In stock vs out of stock statistics for Best Buy

[darinp2]

I decided that it would be interesting to check the Best Buy website to see how many Best Buy stores had specific high definition players in stock or out of stock. This is partially because I want to know whether either side can blame being manufacturing constrained for their sales and figured this might be a way to get some indication there. Rob Enderle showed how little he understands about this stuff just recently by claiming that Warner going to HD DVD exclusively wouldn't help the HD DVD side sell more players, because the cheap players were all selling out already (they were manufacturing constrained). Anybody who has seen the stacks of HD-A3s and XBOX360 add-ons around that didn't sell out would know different, so not sure why he claimed that other than that is what he wants to be true (even if it isn't).

Anyway, I wanted to get some cross section of the country and found before that I could get zip codes to work that ended in 0011, for every first digit from 1 to 9 (so 10011, 20011, ..., 90011). Since the Best Buy site lists 6 stores for each zip code, this gave me the information for 54 stores. I'm not claiming Best Buy's site is 100% accurate as far as whether stores have an item, but hopefully it is as least close and the pattern reflects reality. I wanted to do this before they get restocked for the day after Christmas.

Here is the short version of what I found when checking 5 different items for those 54 stores. This is the number and percentage of those 54 stores that show "Unavailable" for an item (higher numbers mean less stores have stock).

HD-A3:          10 or 19%
HD-A30:         6 or 11%
XBOX360 add-on: 0 or 0%
BDP-S300:       30 or 56%
BD-P1400:       34 or 63%

Or to put it as the percentage of those stores which have the item in stock:

HD-A3:          81%
HD-A30:         89%
XBOX360 add-on: 100%
BDP-S300:       44%
BD-P1400:       37%

As people can see, Best Buy's information doesn't support claims that Toshiba couldn't make enough HD DVD players for the demand (even though the prices were $199 for the A3 and $249 for the A30 the couple of days before Christmas), and if anything, would seem to indicate that it was the main Blu-ray players which sold out more often. As people can tell, out of the 54 stores, every single one of them shows XBOX360 add-ons in stock. Also, I realize it is possible that some stores never carried the Samsung BD-P1400 or BDP-S300, but around my area all the Best Buy's I've visited have carried both of them and I suspect that Best Buy was selling those at all these stores.

If any HD DVD fans try to tell you that it was the HD DVD players that sold out more this holiday season and sales figures would have been way higher except that they couldn't make enough, please ask them to back it up with something, since Best Buy sure seems to have a lot of stores that ended up with unsold stock as they closed for Christmas, even at the $199 pricing, but less than half of them had the Sony BDP-S300 available as they closed for Christmas, and same for the Samsung BD-P1400, at $299 for each.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm including a picture of a stack of XBOX360 add-ons at the Bellevue, WA Best Buy (the one closest to Microsoft) taken around 2 pm on Christmas Eve (Best Buy only had 3 more hours before closing for the holiday). By my count there were 172 of the add-ons in this stack.

If anybody wants more detailed information about how many of the Best Buys for each zip code showed "Unavailable" for an item, I can provide that.

--Darin