Good bye, Best Buy ....

[Jayster]

This afternoon I went to the best buy(I found a gift card from Christmas). After walking in, I was shocked to see at least half of all the movies and cd's missing. We're talking hundreds of feet of empty shelves, after walking back to where the pc games are, I saw pallets of 'home packed' boxes. Seeing a store geek, I asked "hey, wtf?". He quickly told me that Netflix and Itunes were killing this aspect of their bussiness ....

So after leaving with absolutely nothing, I decided that there's not much of a reason to ever go back. I guess they're shooting for the over priced get it yourself home appliance market?

It wasn't that long ago, that they were going to conquer the musical instrument world ~ I think they had a deal with Gibson, DW and several others.

My prediction is this is just a very structured getting out of business program to make the best overall take for any investors! What do you think, and is it like this at stores near you?

[dg]

Best Buy is a well-run company, and electronics are still selling well. I imagine things may be slow in the appliance dept. due to the horrible housing market, but I doubt they're going under. I haven't checked to see if they're eliminating CDs, DVDs & Blu-Ray from the stores here, but if they are, I'm sure they've done their homework about that decision. They are pretty proactive & react quickly to the market, which is why they dominated when crappy companies like Circuit City folded.

-edit- Here you go:

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/112/1122107p1.html

[Grandturk]

Makes sense to me. CDs are dead dead dead and it's foolish to waste shelf space on them. DVDs are next. Time to get out of the 20th century, folks.

[RacerX]

Makes sense to me. CDs are dead dead dead and it's foolish to waste shelf space on them. DVDs are next. Time to get out of the 20th century, folks.

I still have a VCR

[Jayster]

-edit- Here you go:

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/112/1122107p1.html

Interesting article, however the comparison of Rick Astley to the COD series is absurd
I find the review of gaming to be spot on as an industry that seems recession proof, however - Gamestop has them beat hands down with the "this game sucks" return policy for members and a much better lay out(at least in my local market). Brandsmart beats them hands down on prices and selection for electronics and appliances(again, in my local market).

I did like that the article discussed Mom and Pop record shops, and wouldn't mind finding one(a brick and mortar store/not online). The whole idea of digital only media might be catching on with the rest of the world, but NIMBY.

I still have a VCR

I still have a beta :think:

DVDs are next. Time to get out of the 20th century, folks.

Sorry but NO. The last thing I want to do is spend 10-15$ extra on a blu ray, for a supposed difference I can't even see(at least on my TV). Sorry if I misunderstood your intent.

[Twitch]

We just had a Best Buy move into town and theyve already lost $80 of my money to Target because they wont open before 11am on Sundays, and to add insult to injury, I returned a $150 cable modem to them the following Monday. So all together they lost $230 of sales from me instead of just the $150. In addition, theyre a scaled back Best Buy, not the full size like normal, they share a local market with two Super Wal Marts, a Target,and a Super Menards and occupy the building that used to house our Circuit city. I give them 18 months here at best(no pun intended). I think they made a real bad choice coming here.

[The Rossness]

the BB's around me never had a guitar dept. I do buy a cd from them every now and again. I like to have hard copies of my music. Call me old fashioned :/

[mr426]

Actully Blue Ray wont be around too long.Everything is going strait to down loads only.Instead of having a hard copy of anything, you will just put it right on your media player.I actully like this better.Less junk taking up space and no more waiting inline for anything...

[DonP]

Makes sense to me. CDs are dead dead dead and it's foolish to waste shelf space on them. DVDs are next. Time to get out of the 20th century, folks.

Call me old fashioned but I still like buying CDs. Never ever new, but used for less than $5 a pop. For some reason I never liked Napster or any other file sharing downloading things, even if they could be secured.

I agree DVD's are a waste. Netflix / Redbox / streaming internet. Look at Blockbuster or any other rental stores. Out of business.

[toejam]

I still have a VCR

So do I. And I recently bought a DVD/VCR combo unit!

[Trussrod]

So do I. And I recently bought a DVD/VCR combo unit!

I have a VCR, too. I wish manufacturers still made DVD recorders with a hard drive. Seems like there are fewer recording issues when the video goes to an HDD first.

I thought CompUSA was gone, but they're still hanging on and now they are part of Tiger Direct. Best Buy might have to ditch some--or most--of their B and M stores to survive.

[catzodellamarina]

Downloads are the way of the future and good biz to be in. It's been my experience in I.T. that people download, enjoy, but never plan for a disaster. When their pc craps out or portable device gets stolen, their movie or song is gone. They whine but in the end are forced to pay again for another download due to their lack of planning. On he other hand, those of us who buy CD's, DVD's, and import to other media, have a hard copy as a backup. If I download, I burn to CD as a backup.

[atomic charvel guy]

i'm having a lot easier time right now selling used memory, cpu's, and hard drives
than new stuff. there's no margin in the new factory sealed stuff unless you score
someone's excess inventory. we bought 15,000 used 500 gig drives that were from torn down
servers and were able to roll them out before they even reached our dock. there's about a 50
dollar difference in price on those and new ones right now. lots of recycling and asset recovery going on out there in the electronics business.

[QuantumRider]

I still have a VCR

I'll see your VCR, and raise you with my LP player

[tcwil8]

I'll see your VCR, and raise you with my LP player

YES, I still have an LP player and two VCRs (the kids have these in their rooms). Does anyone still rock a Betamax or an 8-track player?