the black friday retail observations thread

[mov9384ie]

although there's a sticky thread for retail stories, I thought we could have a dedicated thread for today since black friday is the single biggest shopping day of the year

so let everyone know your observations: what you saw in shopping carts lined up for checkout, how fast were people picking up movies from either format, conversations you overheard discussing either format, advice employees were giving customers, if you happen to check back at a store hours later what were the shelves like, etc

please include the store name, city, state

[Blubaru]

I went to two different stores this morning(CC & BB). Both had big crowds and both had good deals on HD-DVD and Blu-ray players. Best Buy had the better deals on the players though.

Both had two big stacks of players in the back that seems to be completely untouched. From what I can tell not one Blu-ray or HD-DVD player had been taken. I saw a 2 or 3 people browsing the HD-DVD section and a few people looking at the Blu-ray section. They didn’t seem to have any of the Die hard collections left but they had plenty of the Live free or die hards in stock.

I did notice that the Blu-ray section has grown considerably while the HD-DVD section has remained the same.

I was hoping that there would be more interest in the players but I guess this type of shopper is simply not interested.

[Mr. Joshua]

Most people out there are looking for cheap audio/video gear. The majority of people just rent movies or just by DVD and watch in 4:3 aspect ratio because they lose picture with the letterbox bars on their 4:3 aspect ratio CRT TV LOL... Most people are uneducated in audio/video. Only us audio/videophiles understand quality.

[oldmike]

LOTS of TVs and audio set ups selling at my best buy i got a TV for my bed room:P
they did have a guy turning all the ppl that were geting the DVD player they had on sale that no it cant play HD movies and they need a Blu-ray player

[atomik kinder]

Okay, well this doesn't really have to do with sales, but because I went out this morning looking, I will tell you what I saw. The Target that I normally go to was wiped out of Live Free or Die hard BD. They had a few of the other singles. Hairspray only had one copy left. Oceans 13 had just a couple BD copies left but probably 10 copies of the HD DVD left. Then I checked out Super Target. They don't seem to have the same selection as all the regular Target stores. They have only four rows of BDs to three rows of HD DVDs, they never expanded, but they have the new BD endcap too. They do not put their BDs with their other DVDs so I had to go to the back section of the videos, by the books and see. They had tons of copies of LForDH and Hairspray. I don't know if it is a good idea to put them all back there, I don't know why they don't put them in the regular BD section. It makes it look like they don't even have them. Then again, if they had so many copies, they must be selling some or they would not have ordered them.

[Steverhcp02]

Just got back from BB, Target and walmart.

Target....same crap. 4 columns of BD 2 of HD DVD, no endcap.....Bd's picked over and select HD DVD were as well.

BB.....my BB insists on giving equal SHELF SPACE...however, they have one rack and a half for each with all the BD's sidways and all the HD DVD facing out.....the illusion of equal shelf space is there, but id gues they stock a 4:1 ratio of BD to HD DVD.

Walmart. I went to pick up some furniture, desks, end tables.....they had their normal new release section of about 3:1 BD......and i ventured around the side and noticed a nice little cardboard display for BD. In it were all of the titles that our informat said would be on sale for $15. It was nice looking, resembled the CE3K color scheme. I snagged Reservoir dogs and Layer Cake for $30...and then blind buy Rescue Dawn which they had for $30.