by Robert Saint John » Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:02 am
Completely anecdotal, but I've noticed over the past year how much the DVD section at two of our local Best Buy's have shrunk. Digital audio players, camcorders and cameras all use to share the same space in the center, now they've branched out and started to encroach on the DVD island. Boxed sets of TV series now seem to dominate, and the same space is now shared with the Hi-Def disc formats as well. It's also amusing to see how much space is often wasted in anime section by "box sets" that are just a box for a whole season, but include only one disc/case. I used to buy so much at Best Buy because of the selection and prices. Now, not so much.
Another possibly related story about the business: the Doctor Who DVD release schedule is is starting to go much more toward box sets because they sell to retailers better (both here and the UK, according to 2|entertain). They're considering eliminating the single disc "new series" releases next year and just sticking with the end of season box sets (they already stopped here in the States). Plus 2|e is now scheduling classic titles in such a way that they'll be able to start releasing more full season boxes of those starting next year. I doubt they'll stop releasing single story releases for those in the near future, but based on what's left, they'll probably go from one "classic" box set a year to four within 2 years. Take a look at Amazon. Box sets of "New Beginnings" and "Key to Time" are in the Top 10 DW ranked by sales. The individual stories in single packages, released at the same time as the boxes, don't even show up until the 50s.
Seems to me that what I'm seeing (and, I believe, what Keith and the article he mentioned referenced as the shelf space issue) is that although a retailer can get more high-margin dollars per inch with single case titles (especially film), the public has gravitated toward box sets for "long tail" and series-based content. With the new HD discs taking up the same space, retailers are probably starting to get fairly selective about the skus they choose to stock.
Robert - Cleveland, OH
(formerly mechascorpio)