't know if you remember me from a few days ago...
Just wanted you to know that I went back to CC armed with their flyer and the CompUSA ad and confronted them about their price matching. After getting a little bit of the run around, like...

Them: "Do they have it in stock?"

ME: "I don't know, but I'm sure they had it on Tuesday, when my wife tried to get you to honor the price match, why didn't you call then?"

They finally honored it, and I got the big $avings!

Thanks for giving me the gumption to get over there and give them a little heat!

Honor is everything!

Ric

 

[Ric Easton]

Hmmm...

This particular forum doesn't seem to get much action...It took me forever to find where my post went! I think it shoulda stayed in the Software forum!

Anyway, thanks again Peter, if you ever look in here!

Ric

 

[Peter Kim]

This particular forum doesn't seem to get much action...It took me forever to find where my post went!

Sadly, about the only action you see here are tumbleweeds blowin' through. Maybe I'll say something controversial and get some mod to close down a thread.
Seriously, I always come back to this forum a few times a week to read up on some horror stories. I'm normally a pretty laid back person, but when it comes to retail, I'm drawn to stories that get me riled up. Ultimately, I'll come across a member who has a story about a vendor/retailer that I patronize and I learn something. So it's karma...I've learned a lot from other members' suffering.
Great to hear about your success. If Circuit City didn't want to price match, why the hell do they have such a clear cut policy? And, in the policy, CC sets a very eager tone to make the customer happy. Instead of the BS that they gave your wife.

 

[Kelly V]

Just wanted to chime in on the Harry Potter OAR Vs FF(fullframe) as it stands at our store. I work for the big book store that also carries DVD and music product and I am the primary seller in the DVD department.
At first it seemed that we would get equal numbers of FF and OAR, but at some point in the process from ordering to shipping, they decided to go heavy on the OAR and also (here's the twist) we put the OAR on sale but kept the FF at Suggested Retail Price.
The additional discount on the OAR along with my thumping the widescreen drum has resulted in much higher OAR sales. I can't give exact numbers, but the ratio of OAR to FF is about 4:1.
I am very pleased that my company has made a stand for OAR and I hope that we will continue to be the place where movie lovers can come to find the Criterions, foreign films and OAR formats that are so difficult to find on the shelf at other Brick & Mortar retailers. We're not just books, ya'll!

 

[Kelly V]

Another note...
As for the packaging problem of telling Widescreen from FullFrame, I like the banner that came on the HP widescreen, but why can't we continue the banner to the spine so that it is easily discernable when shelved with the spine out? Perhaps, they could also include an emblem that denotes OAR. It is something that book publishers have been doing for books that include CD product. It makes it much easier for the consumers to find the right product, and for people like me, down in the trenches, to keep track of stock.
Just a suggestion!