BYE bye birdie!. . .Best Buy removed all HD-DVDs from stores March 26 & Circuit City 50% off HD-DVDs sale starting this

[NewtonMP2100]

. . .back to distributor. . .so don't hold your breath for 'fire sales' on HD DVDS at BB. . .


copy of memo

. . . Mosaic will be in all stores before open on March 26 to pull and send back all HD-DVD titles. The representative will fill out the sendback paperwork and create a manifest for each individual tote. They'll also flex all Blu-ray inventory across the space where HD-DVD was featured. It's possible that stores may not have enough product to flex over all the old HD-DVD sections. In these cases, stores should put recent releases or titles that appeal to their customers in these areas. The Movies Team is working to increase the Blu-ray assortment to resolve this problem.

Stores with upcoming PI
If you have a PI close to the sendback timeframe, let Mosaic box up the HD-DVD product and remerchandise the area. They should stage the full sendback totes in the warehouse. Stores may want to verify the contents of each tote with the tote manifest that will be created and either create prescan sheets or count each tote on the night of inventory. A special sendback will post on the April 16 for these stores to ship their product back to the warehouse. . .


the MISSING LINK to thread at AVS about the Best Buy memo. . .



Circuit City will have 50% off HD-DVDs sale starting this Sunday. . .

given that they can charge much more then on-line place 50% off might still not be a great deal but worth a look, non?

[h linamen]

This is absurd, pulling HD-DVDs off the shelves rather than selling them to the millions of consumers who purchased the HD-DVD players. Did these players miraculously stop playing high definition. Why would the distributors not sell out the products already manufactured rather than removing them from the retail shelves? What am I missing? Nice way to treat the consumers who placed trust in the HD-DVD format!

[NewtonMP2100]

. . .I believe they save more money by returning to distributor than selling them for less than $10. . .

[JoeH]

Good for Worst Buy, they probably get more by returning than by selling at a lowered price. Up to the distributor whether they turn around and resell the returns and make some money off them, or landfill them.

[Chupa Chupa]

[quote h linamen]This is absurd, pulling HD-DVDs off the shelves rather than selling them to the millions of consumers who purchased the HD-DVD players. Did these players miraculously stop playing high definition. Why would the distributors not sell out the products already manufactured rather than removing them from the retail shelves? What am I missing? Nice way to treat the consumers who placed trust in the HD-DVD format!

Reeeelax dude. BB and other big box stores have sophisticated programs that help them maximize profit per sq. feet., yes, not by item, but by sq. feet of floor space. Obviously HD-DVDs at full price are not selling well these days and BB can fill the space with other merchandise that will.

What will happen is BB will send back the HD-DVDs to the distributor and the distributor will credit BBs account for a lot more than they could make blowing the discs away in-store, and without the administrative hassle.

Next the distributor will take all the discs from all the BB stores (and others too probably) and sell them to a liquidator or two. The liquidators will then blow them out. The movies are not ending up in a landfill quite yet.

BTW BB is already giving it's HD-DVD customers $50 GCs. As much as I don't really like BB, you can't say they aren't stepping up to the plate here. No one ever gave me anything for the Mini Disc player and recorder I bought back in 1999.