Did the buy-a-thon kill Amazon?

[kamiller42]

HD DVD is about to pass up Blu-Ray in sales of the top 10 products. It is almost as if a bot it out there buying up HD DVD discs like a mad man. Look at the 7 day chart. Very bizarre.

[TorpedoShockwave]

Originally Posted by kamiller42

There has been a strange HD DVD surge at Amazon. I was checking things out at eProductWars, and it tells the same story. What is even stranger is how the blu line has barely budged in the past couple of days. Maybe most people bought there blu's outside Amazon. I know I did. We will just have to see how the week's numbers look.

In regards to 300, looks like HD DVD is falling. Smallville is still less than Blu. Ditto for Planet Earth.

Just to let you guys know I bet there was a top secret HD-DVD buy- a-thon that same day. We had no impact on the sales, just look at dvdempire.com, no sales increase on BD; actually it was a decrease in sales for BD. Actually BD sales are going down day by day at that website. Now you guys mention about Amazon, we had no impact there. I guess those HD-DVD owners had purchased a lot films at that very same day.

http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Fea...99365959436836

http://amazon.highdefdigest.com/

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by kamiller42

There has been a strange HD DVD surge at Amazon. I was checking things out at eProductWars, and it tells the same story. What is even stranger is how the blu line has barely budged in the past couple of days. Maybe most people bought there blu's outside Amazon. I know I did. We will just have to see how the week's numbers look.

In regards to 300, looks like HD DVD is falling. Smallville is still less than Blu. Ditto for Planet Earth.

Amazon recently relisted the following deals which may explain the surge:

Get Seven Free HD DVDs with the Purchase of an HD Player
Buy an Xbox 360 HD DVD Player and Get Seven HD DVDs Free

Although Amazon did post a similar deal for the PS3 unfortunately the Blu-ray players didn't get any love this time around.

[TorpedoShockwave]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Amazon recently relisted the followng deals which may explain the surge:

Get Seven Free HD DVDs with the Purchase of an HD Player
Buy an Xbox 360 HD DVD Player and Get Seven HD DVDs Free

Although Amazon did post a similar deal for the PS3 unfortunately the Blu-ray players didn't get any love this time around.

Based on your comment, this means HD-DVD is selling far more than Blu-Ray. Because that same deal is also available for Blu-Ray and it has no effect on sales, while, HD-DVD does.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...blurayforum-20

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by TorpedoShockwave

Based on your comment, this means HD-DVD is selling far more than Blu-Ray. Because that same deal is also available for Blu-Ray and it has no effect on sales, while, HD-DVD does.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...blurayforum-20

The same deal is only available for the PS3 and not the standalone blu-ray players. The HD DVD deal does include the standalone players.

The highdefdigest numbers only show that more of the same HD DVD titles are currently being sold then previously before at Amazon. The 2 free discs offer started around the time HD DVD started to show an upward trend in the HDD charts.

With the exception of Transformers the HDD charts show that more people are once again buying 300, Batman Begins, and Planet Earth on HD DVD with the first two being elegible in the Amazon deal.

There are two scenarios to keep in mind. The top 10 charts are easily affected if say everyone where to purchase the same ten titles vs. everyone randomly purchasing various titles in the 400+ catalog. In terms of the top 100 titles, it's also much easier to affect the charts when you're starting from an average sales rank of 6000 vs. 2000.

Blu-ray tends to have more of a steady but upward trend on Amazon, while HD DVD tends to have violent upward and downward swings. Again, these charts only show the Amazon sales rank and not necessarily the actual number of copies being sold.

The same thing happened the last time Amazon offered these deals.

[Manco]

Just to let you guys know I bet there was a top secret HD-DVD buy- a-thon that same day. We had no impact on the sales, just look at dvdempire.com, no sales increase on BD; actually it was a decrease in sales for BD. Actually BD sales are going down day by day at that website. Now you guys mention about Amazon, we had no impact there. I guess those HD-DVD owners had purchased a lot films at that very same day.

Uh...Yeah... Well we talked about the buy-a-thon endlessly for like weeks on end and the threads were pasted all over the internet at AVS and elsewhere.

No real surpise. They knew we were coming. And they mounted a successful counter attack.
It's called...WAR!

[kamiller42]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

The same deal is only available for the PS3 and not the standalone blu-ray players. The HD DVD deal does include the standalone players.

The highdefdigest numbers only show that more of the same HD DVD titles are currently being sold then previously before at Amazon. The 2 free discs offer started around the time HD DVD started to show an upward trend in the HDD charts.

With the exception of Transformers the HDD charts show that more people are once again buying 300, Batman Begins, and Planet Earth on HD DVD with the first two being elegible in the Amazon deal.

There are two scenarios to keep in mind. The top 10 charts are easily affected if say everyone where to purchase the same ten titles vs. everyone randomly purchasing various titles in the 400+ catalog. In terms of the top 100 titles, it's also much easier to affect the charts when you're starting from an average sales rank of 6000 vs. 2000.

Blu-ray tends to have more of a steady but upward trend on Amazon, while HD DVD tends to have violent upward and downward swings. Again, these charts only show the Amazon sales rank and not necessarily the actual number of copies being sold.

The same thing happened the last time Amazon offered these deals.

That is some good analysis. This is not the first time. One feature of eProductWars I like is the "Who's on Top" time bar at the top of the page. You can see the black square has had its moment from time to time. I guess I was surprised by the sudden dramatic HD DVD uptake and rather dull looking blue line during a buy-a-thon. Again, this is only Amazon.

[Zyclone]

i know alot of people are'nt big fans of HD DVD but i think increased sales numbers for both formats is good because it atleast shows that people are interested in Hi Def movies. *jumps behind shield*

[Chuey]

Originally Posted by kamiller42

There has been a strange HD DVD surge at Amazon. I was checking things out at eProductWars, and it tells the same story. What is even stranger is how the blu line has barely budged in the past couple of days. Maybe most people bought there blu's outside Amazon. I know I did. We will just have to see how the week's numbers look.

In regards to 300, looks like HD DVD is falling. Smallville is still less than Blu. Ditto for Planet Earth.

Something is strange about the blu line, it should spike from the result of buy-a-thon but instead it did not move much. That does not look right to me. Do they count pre-order as a sales? I know they will not charge my credit card until the product ship. BTW I have to call Amazon today because one of my order disappear from the system, could this be a computer system problem?

[Manco]

Originally Posted by Zyclone

i know alot of people are'nt big fans of HD DVD but i think increased sales numbers for both formats is good because it atleast shows that people are interested in Hi Def movies. *jumps behind shield*

Mods: Please ban Zyclone for this unacceptable behavior of supporting HDM. *leaps into fox hole*

[Zyclone]

que benny hill theme and three stooges antics between Manco and me

[CptOzone]

I ordered 2 blu-rays on the 18th from Amazon:

Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2

Both were in stock.

Neither has yet shipped.

I used to have great success with Amazon, but anymore the service seems to be lacking. I guess I am going to have to find a new place to order from. I still have several titles on pre-order, so I will see how those are handled.

What online sources do others use for ordering blu-rays besides amazon?

[Joe Cain]

Foot-in-mouth time...

Is this the proper time to question the efficacy of the buy-a-thon tactic, if it has in fact had the opposite effect on sales figures from what was intended? BD still has an overall historical sales margin weighing heavily in its favor; there are more players, more titles, more studio support and more manufacturing support. Might we not be better off behaving like ordinary consumers, buying what we want when we want, and letting the market take care of itself? Because instead of giving everyone a reason to clap themselves on the back, it seems there's now just more reason for the faint of heart to worry.

If Amazon pre-orders don't count towards sales totals (and I'm not sure why they would, since no money has changed hands and there's nothing to keep the purchaser or the supplier from cancelling before fulfillment), then surely delayed orders wouldn't count until fulfilled---in which case the massive Warner distribution snafu for the week has certainly had an impact on the numbers as well. And if pre-orders DO count, I could easily believe the rabid HD-DVD fanboy contingent might consider placing a large volume of pre-orders they have no intention of honoring just to mess with an organized BD buy effort.

Ultimately it's the sales for the quarter that matter, right? It's still a long way to Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa.

Really, considering how strange the internal workings of Amazon seem at any given moment, is there any way to get a realistic assessment on the buy-a-thon until the Nielsen figures are released anyway?

[MOONPHASE]

i wonder if we have a spy on this website and found out about our buy-a-thon and leaked it out to hd-dvd fanboys?

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

Really, considering how strange the internal workings of Amazon seem at any given moment, is there any way to get a realistic assessment on the buy-a-thon until the Nielsen figures are released anyway?

While it is certainly pleasant and reassuring that most of the time the Amazon charts show BD with a healthy lead, those charts really count for nothing. It is only real data of the type shown in the Nielsen stats that counts.

[Titus]

Sorry guys,

Would you be able to let me in on where you find the Nielsen stats ?

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

i wonder if we have a spy on this website and found out about our buy-a-thon and leaked it out to hd-dvd fanboys?

Since this is a public forum I think words like "spy" and "leak" are essentially meaningless in this context.

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Titus

Sorry guys,

Would you be able to let me in on where you find the Nielsen stats ?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=8608

[Titus]

Cheers Patrick,

Appreciate it

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Titus

Cheers Patrick,

Appreciate it

My pleasure