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Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

cnn.com

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Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#51

Post by gremlinsinc »

userinanother wrote: post #4

Are they just going to convert into another cellphone shop? Last time I was there they literally hid all the good games and dvds to reduce shrinkage but it also made it appear like they were out of stock on everything. There wasn’t even a slip or something to know to ask the front desk for inventory.

I'm thinking more they're getting ready to liquidize. Brick and Mortar stores are empty AF, and failing left and right. People want to go back to the 1800's when you built a farm, and went to town once a month for supplies, and that's that.

Everything is online, so why not. Walmart has the luxury of being somewhat essential having grocery departments, so they can keep foot traffic that way - but a lot more people get groceries via delivery as well.

My family we're all pretty much -- if I see it, I want it, so I buy it regardless of if we should. Ordering delivery we buy a TON less junk food, and uneeded crap.

We just order what we need, it also helps with our ADHD because we forget ingredients ALL the time when planning meals, so we just call and have the meal tomorrow instead of today, but that ends up being 5 days later, and then something we did buy for that meal goes bad and its a vicious cycle.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#53

Post by taeric »

ghaff wrote: post #14
taeric wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is valuable, but what are folks going there for, nowadays?

TVs, appliances, computers and accessories, smarthome and fitness stuff, phones... Although it looked like they were toast at one point, they're at least somewhat profitable and have something like $40B in annual revenue--although that's declined somewhat year over year.

I think a TV is about the only thing there I would consider buying from them. Fitness stuff seems far better to get from the manufacturer, or a sporting goods store. Phones seem best from carrier, or Apple. Is that not the case?

Not sure on the rest of the appliances. Is an odd listing.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#54

Post by squeaky-clean »

gopher2000 wrote: post #34
panzagl wrote: post #30

Oddly enough my college-aged daughter just asked if we had an extra dvd player laying around, and if not she might get one/ask for one for Christmas. I think she's preparing for when she gets locked out of all of the family's streaming services, or they all go ad-supported.

Have any streaming services gone ad-supported beyond introducing lower cost tiers as an alternative to existing premium subscriptions without ads?

Prime Video now only offers a lot of things on "FreeVee" their ad supported streaming service. It's technically not putting ads in prime video, but it totally is. As 2 recent examples of things I watched, Jury Duty and Detective Pikachu cannot be watched without ads unless you purchase them. If you Google for "Stream detective Pikachu" Google will say it's available on FreeVee and Prime Video, but the Prime Video link redirects you to FreeVee.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#55

Post by squeaky-clean »

taeric wrote: post #46
paxys wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally everything they sell. You have to remember that the majority of Americans still don't shop online.

I don't actually know what they sell. Back when I did go, it was to get games and movies.

Last time I visited because I needed a replacement mouse immediately, most of the floorspace was dedicated to TVs and sound systems, the next biggest section was smart home / IoT stuff, next biggest was computers which was mostly chromebooks and those terrible $400 windows laptoos, and a couple aisles for video games. There was one rack of blu-rays in a section of the store that felt like you had wandered into an employee-only area.

I also tried to get a new surge protector in the same visit and they only had 2 choices in-store, both of them were over $50 for no obvious benefit over a $15 one from target.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#56

Post by ramesh31 »

spunker540 wrote: post #44

I may be an outlier— but I live in Manhattan and have two Best Buys each roughly a ~20 min walk away. A few times a year I’ll need a cable or an external hard drive, or a new controller, mouse etc, and want it right now and I’ll just walk to whichever Best Buy has it in stock. When I do I still have the same feelings I got as a kid when I’d go to circuit city and the impulse to browse is hard to resist. They have a l…

It's honestly the best place to buy electronics at this point if you don't have a Microcenter nearby. I buy all my laptops and TVs there now. Once upon a time, retail was the more expensive option, as they marked up prices and couldn't compete with the low overhead of online sellers. Now that equation has completely flipped, and anything sold online will rapidly inflate in price due to dropshippers and scalpers. The only way to get a fair deal anymore is brick and mortar, and they often have (real) discounts and 0% financing.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#57

Post by ghaff »

taeric wrote: post #53
ghaff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TVs, appliances, computers and accessories, smarthome and fitness stuff, phones... Although it looked like they were toast at one point, they're at least somewhat profitable and have something like $40B in annual revenue--although that's declined somewhat year over year.

I think a TV is about the only thing there I would consider buying from them. Fitness stuff seems far better to get from the manufacturer, or a sporting goods store. Phones seem best from carrier, or Apple. Is that not the case? Not sure on the rest of the appliances. Is an odd listing.

By fitness stuff, I meant Fitbits and that kind of thing.

Personally, I very rarely go into a Best Buy. Yes, I might buy a TV or a major appliance there but those are very rare purchases. I might browse once a year to see what the latest wearable and Internet of Crap stuff is out there but I literally can't remember the last time I bought something at a Best Buy.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#58

Post by tpmx »

hundchenkatze wrote: post #32
graypegg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of streaming services offer some sort of 4K upgrade pricing. [0] Doesn't seem like the requirements for netflix are even that demanding, minimum 15mbps is at least a common internet speed where I'm from. [0] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444

4k content from Netflix does not look as good as 4k content from Blu-ray. Especially for dark scenes, Netflix's stream is full of decompression artifacts making everything grey and blotchy.

They also have a problem with older noisy 1080p sources. Badly upscaled to 4k and then bandwidth-limited it sometimes looks comically bad.

When I tried out the 4k Netflix option in early 2023 I found myself wanting an option to downgrade to their 1080p encoding for a few of the shows I was watching.

I was told Netflix hired really smart people for like 300-500k/year for the express purpose of avoiding stupid shit like this.

Re: Best Buy stores to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray in 2024

#60

Post by ghaff »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #51
userinanother wrote: post #4

Are they just going to convert into another cellphone shop? Last time I was there they literally hid all the good games and dvds to reduce shrinkage but it also made it appear like they were out of stock on everything. There wasn’t even a slip or something to know to ask the front desk for inventory.

I'm thinking more they're getting ready to liquidize. Brick and Mortar stores are empty AF, and failing left and right. People want to go back to the 1800's when you built a farm, and went to town once a month for supplies, and that's that. Everything is online, so why not. Walmart has the luxury of being somewhat essential having grocery departments, so they can keep foot traffic that way - but a lot more people get…

>Walmart has the luxury of being somewhat essential having grocery departments, so they can keep foot traffic that way - but a lot more people get groceries via delivery as well.

The Walmart near me is always packed even though it's a lousy place IMO to try to do a full grocery shopping.

I don't know the numbers but my sense is that online grocery shopping didn't take off and stay taken off to nearly the degree that some people thought it would. I certainly don't see that many pickers in my local stores that offer delivery.

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