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Forums - General - Wal-Mart Won't Carry $200 HD-DVD player.

naznatips on 20 September 2007

I think the actual reason is much simpler: The profit margin on it is really small. They probably have to pay $190 or something like that to stock it at all. Stores will be willing to pay that if they know consumers will buy movies, but sales on any nextgen format are pretty low.

Game systems do the same thing. Stores pay nearly retail price to stock Wiis, but they pay it because people buy games. I'm guessing that's the problem here, though Wal-mart would never admit it.



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akuma587 on 20 September 2007

This is from the DVD section of Best Buy's website:

* Brand
* Sony (10)
* Toshiba (10)
* Insignia® (9)
* Samsung (9)
* Philips (8)
* Panasonic (7)
* LG (5)
* Audiovox (2)
* Dynex® (2)
* Pioneer Elite (2)
* Yamaha (2)
* Harman Kardon (1)
* Magnavox (1)
* Pioneer (1)
* Zenith (1)

From Circuit City:

Audiovox (1)
Denon (1)
Digital Labs (1)
Element (4)
Funai Corporation (1)
LG (2)
Onkyo (1)
Panasonic (16)
Philips (6)
Polaroid (1)
Samsung (9)
Sony (16)
Sylvania (1)
Toshiba (14)
Zenith (3)

No Venturer DVD players listed on either website, which might indicate that Best Buy and Circuit City will pass on this player as well. There are Venturer players on the Wal-Mart website.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

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naznatips on 20 September 2007

Akuma I don't think the lack of a Venturer DVD player would affect their stocking of a Venturer HD-DVD player.



kn on 20 September 2007
Dolla Dolla said:
Does this mean the quality of Venturer is in question? I've heard random things about the lead recently, too.

Since when did Wal-Mart care about the quality of the products they sell?  No offense to you, Dolla -- I love your posts... Maybe a Gif to highlight the irony of Wal-mart questioning quality is in order here.  :)



I hate trolls.

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vizunary on 20 September 2007
nordlead said:
Onimusha12 said:
Actually its because the brand name is not large enough for them to justify the floor space. Pity really because it will be a big loss for Wal-mart.

Although this may be true (or my guess could be it), they carried Vizio TVs and i had never heard of them before. Did you find this in an article or is this just your guess for why they don't carry it?


you really need to brush up on your HD then, Vizio has become more popular than Westinghouse, but i'd bet you never heard of them either. BTW onimusha12, NOTHING hurts walmart, walmart hurts them...

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Onimusha12 on 20 September 2007
vizunary said:
nordlead said:
Onimusha12 said:
Actually its because the brand name is not large enough for them to justify the floor space. Pity really because it will be a big loss for Wal-mart.

Although this may be true (or my guess could be it), they carried Vizio TVs and i had never heard of them before. Did you find this in an article or is this just your guess for why they don't carry it?


 

you really need to brush up on your HD then, Vizio has become more popular than Westinghouse, but i'd bet you never heard of them either. BTW onimusha12, NOTHING hurts walmart, walmart hurts them...

 Walmart hurts everything.



vizunary on 20 September 2007

that's what i said... isn't it?



misterd on 20 September 2007
akuma587 said:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/09/wal-mart-wont-c.html

Wal-Mart has opted not to carry Ventura's $200 SHD7000 HD-DVD player, which could have pre-emptively won the next-gen format war, beating Blu-Ray to death with the nerfbat of cheap.

Why would Wal-Mart turn its nose up at such an amazing piece of technology? Here are my tentative hypotheses: (i) It's such appalling trash even Wal-Mart won't carry it. This is extremely unlikely. (ii) Someone licked it and died. Some call lead a pollutant. We call it life. (iii) Wal-Mart's story, that it favors "leading consumer brands," is correct. Not so: Wally carries Ventura DVD players. Or (iv) the big box knows it has the power to choose a winner in the format war, and hasn't yet decided between the two (or has picked Blu-Ray).

Wal-Mart makes money selling disks, not players. My dollar is on (iv). Cynical? Yes. Wrong? No.

Note: Here is the quote found elsewhere online

“We have no plans to have Venturer in our stores this holiday,” Wal-Mart merchandise spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said. “We will continue to offer the best values on popular HD DVD and Blu-ray products from leading consumer brands like Sony, Samsung, Philips, Toshiba and RCA.”


You're right that WM makes money off discs, but DVD sales are slowing, and HD won't fly until this war is over, so I see no reasonfor them to help HDDVD prolong this. OTOH there is choice v. WM saw the deal w/ Paramount and offer to WB and is holding out for their own bribe.

Onimusha12 on 21 September 2007

With Red-Ray entering the fray I wonder how this is going to turn out. Maybe retailers will boycot Red-Ray from the get go to avoid this costly war dragging out even longer.



jmm36 on 21 September 2007

I vote for HD-DVD, and would buy a Venturer from Wal-Mart this Christmas.