Physical Media might not be dead, but Physical Media in Retail Stores are accelerating the death (1 Viewer)

[bmasters9]

Yes. Exactly. If you look at the 1st shot of that one big rack, you see 4k copies of The Joker in the section closest to you AND in the second section. Click the image to make it larger. I checked the shelf tags under the product and they were identical.

Examined the picture, and it is indeed as you say-- still, it baffles me why they would put the same release in two different slots.

 

[TravisR]

I listen to Eddie Trunk’s show on the Volume channel on SiriusXM, and he recently said CASSETTES are actually making a mark in physical media sales. This baffles me.

Same deal as VHS- nostalgia for people who are stuck in the 80's.

 

[The Drifter]

I know I'm not adding anything new to this discussion, but here is my recent experience inside my local Best Buy. I used to be in BB all the time years ago. But hardly ever go inside any more.

When I decided to take a walk through the store the other day, this is what I found.

The only media for sale occupied three free-standing kiosks:

That farthest-away rack at least looks pretty big, right? Well, it's bigger than the first two. But, take a closer look. It's practically empty:

You really almost have to wonder why they even bother:

There are titles on both sides of the rack. But I'd say maybe it is 15% full?? I dunno. And for some weird reason, some of the slots are set up to contain the same release.

Back OT: The pic. above from a recent Best Buy is spot-on re: the decline of physical media in retail stores. The heyday of Best Buy's physical media section was probably the mid- 200X's/early 20XX's. Wow. You could go in there and find a plethora of DVD's, early Blu's, and CD's. In the heyday of my collecting TV shows/movies on DVD, I remember going there on Tuesdays (physical media release day, at least then) multiple times over the years to get boxed sets, etc. And, sometimes the Best Buy boxed sets came with exclusive content (usually T-shirts, etc.)

Now, it's a pale shade of it's former self.

The look of the shelves above was also similar to the way the physical media shelves @ Fry's Electronics looked in the last several years before it closed. I.e., a lot of room - but little product.

 

[bmasters9]

Back OT: The pic. above from a recent Best Buy is spot-on re: the decline of physical media in retail stores. The heyday of Best Buy's physical media section was probably the mid- 200X's/early 20XX's. Wow. You could go in there and find a plethora of DVD's, early Blu's, and CD's.

Now, it's a pale shade of it's former self.

The way you describe Best Buy as it was then is the way it was when I went in the one in Greenville, SC for the first time with my brother-- it had DVD releases of more series and movies than you could shake a stick at, both classic and current (so everyone had a choice-- they weren't trying to push current on those who preferred classic [I still prefer classic to a large extent]).

Nowadays, they focus more on the equipment that such things are watched on (players, televisions, etc.), and what few discs they have had have generally been current (basically, this time [and I'm probably incorrect about this], they've been pushing current and streaming over classics, becoming ever more of a niche store when it comes to entertainment).

 

[NorgeRunner]

Our Targets look to be just a few months from having zero movies on disc. They have rapidly been tearing down the movie aisles since summer 2020. Most stores have 1 aisle and that's it. The book aisle is now 3 times the size of the movie aisle.

 

[bmasters9]

Our Targets look to be just a few months from having zero movies on disc. They have rapidly been tearing down the movie aisles since summer 2020. Most stores have 1 aisle and that's it.

Said single aisle being generally current shows, with a smattering, if any, of classics, I take it.

 

[NorgeRunner]

It's a weird mashup of generic action flix found on D+ these days and maybe a few oddball tv series. But it's very clear they are done with physical media. Even the video games section is quickly disappearing. There are now more digital copy gift cards hanging on hooks than physical game discs.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Nowadays, they focus more on the equipment that such things are watched on (players, televisions, etc.), and what few discs they have had have generally been current (basically, this time [and I'm probably incorrect about this], they've been pushing current and streaming over classics, becoming ever more of a niche store when it comes to entertainment).

I don’t think it’s really about pushing anything - it’s about following the market and stocking what will sell. Retailers, particular large ones, are very agnostic about what they carry - if it sells, they’ll carry it.

The problem is just that demand for physical media has fallen off a cliff, relatively speaking. When Best Buy was dedicating rows and rows and section after section to discs, it was a product category that had nearly $20 billion worth of sales per year. Now it’s a category that has roughly $2 billion in sales per year, with the overwhelming majority of that revenue coming from new release titles and heavily discounted DVDs. I used to love browsing aisles in stores so I take no joy in this. But when roughly 90% of the revenue dries up, it’s to be expected that stores will have to adjust how much real estate they can set aside for it.

If you’re a physical media collector and enthusiast, there is still a lot of interesting product coming out, particularly from boutique labels like Kino. But the problem for a retail store is that many of these titles are going to sell 500, maybe 1000, maybe a little more, in total. That means that very few copies are moving from any one location at any particular time. And the profit margin on what does remain is minuscule. And if you’re a customer looking to buy discs, and you have the choice between ordering online from someplace that definitely has what you’re looking for, or trying your luck at a store that might not have what you want (and would probably charge more than what it costs online due to real estate and staffing costs), you’re probably just going to order online. That leaves retailers in this catch-22 where the practical costs of trying to attract physical media enthusiasts are outweighed by how much it would cost to stock and display tiny quantities of a vast number of titles on the off chance that someone might come in to buy one.

So what’s happening is they’re making what they must feel is the only adjustment that they can: to carry new release titles and select discount titles that generally sell to a more general rather than enthusiast audience. New release titles are backed by active marketing campaigns from studios and are often sold under arrangements that protect the retailers from heavy losses, like the ability to return unsold inventory after the initial promotional push.

If there was more of an audience for this product, I think retailers would happily sell it. What’s happening with discs is more broadly happening with most retail in general. Real estate costs are up at exactly the moment when consumer behavior is changing towards shopping by other means. Consumers want the wider variety of choices that online retailers can stock, and want the lower prices online retailers can offer. By comparison, retail locations can’t offer the same in-person variety on a lot of products and their overhead means they can’t compete with the discount pricing.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Yes, Josh- I used to like to go to Best Buy, and browse. The market has kind of stopped catering to browsers.

 

[Malcolm R]

Yep, I used to frequently visit the mall to browse book stores and music/movie stores. Once those disappeared, I stopped going to the mall. Haven't been in a mall in forever. Now with the disappearance of media at Best Buy, I hardly ever go there, either. It's become a place where there's no reason to go unless you have a specific special need, not to browse.

 

[NorgeRunner]

Our B&N is hanging on by a thread and it's the only true book store in town now.

I still hit Best Buy maybe once a month to browse the gadgets that may strike my fancy but it's getting less and less a go to stop.

Back in the 2000s I was there every Tuesday to look over the stacks of new dvd releases, but I quit disc buying 10 years ago so no big reason left to go like back then.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

I have great memories of shopping at Borders when they had rows of media and books to look at.

 

[NorgeRunner]

I totally forgot about them. They pulled out of town here maybe 10+ years ago. They had so much cool collectable stuff!

 

[Traveling Matt]

I stopped by my local Best Buy yesterday after reading these recent posts, and their disc section is quite dismal as well. One standard-sized row, single side, and three freestanding displays. Plus another freestander near the front for new releases.

 

[Malcolm R]

When in college in New Jersey in the early 1990's, I used to frequent the malls for Sam Goody, Musicland, Wall to Wall Sound + Video, Alwilk Records, Waldenbooks, Borders, Record Town, Coconuts, Saturday Matinee. All gone.

 

[Rob_Ray]

My fondest memories are of Ken Crane's Laserdisc (later renamed "DVD Planet"). I would be there every Tuesday after work browsing and buying new releases. And Tower Records was my destination when I wanted to browse the CD stacks.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

My fondest memories are of Ken Crane's Laserdisc (later renamed "DVD Planet"). I would be there every Tuesday after work browsing and buying new releases. And Tower Records was my destination when I wanted to browse the CD stacks.

Speaking of Tower Records there is a great documentary on dvd "All Things Must Pass" which talked about the rise and fall of the company.

 

[NorgeRunner]

Was it here I read that at some point BB may stop being a walk in type store and turn into a drive up only establishment?

 

[Malcolm R]

Was it here I read that at some point BB may stop being a walk in type store and turn into a drive up only establishment?

I think they're headed in that direction, mostly using some stores as fulfillment centers for online orders. As discussed, it's not really a place to go and just browse any more.

 

[bmasters9]

I have great memories of shopping at Borders when they had rows of media and books to look at.

And I was at one w/my sister and nephew in Maryland (back when they were living there) for Christmas 2007, and that specific one (I believe it was in Annapolis) was where I made one of the worst purchasing mistakes I ever made.

It was that first and only go of The Fall Guy, for $60 MSRP (Borders, IIRC, always sold at MSRP, and no lower); I enjoyed it well enough to finish it, but I'll always regret not paying attention to price tags (I was so happy to be there that I never thought about prices).

ETA: the actual price was $59.99, but I rounded up to $60 even because I'm not the biggest fan of .99 figures on product prices, or 9/10 cent figures on gasoline prices.