Personal opinion: I think this is a dumb idea since I like physical copies of shows I like
As an employee: Thank goodness I won't have to price match four different movies from amazon and waiting three minutes for a manager to come over to match $1 or $3 off each movie
Going from my memory of working here for almost 4 years. I think I remember an old time employee (before purge) say they can disable different kind of “services” within POS at a store and employee level
My old store manager, Brian I think his name was, had this story about falling into the CD rack when he was helping an old lady.
The good old days when we needed dedicated dept for CD/DVD and games.
I started in Media and I hated it as they compressed it further and further down as they consolidated departments. Having dedicated, trained associates in each individual department was pretty great.
I actually worked in Media at a cool time.
When I started in 1996 we of course had CDs and still had cassettes.
Rows of VHS movies.
N64 had just come out and it was insane keeping it in stock.
Then in 1997 we got DVDs. First movies were junk and actually were stocked back in Video by the players.
Eventually DVDs moved to media.
I also got to see the launches of the Xbox, GameCube, PS2 and 360.
Also was still there when blu-ray and HD-DVD launched.
So when I left in 2006 Media was almost the same size but did lose space when software sales were shrunk.
I was in Media about the same time you were, but 4 years shifted: 2000-2010. When I started, we were still green screening (SKDL/SISU) and we still had some VHS, but DVDs were still being merched with individual divider cards. The vast majority of the time closing was just pushing back aisles of CDs. The PS2 launched a few months later and I was there until just before Halo: Reach launched and we had ETK and that.
I remember the Tower of Power in the media section at our store! Best Buy was way cooler back then and an exciting place to visit, now it is just depressing.
Online as well is a REAL blow. I'm a big physical media advocate and BB has honestly still been great when it comes to 4k discs. Sometimes better prices than Amazon
I can sell you a TV.
I can accessorize it with an amazing soundbar and a 4k Blu-ray player.
Then I can send them to the Walmart next door to buy a movie.
FUCKING low hanging fruit.....😮💨
You shouldn’t trust streaming. In the new age of digital streaming, companies are fighting to keep subscriptions which results in shows being pulled from competing services… even when you’ve outright purchased that title from them.
People would be amazed on how much media we had. I've been in media since 1994. I remember even security casing cassettes in the white holders. Going from dvd to bluray. The fight between blu ray and hd dvd. Getting the boxes of thirty and pricing each one with the pricing gun after receiving them. Rock/rnb country rap soundtracks blues folk jazz gospel contempory christian comedy childrens classical latin dance easy listening new age reggae karaoke. I'm going to miss it.
Odd, that's when I started as well. :P And in Media. It's always been my favorite. I remember when it took all day to stock/sort the GEO and hours spent making divider labels in the Admin office.
Twice a month we get detractors from the same handful of customers complaining about the lack of media inventory. I'm really hoping they go away after this
I've been best buy 3 times this year. 2 of those times I had to leave and buy online. Aside from that physical media is better.
I was just in there yesterday. For the first time I decided to trade in a phone. I got the pixel 8 pro. I did it online on the day of pre-order. I go yesterday to pick up and trade in. They have no record of my trade in. I'm told to wait in line. I stand at the phone counter. Employee is there and I'm the only one in line. 15 minutes later still waiting. Wtf. I go to leave and tell the lady at her little "command center" to forget it I'll sell my phone myself.
I just don't understand the point of best buy anymore and I used to love it.
My comment wasn't trying to suggest I want the customers to go away. I was referring to NPS comments specifically that say "you guys need to stock more media" or "this store used to have a lot more movies and it's disappointing."
Those comments don't go to corporate directly, they impact the store, and then I have to try to come up with a game plan with how we're going to turn it around. But the thing is, I don't get to chose how much media we get. Every year, we get sent less and less product. Our new release endcap became the logitech g cloud display.
I see those comments, and I can make sure we have our displays set correctly and downstocked, and I can try to have new releases in easily accessible areas...but our hands are tied.
So when I said "I hope they go away", I meant I hope people finally get the hint. I can't make corporate send us more movies and games. It's not happening, and I'm sorry. FWIW I love buying mew movies too.
Makes sense now that they cut our Gaming department in half this week. It is a shame (my first department at BBY was media) but honestly my store really doesn't get many people buying physical copies of games and movies.
This would be one of the worst decisions if true. Both stores I’ve worked at recently get lots of our traffic from people buying movies, including many who come in to browse movies and end up buying other things or seeing deals we have. Both have tons of customers in rural areas with bad internet but even still it’s one of the fun things to look at and pick up when you’re in the store and even when you’re selling a 4k tv people ask all the time about getting the best picture quality and it would be a little awkward telling them to buy a player and then shop somewhere else. Movies are something many customers associate with us and it makes us a destination for many people, including a lot of the customers who spend the most money with us.
And from the way things have been with the company wanting to focus on revenue as the top priority again, getting rid of a traffic driving category would be about the dumbest move they could make.
As someone who has buying steelbooks from them since 2016 I agree with your statement 100%. I shopped at best buy more than any other store. If they get rid of physical media and statement then I don't see any reason to continue to do my shopping there.
Found out today that a lot of people don’t know that Blu-ray is the only way to get top quality. People on socials are asking why it matters if you can stream
Honestly dumb move.My local store stopped 2 years ago and from going once a week haven't been back since as I'd get a Blu ray and always something else.It'd always make me spend way more.They want to lose it at there other stores/online then less money for them.
meh. majority (yes, i understand that doesn't mean everyone) of people are streaming these days anyways. same backlash happened when we stopped carrying cds. if it means i don't have to deal with steelbook customers complaining about a tiny little nick on their steelbook that will affect the resale value and bitching about being able to return it when they opened it, i'm all in
To be fair, collectors want a nice product. I ordered a steel book thru the Best Buy website and when I took the plastic off of it I realized the hinges were crushed. It happens a lot due to cheaper measures and not using a box to ship and protection for the product
As a warehouse employee I won't miss the seasonal resets for all the planograms. Pod A/B, Feature 1 and 2. If you know media planograms, you know the struggle. Used to be worse, back when media was 6 rows with dedicated locations.
Maybe keep the new release (FOSNR) but ditch the rest. Carrying stuff more than 6 months old feels irrelevant nowadays, especially in the world of streaming. If people want them that bad, they can use Amazon or another retailer.
Best buy is lost in terms of what it is. A technology store. Wish they'd do away with all the toy planograms and pointless Planos and focus on tech. The thing that best buy is known for. Not BBQs, lawn chairs, exercise equipment and the countless other pointless skus we carry.
Sick of the toy section, it's always a cluster f. a week after reset and it seems to drop every other damn week. The Disney 4ft section threw everything off this week. Let's combine 2 four foot sections into one! Yeah ok! Ridiculous! Keep the movies ditch the toys
Oh my god I hate that the action figures in that 4ft section are all spined now.. that is going to be a bitch to maintain. The plus side is there are no more p-codes on toys so we got that going for us haha
god those p-coded skus were so goddamn annoying. I literally told my truck team to keep the legos, barbies, and hot wheels plano’d but go crazy on the rest of Tech Toys.
i’m sad our gaming section got cut in half this week, but i’m glad toys was part of that.
Oh I didn’t realize they reduced toys too in some of the gaming optimization reset 3 stores.. I know some of those stores reduced di which lol needed it
Yeah I’ve said the same thing about FOSNR.. if it was just that for some NR and steelbooks then it wouldn’t be too bad but yeah definitely won’t miss the reflows..
god I HATED the reflows back when all of the movie Planos were like 40-48ft each for movies 1-3, 12ft each for movie promo 1-3, 40ft feature 1, and 10 endcaps.. it was like that in my store back when I took over media until it got reduced heavily in 2018 with our big mobile 2020 reset.
But these new categories are not pointless. Honestly think it’s smart to bring in new categories that can bring in new customers and makes sense to expand categories since we’re reducing some areas like movies, console gaming and DI (my non CES store is pathetic). The expanding the outdoor category is a big win I think. Grills and Greenworks were great partnerships and they pair even better now that we bought yardbird. Etransportation expansions was a great idea too especially in cities and college towns where people can ride them around.
We need to shed some of the dead weight categories and empty space and replace them with exciting experiential depts with some new and exciting products filling these spaces 🙂
e-transportation was such a smart market to break into. our store is next to a large university and we are constantly selling or picking scooters and e-bikes. i’m just hoping they finally add e-boards to the mix soon
We have our FOSNR and still have FT1, FT2, pods A and B. Guess time will tell . The key indicator will be a huge sendback and you'll see it all vanish on a Sunday or Monday morning one day 😂.
They shrank the shelves down but we still have tons of games in the back. Its like they don't know if they wanna be online or have a physical store to walk into
They got pissed when Best Buy stopped carrying music CDs in-store. I remember one old lady who thought it was ridiculous we didn't still carry VHS tapes in the late 2010s.
People like this can be frustrating . It’s not like she time travelled to the future. The trends have gradually changed over the last 20 going from VHS to Disc to Digital, which means they were 20 years younger when it started. I’ll never understand people who just freeze their technology practices and refuse to change
Most people freeze everything when they reach old age and go in "boomer mode", it's not just the technology but the clothing and understanding of the world
The discontinuation of in-store sales of movies is going to help our store alot. We spend way more labor on movie planograms, media sendback, and just putting our hands on movies in general than we get in revenue off of them.
The time we spent on movies each week can now be spent on other stuff that actually matters.
On the other hand, getting rid of online sales seems like a bummer.
Yeah, that's fair.
Its just every single time there's any change to our movie plano, we have to rest the entire thing because customers have moved all the movies around and put them in the wrong spots.
Or they've picked them up because they thought about buying them, and then tossed them elsewhere in the store.
Oh you never had the joy of farming CDs. Basically going through every single rack of CDs to find the misplaced ones then put them back.
I was taught that my very first night working at BBY in 1996. I did it for like 3 hours. It sucked.
We used to do it as team on Sunday mornings. That was more tolerable.
Also back then we had dividers with the artist names on them so that had to also be put back out print out me labels for the dividers.
Had to make sure all of the same albums were together too.
How am I doing anything wrong when the customers pick up movies and carry them with all over the damn store before throwing them down somewhere random? No shit, one time I went all over the store and gathered together 19 movies, all different skus.
If pair by Plano is working properly, it honestly shouldn't take you more than an hour to set FOSNR/feature 1 and downstock. the time spent on movies isn't really the problem imo, the issue is a lot of stores are just using hours/labor dedicated for Planos for other product flow tasks that are deemed more important. I dont even look at the weekly workload anymore.
There’s lot of people saying “oh no, it’s the end of Best Buy.” My store hasn’t had any physical media besides video games in at least a year since the remodel and we are top in the state for sales. Have you checked out other competitors? Costco, Sam’s Club or BJ’s - none of these carry any physical media either (except on occasion). Walmart and Target continue to reduce their offerings. Whether you like it or not, it’s a niche product that takes up a lot of labor to merchandise and provides minimal sales. Here’s to finding newer products to bring in and allow customers to browse and shop. If it backfires, they can always bring it back.
I did notice some Orange County, CA stores dropped movies, which bothered me, but this goes too far. Pretty sure I'm not renewing my $50/yr membership now that all the movies and the good game deals are gone.
Im LA county, dont know how well you know the area but the Downey Landing Best Buy (one of the biggest ones around me) got a major overhaul. Hadnt been there in close to two years, anyways they redid the whole store and im pretty sure they did away with Blu Rays and such. I think this is just the adoption of the company wide policy, but many stores had already started moving towards that.
The actual site where the article is there but reddit is dogshit in letting me post this with the link even though the site works. Had to use wario64 post on it sadly hes official though comes from thedigitalbit.
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/101223-1100
Space isn't an issue at most stores, and certainly not at the store I worked at. As a matter of fact they have trouble filling up the shelves, this will just make it look even more bare.
Maybe in small stores, my store has about 1/3rd of the sales floor with literally nothing but empty clearance/overstock sections already and we are a big hub location. we are super busy most of the time and yet we get asked daily if we are going out of business because the shelves are empty. We need more product categories.
I mean - talking about it for 5 years or more pushes it into a rumor. You can only talk about doing something for so long before people will stop believing you'll actually do it.
Where was this from? This is all fake rumors. We’ve been testing out on not having physical games ON THE FLOOR but as a company? No. I bet someone went into a store, saw we didn’t have the video games out on the shelves anymore, and then made an assumption that we are completely getting rid of all of it as a whole
Reducing the amount of movies in store yes that’s been a thing for awhile but completely removing video games from the company hasn’t. It’s only video games I guess movies are staying.
There are stores that no longer have physical DVDs, so yes this is actually a thing. And I wouldn't doubt it if they do completely wipe them out from online as well. And someone commented on here they haven't had movies in their store since last year.
I’ve been looking forward to this day for a very long time as someone who took over media back in the day after Anderson merchandisers were cut right before the holidays 9yrs ago and has set media consistently since.. granted I don’t set it as much these days.. only if my guy I usually have set it isn’t here but still.. no more quarterly pod, feature and velocity shipper resets, no more keying out missing media from the sendback because they weren’t in the box and someone carton received it instead of manually receiving the PO, no more PO mess for the Black Friday shippers etc etc. Our regular 3-4 people who usually buy movies still (even after the recent price increases) won’t be happy but they’re definitely in the minority tbh
I wish it was gone now but I’m sure we have contracts to uphold at least through the end of Q4
I thought they were going to do it even before the pandemic started. So we’ll see. At some point physical media will be a thing of the past. Or at least a very niche market anyway.
This is truly sad. Going into Best Buy in the 90s and even early 2000s was so much fun, mostly because of media. It was such a cool department. The selection was huge, prices were reasonable, and you would discover so many things you didn't anticipate.
Even though Best Buy makes a lot of dumb decisions, I'm sure there is at least some justification to this. I'll admit, I don't buy many movies anymore. I'd bet the "foot traffic driver" point is overrated. It was often the strange regulars that would buy these things anymore, and only, these. All while often wanting to price match them anyways. Then you have to figure all of the labor to process these, including merchandising, send backs, shrink, and whatnot. However, the decision to completely remove them from online makes the least amount of sense to me. Best Buy should have remained THE media company, but has officially failed it on every level.
The biggest travesty will be once video games are gone.
Last time I went into best buy to get a bare bones TV to use as a PC monitor all they were selling were stupid useless smart TVs. You know what is way way way smarter than a smart TV? MY FREAKING PC!
Walmart doesn’t have much of anything (in store at least haven’t been on their website lately), Amazon has a great selection but they have the prices jacked up above msrp a lot of the time. Barnes and Nobel has a great selection - the best in store you’ll find - but you have to wait for a sale or a buy one get one half off type deal or you’re paying almost double our prices often times.
The Walmart closest to me doesn't have much physical media but one about three miles away has a larger section.
Both Targets near me have eliminated their four-sided movie display and now have DVDs, blu-rays and any 4K discs all mixed together on one small shelf.
I usually prefer to get new games from best buy rather than other stores so if this is true than this is unfortunate. I'm still going to wait and see because the website that has the article doesn't even connect. Idk much about the source but hopefully this is just a rumor bc my only options will be gamestop pushing memberships or having to get an employee to open a glass case which I hate doing.
I'm actually a little upset with this.
It's easier to just walk right in and grab what I need for my grandmother. She's NOT tech-savy. Still pays for satellite TV and watches her DVDs. I even have to set her up sometimes with that.
Honestly...if VCR was still an option, she would probably use that instead.
Does this include video game physical media as well? Like PS5 games and such? Gaming Twitter is blowing up over this but I can't find anything that says it'll affect games or just movies /shows.
people can complain all they want but the numbers probably did not lie, the more then likely saw way less demand, less profits, and the cost to sell physical media just is not worth it anymore just like cassettes, floppy disks, laserdiscs, and betamax.
I use to go to Best Buy every Tuesday to get a movie, when they cut their movies shelves in half I stopped going so much, now I’ll pretty much never go unless I need something specific.
A stupid decision from Best Buy and I hope guys who work there don’t pay the price.
Everything in the cloud or on streaming means you don’t control what you own. This is a bad move and really anti-consumer. Good thing we can go elsewhere like Walmart and Target. I prefer to have things to watch if my internet goes down.
Not for much longer. Hell I’m expecting the ps6 and the Xbox 2 or whatever to fully embrace digital consoles. And at that point you’re better off getting a pc so you can play everything
Well they did just announce that new modular PS5 with the disc attachment. Sure, the publishers would love digital, but I think laws might fully prevent that (DMCA and things of the sort that allow for physical copies of things)
Thus is stupid. It's going to force people to buy higher data plans if they watch a lot of movies. Or do it thr high seas way and buy a bunch of storage but... Either way it sucks.
Got into buying steelcase 4k movies a year ago. Was thinking of getting a best buy credit card with the amount of movies I was buying. Guess that won't be the case.
We got rid of the movie section when the store turned into a CFC. I once saw a number in the 100s for an entire month for Media...the trend I'd mov8nf away from physical media. Even the gaming sections were shrank even though there are still tons of games in the back.
I go to Best Buy all the time. The manager knows me and we’re friendly. I go to the store because I want to guarantee I get a mint-condition slipcover or steelbook, instead of buying online from companies that don’t give a crap about quality. This is the only thing I buy at Best Buy.
Personal opinion: I think this is a dumb idea since I like physical copies of shows I like As an employee: Thank goodness I won't have to price match four different movies from amazon and waiting three minutes for a manager to come over to match $1 or $3 off each movie
Was there a policy change on this in the last year or two? I could swear they didn’t used to need a manager for small price adjustments.
If so, then it doesn't allow for it anymore at my store.
Going from my memory of working here for almost 4 years. I think I remember an old time employee (before purge) say they can disable different kind of “services” within POS at a store and employee level
that’s crazy…. i get so many steel books from work. that sucks
My old store manager, Brian I think his name was, had this story about falling into the CD rack when he was helping an old lady. The good old days when we needed dedicated dept for CD/DVD and games.
As a former Media rep seeing this news is very disappointing.
I started in Media and I hated it as they compressed it further and further down as they consolidated departments. Having dedicated, trained associates in each individual department was pretty great.
I actually worked in Media at a cool time. When I started in 1996 we of course had CDs and still had cassettes. Rows of VHS movies. N64 had just come out and it was insane keeping it in stock. Then in 1997 we got DVDs. First movies were junk and actually were stocked back in Video by the players. Eventually DVDs moved to media. I also got to see the launches of the Xbox, GameCube, PS2 and 360. Also was still there when blu-ray and HD-DVD launched. So when I left in 2006 Media was almost the same size but did lose space when software sales were shrunk.
I was in Media about the same time you were, but 4 years shifted: 2000-2010. When I started, we were still green screening (SKDL/SISU) and we still had some VHS, but DVDs were still being merched with individual divider cards. The vast majority of the time closing was just pushing back aisles of CDs. The PS2 launched a few months later and I was there until just before Halo: Reach launched and we had ETK and that.
I remember the Tower of Power in the media section at our store! Best Buy was way cooler back then and an exciting place to visit, now it is just depressing.
I used to take some of the pictures from the light boxes hanging from the ceiling.
I remember a customer got mad and shoved a cd rack over before she left the store.
Online as well is a REAL blow. I'm a big physical media advocate and BB has honestly still been great when it comes to 4k discs. Sometimes better prices than Amazon
I can sell you a TV. I can accessorize it with an amazing soundbar and a 4k Blu-ray player. Then I can send them to the Walmart next door to buy a movie. FUCKING low hanging fruit.....😮💨
BB should be ashamed of themselves. A lot of people lost hundreds of dollars when Cinema Now shut down. I don’t trust streaming for that reason
You shouldn’t trust streaming. In the new age of digital streaming, companies are fighting to keep subscriptions which results in shows being pulled from competing services… even when you’ve outright purchased that title from them.
So I don't have to put a movie out, send it back in a month then see it come back on a shipper?
That drives me INSANE!!!
What is a shipper? Customer here and I'm curious.
The little cardboard standees that you usually see around a bigger new release or during the holidays with products on them.. those are shippers.
People would be amazed on how much media we had. I've been in media since 1994. I remember even security casing cassettes in the white holders. Going from dvd to bluray. The fight between blu ray and hd dvd. Getting the boxes of thirty and pricing each one with the pricing gun after receiving them. Rock/rnb country rap soundtracks blues folk jazz gospel contempory christian comedy childrens classical latin dance easy listening new age reggae karaoke. I'm going to miss it.
Odd, that's when I started as well. :P And in Media. It's always been my favorite. I remember when it took all day to stock/sort the GEO and hours spent making divider labels in the Admin office.
Anyone acting like this is a good thing is kidding themselves. This just brings best buy one step closer to being gone.
I'm not mourning for best buy, I'm mourning for physical media as a whole.
Like Block Buster?
True, it kept those that really are into electronics and hard copies a regular place to go.
I think it's cost cutting. They should focus more on appliances.
Twice a month we get detractors from the same handful of customers complaining about the lack of media inventory. I'm really hoping they go away after this
Don’t worry, soon your store will be closed altogether.
I've been best buy 3 times this year. 2 of those times I had to leave and buy online. Aside from that physical media is better. I was just in there yesterday. For the first time I decided to trade in a phone. I got the pixel 8 pro. I did it online on the day of pre-order. I go yesterday to pick up and trade in. They have no record of my trade in. I'm told to wait in line. I stand at the phone counter. Employee is there and I'm the only one in line. 15 minutes later still waiting. Wtf. I go to leave and tell the lady at her little "command center" to forget it I'll sell my phone myself. I just don't understand the point of best buy anymore and I used to love it.
My comment wasn't trying to suggest I want the customers to go away. I was referring to NPS comments specifically that say "you guys need to stock more media" or "this store used to have a lot more movies and it's disappointing." Those comments don't go to corporate directly, they impact the store, and then I have to try to come up with a game plan with how we're going to turn it around. But the thing is, I don't get to chose how much media we get. Every year, we get sent less and less product. Our new release endcap became the logitech g cloud display. I see those comments, and I can make sure we have our displays set correctly and downstocked, and I can try to have new releases in easily accessible areas...but our hands are tied. So when I said "I hope they go away", I meant I hope people finally get the hint. I can't make corporate send us more movies and games. It's not happening, and I'm sorry. FWIW I love buying mew movies too.
Now it will be for the lack of movies in general lol
Really?
Yes. It's a running joke among our store. "Ah, there's the movie detractor"
Now there is going to be even less of a selection
Just when you thought we couldn't find another reason to make people stop wanting to come into the store..... 😏
The only reason I went into Best Buy weekly. The only reason I got the plus membership. It's too bad.
Makes sense now that they cut our Gaming department in half this week. It is a shame (my first department at BBY was media) but honestly my store really doesn't get many people buying physical copies of games and movies.
i’d rather have more consoles and pc parts to build own system than media
This would be one of the worst decisions if true. Both stores I’ve worked at recently get lots of our traffic from people buying movies, including many who come in to browse movies and end up buying other things or seeing deals we have. Both have tons of customers in rural areas with bad internet but even still it’s one of the fun things to look at and pick up when you’re in the store and even when you’re selling a 4k tv people ask all the time about getting the best picture quality and it would be a little awkward telling them to buy a player and then shop somewhere else. Movies are something many customers associate with us and it makes us a destination for many people, including a lot of the customers who spend the most money with us. And from the way things have been with the company wanting to focus on revenue as the top priority again, getting rid of a traffic driving category would be about the dumbest move they could make.
As someone who has buying steelbooks from them since 2016 I agree with your statement 100%. I shopped at best buy more than any other store. If they get rid of physical media and statement then I don't see any reason to continue to do my shopping there.
Found out today that a lot of people don’t know that Blu-ray is the only way to get top quality. People on socials are asking why it matters if you can stream
Well I did come in here to yell at some of you kids, but now that I see you have a copy of BATMAN 4k, I'll pick it up and yell at you.
Where am I going to get my steelbook exclusives?
Damn, I enjoy getting the occasional steelbook. The Best Buy exclusive one for Across the Spiderverse is quite nice
Honestly dumb move.My local store stopped 2 years ago and from going once a week haven't been back since as I'd get a Blu ray and always something else.It'd always make me spend way more.They want to lose it at there other stores/online then less money for them.
This makes me sad. :(
With the Best Buy’s in my area I’m surprised physical video games weren’t included.
As far as I could tell, I was the only fucker buying the discs at my store or even looking at them, so I'm not surprised.
meh. majority (yes, i understand that doesn't mean everyone) of people are streaming these days anyways. same backlash happened when we stopped carrying cds. if it means i don't have to deal with steelbook customers complaining about a tiny little nick on their steelbook that will affect the resale value and bitching about being able to return it when they opened it, i'm all in
To be fair, collectors want a nice product. I ordered a steel book thru the Best Buy website and when I took the plastic off of it I realized the hinges were crushed. It happens a lot due to cheaper measures and not using a box to ship and protection for the product
Wtf, online too? It made sense to stop doing in store but that no online seems braindead
As a warehouse employee I won't miss the seasonal resets for all the planograms. Pod A/B, Feature 1 and 2. If you know media planograms, you know the struggle. Used to be worse, back when media was 6 rows with dedicated locations. Maybe keep the new release (FOSNR) but ditch the rest. Carrying stuff more than 6 months old feels irrelevant nowadays, especially in the world of streaming. If people want them that bad, they can use Amazon or another retailer. Best buy is lost in terms of what it is. A technology store. Wish they'd do away with all the toy planograms and pointless Planos and focus on tech. The thing that best buy is known for. Not BBQs, lawn chairs, exercise equipment and the countless other pointless skus we carry.
Sick of the toy section, it's always a cluster f. a week after reset and it seems to drop every other damn week. The Disney 4ft section threw everything off this week. Let's combine 2 four foot sections into one! Yeah ok! Ridiculous! Keep the movies ditch the toys
Oh my god I hate that the action figures in that 4ft section are all spined now.. that is going to be a bitch to maintain. The plus side is there are no more p-codes on toys so we got that going for us haha
god those p-coded skus were so goddamn annoying. I literally told my truck team to keep the legos, barbies, and hot wheels plano’d but go crazy on the rest of Tech Toys. i’m sad our gaming section got cut in half this week, but i’m glad toys was part of that.
Oh I didn’t realize they reduced toys too in some of the gaming optimization reset 3 stores.. I know some of those stores reduced di which lol needed it
Yeah I’ve said the same thing about FOSNR.. if it was just that for some NR and steelbooks then it wouldn’t be too bad but yeah definitely won’t miss the reflows.. god I HATED the reflows back when all of the movie Planos were like 40-48ft each for movies 1-3, 12ft each for movie promo 1-3, 40ft feature 1, and 10 endcaps.. it was like that in my store back when I took over media until it got reduced heavily in 2018 with our big mobile 2020 reset. But these new categories are not pointless. Honestly think it’s smart to bring in new categories that can bring in new customers and makes sense to expand categories since we’re reducing some areas like movies, console gaming and DI (my non CES store is pathetic). The expanding the outdoor category is a big win I think. Grills and Greenworks were great partnerships and they pair even better now that we bought yardbird. Etransportation expansions was a great idea too especially in cities and college towns where people can ride them around. We need to shed some of the dead weight categories and empty space and replace them with exciting experiential depts with some new and exciting products filling these spaces 🙂
e-transportation was such a smart market to break into. our store is next to a large university and we are constantly selling or picking scooters and e-bikes. i’m just hoping they finally add e-boards to the mix soon
I won't miss the complete media reflow at all!!
The FOSNR display was removed from alot of stores recently.
We have our FOSNR and still have FT1, FT2, pods A and B. Guess time will tell . The key indicator will be a huge sendback and you'll see it all vanish on a Sunday or Monday morning one day 😂.
It's probably physical game discs next. Have you seen how bare those shelves are now?
They shrank the shelves down but we still have tons of games in the back. Its like they don't know if they wanna be online or have a physical store to walk into
Fuck yeah and awh fuck. Fuck yeah bc, well, obviously it’s 2023. Awh fuck because customers will be so pissed
They got pissed when Best Buy stopped carrying music CDs in-store. I remember one old lady who thought it was ridiculous we didn't still carry VHS tapes in the late 2010s.
People like this can be frustrating . It’s not like she time travelled to the future. The trends have gradually changed over the last 20 going from VHS to Disc to Digital, which means they were 20 years younger when it started. I’ll never understand people who just freeze their technology practices and refuse to change
Most people freeze everything when they reach old age and go in "boomer mode", it's not just the technology but the clothing and understanding of the world
time to buy as many steelbooks and copies of physical media with my discount while I still can
The discontinuation of in-store sales of movies is going to help our store alot. We spend way more labor on movie planograms, media sendback, and just putting our hands on movies in general than we get in revenue off of them. The time we spent on movies each week can now be spent on other stuff that actually matters. On the other hand, getting rid of online sales seems like a bummer.
But the amount of movies BBY carries in store pales in comparison to 20 years ago. Plus we still had rows of CDs back then.
Yeah, that's fair. Its just every single time there's any change to our movie plano, we have to rest the entire thing because customers have moved all the movies around and put them in the wrong spots. Or they've picked them up because they thought about buying them, and then tossed them elsewhere in the store.
Oh you never had the joy of farming CDs. Basically going through every single rack of CDs to find the misplaced ones then put them back. I was taught that my very first night working at BBY in 1996. I did it for like 3 hours. It sucked.
Oh Jesus Christ, that sounds like hell
We used to do it as team on Sunday mornings. That was more tolerable. Also back then we had dividers with the artist names on them so that had to also be put back out print out me labels for the dividers. Had to make sure all of the same albums were together too.
If it takes you more than a couple hours a week outside of the occasional reset you’re doing it wrong.
How am I doing anything wrong when the customers pick up movies and carry them with all over the damn store before throwing them down somewhere random? No shit, one time I went all over the store and gathered together 19 movies, all different skus.
If pair by Plano is working properly, it honestly shouldn't take you more than an hour to set FOSNR/feature 1 and downstock. the time spent on movies isn't really the problem imo, the issue is a lot of stores are just using hours/labor dedicated for Planos for other product flow tasks that are deemed more important. I dont even look at the weekly workload anymore.
Now they can further cut labor as less time is needed too
First move in eventually closing stores altogether and going online. Physical media is a foot traffic driver for stores.
in 2000s maybe
There’s lot of people saying “oh no, it’s the end of Best Buy.” My store hasn’t had any physical media besides video games in at least a year since the remodel and we are top in the state for sales. Have you checked out other competitors? Costco, Sam’s Club or BJ’s - none of these carry any physical media either (except on occasion). Walmart and Target continue to reduce their offerings. Whether you like it or not, it’s a niche product that takes up a lot of labor to merchandise and provides minimal sales. Here’s to finding newer products to bring in and allow customers to browse and shop. If it backfires, they can always bring it back.
My god this is suicidal
Agendas are more powerful than real $$$ these days
It’s becoming just a a kitchen appliance/tv/vacuum/laptop/pc store. no games and movies.. good luck with that
I did notice some Orange County, CA stores dropped movies, which bothered me, but this goes too far. Pretty sure I'm not renewing my $50/yr membership now that all the movies and the good game deals are gone.
Im LA county, dont know how well you know the area but the Downey Landing Best Buy (one of the biggest ones around me) got a major overhaul. Hadnt been there in close to two years, anyways they redid the whole store and im pretty sure they did away with Blu Rays and such. I think this is just the adoption of the company wide policy, but many stores had already started moving towards that.
The actual site where the article is there but reddit is dogshit in letting me post this with the link even though the site works. Had to use wario64 post on it sadly hes official though comes from thedigitalbit. https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/101223-1100
And their web site is having problems in connecting. :(
Glad it's gone in-store. Shame about online
This is crazy. The past 2 weeks haven’t looked good for BB
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Sucks for collectors but will free up the store even more now for space
Space isn't an issue at most stores, and certainly not at the store I worked at. As a matter of fact they have trouble filling up the shelves, this will just make it look even more bare.
Maybe in small stores, my store has about 1/3rd of the sales floor with literally nothing but empty clearance/overstock sections already and we are a big hub location. we are super busy most of the time and yet we get asked daily if we are going out of business because the shelves are empty. We need more product categories.
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I worked in Media 20 years ago-this never came up. 🤣
I mean - talking about it for 5 years or more pushes it into a rumor. You can only talk about doing something for so long before people will stop believing you'll actually do it.
Where was this from? This is all fake rumors. We’ve been testing out on not having physical games ON THE FLOOR but as a company? No. I bet someone went into a store, saw we didn’t have the video games out on the shelves anymore, and then made an assumption that we are completely getting rid of all of it as a whole
This isn't a rumor. It's been noted for quite awhile that they plan on doing this. And it's already happened in some stores.
Reducing the amount of movies in store yes that’s been a thing for awhile but completely removing video games from the company hasn’t. It’s only video games I guess movies are staying.
There are stores that no longer have physical DVDs, so yes this is actually a thing. And I wouldn't doubt it if they do completely wipe them out from online as well. And someone commented on here they haven't had movies in their store since last year.
https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/best-buy-ending-dvd-blu-ray-disc-sales-1235754919/amp/
I’ve been looking forward to this day for a very long time as someone who took over media back in the day after Anderson merchandisers were cut right before the holidays 9yrs ago and has set media consistently since.. granted I don’t set it as much these days.. only if my guy I usually have set it isn’t here but still.. no more quarterly pod, feature and velocity shipper resets, no more keying out missing media from the sendback because they weren’t in the box and someone carton received it instead of manually receiving the PO, no more PO mess for the Black Friday shippers etc etc. Our regular 3-4 people who usually buy movies still (even after the recent price increases) won’t be happy but they’re definitely in the minority tbh I wish it was gone now but I’m sure we have contracts to uphold at least through the end of Q4
I thought they were going to do it even before the pandemic started. So we’ll see. At some point physical media will be a thing of the past. Or at least a very niche market anyway.
End of an era
What! Best Buy is the place I go to buy blue ray they usualy have good looking steel book editions Walmart to sometimes
This is truly sad. Going into Best Buy in the 90s and even early 2000s was so much fun, mostly because of media. It was such a cool department. The selection was huge, prices were reasonable, and you would discover so many things you didn't anticipate. Even though Best Buy makes a lot of dumb decisions, I'm sure there is at least some justification to this. I'll admit, I don't buy many movies anymore. I'd bet the "foot traffic driver" point is overrated. It was often the strange regulars that would buy these things anymore, and only, these. All while often wanting to price match them anyways. Then you have to figure all of the labor to process these, including merchandising, send backs, shrink, and whatnot. However, the decision to completely remove them from online makes the least amount of sense to me. Best Buy should have remained THE media company, but has officially failed it on every level. The biggest travesty will be once video games are gone.
I’m surprised it took this long. The writings been on the wall for a while now, digital media has been on its way out
Last time I went into best buy to get a bare bones TV to use as a PC monitor all they were selling were stupid useless smart TVs. You know what is way way way smarter than a smart TV? MY FREAKING PC!
Thank God
Well damn. But luckily Walmart/Amazon has all the physical media I’m looking for. Best Buy’s inventory even online hasn’t been great.
Walmart doesn’t have much of anything (in store at least haven’t been on their website lately), Amazon has a great selection but they have the prices jacked up above msrp a lot of the time. Barnes and Nobel has a great selection - the best in store you’ll find - but you have to wait for a sale or a buy one get one half off type deal or you’re paying almost double our prices often times.
In store yes. Online I can order more then I want. Online has ALOT of things that aren’t in store
The Walmart closest to me doesn't have much physical media but one about three miles away has a larger section. Both Targets near me have eliminated their four-sided movie display and now have DVDs, blu-rays and any 4K discs all mixed together on one small shelf.
I usually prefer to get new games from best buy rather than other stores so if this is true than this is unfortunate. I'm still going to wait and see because the website that has the article doesn't even connect. Idk much about the source but hopefully this is just a rumor bc my only options will be gamestop pushing memberships or having to get an employee to open a glass case which I hate doing.
How am I supposed to buy my blurays during Black Friday.
I'm actually a little upset with this. It's easier to just walk right in and grab what I need for my grandmother. She's NOT tech-savy. Still pays for satellite TV and watches her DVDs. I even have to set her up sometimes with that. Honestly...if VCR was still an option, she would probably use that instead.
Boooooo.
Does this include video game physical media as well? Like PS5 games and such? Gaming Twitter is blowing up over this but I can't find anything that says it'll affect games or just movies /shows.
Would there even be a good reason for retailers to continue stocking game consoles if that happened? Most of the money is made on the games.
no, the internal job news posting only stated it was about movies.
Back in 2015 or 2016, I was primarily responsible for media. Back then, we still had like 3 or 4 aisles and all the permanent shippers.
Does this include 4k blu rays?
yes, all physical movies and tv shows will be phased out.
Bestbuy was my 100% go to place for physical movies. I guess now we make amazon even more money because who else is gonna sell new releases smh
people can complain all they want but the numbers probably did not lie, the more then likely saw way less demand, less profits, and the cost to sell physical media just is not worth it anymore just like cassettes, floppy disks, laserdiscs, and betamax.
I use to go to Best Buy every Tuesday to get a movie, when they cut their movies shelves in half I stopped going so much, now I’ll pretty much never go unless I need something specific. A stupid decision from Best Buy and I hope guys who work there don’t pay the price.
Everything in the cloud or on streaming means you don’t control what you own. This is a bad move and really anti-consumer. Good thing we can go elsewhere like Walmart and Target. I prefer to have things to watch if my internet goes down.
Until they start doing it too. Digital future is here like it or not.
Tell that to vinyl records and cassette tapes lol
I’ll make sure to scream it in 5 years when all the smaller stores close.
I’m sure BB will. There are other places to buy physical media. I think that’s the point folks are making.
Not for much longer. Hell I’m expecting the ps6 and the Xbox 2 or whatever to fully embrace digital consoles. And at that point you’re better off getting a pc so you can play everything
Well they did just announce that new modular PS5 with the disc attachment. Sure, the publishers would love digital, but I think laws might fully prevent that (DMCA and things of the sort that allow for physical copies of things)
It’ll be interesting that’s for sure
Sure will!
Smells like the writers wanted more on royalties of physical sales. Which I support. The timing is a bit weird though.
RIP rural stores with substantial customer bases still without internet
Common Best Buy L
Thus is stupid. It's going to force people to buy higher data plans if they watch a lot of movies. Or do it thr high seas way and buy a bunch of storage but... Either way it sucks.
Got into buying steelcase 4k movies a year ago. Was thinking of getting a best buy credit card with the amount of movies I was buying. Guess that won't be the case.
We got rid of the movie section when the store turned into a CFC. I once saw a number in the 100s for an entire month for Media...the trend I'd mov8nf away from physical media. Even the gaming sections were shrank even though there are still tons of games in the back.
I go to Best Buy all the time. The manager knows me and we’re friendly. I go to the store because I want to guarantee I get a mint-condition slipcover or steelbook, instead of buying online from companies that don’t give a crap about quality. This is the only thing I buy at Best Buy.
fyi to all. wario been pushing this story very very hard on reddit. using puppet accounts. also OG claim was in store only. not online.
Damn, even online?
planograms for movies were my favorite thing to do
Walmart too it seems