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Tape is Dead!! Circut City phasing out VHS!!
Looks like VHS is going the way of the dodo. With the cheap prices for DVD players and for DVD movies, VHS sales have been soft as of late, and many places have been incorperating more DVD’s. Blockbuster video has also talked about reducing the size that VHS takes up in their store, moving twords carrying more DVD. Here is the article, from VideoBusiness.com. Long live DVD!!
Circuit City is dumping VHS
By Daniel FrankelJUNE 14 | Circuit City Stores has begun to “phase out” VHS product in its 622 stores around the country, becoming the first national mass merchant to go public with a specific intent to discontinue the aging format.
A Circuit City spokesman said there’s no timetable for when all the chain’s stores will carry only DVD, but calls to several Los Angeles-area Circuit City stores revealed the chain is winding down significantly on VHS product. One store employee said his location stopped selling VHS titles six months ago; another Southern California location got word from above this week to pull all remaining VHS product from their shelves and double the amount of DVD inventory they offer.
“Consumers want DVD, and we want to meet that demand,” said a Circuit City spokesman. “Since shelf space is limited, it’s coming at the expense of VHS.”
Two years ago, Circuit City stopped selling home appliances, opening an average of 3,000 square feet of merchandising room in its stores for such items as entertainment software.
Although the company doesn’t break out its sales of DVD, Circuit City officials said the entertainment software category–which includes music, movies and videogames–accounted for 11% of the chain’s first-quarter revenue of $3.05 billion. Total revenue was up 14% in the first quarter compared to the 2001 period.
Citing figures that suggest that only 35% of consumers own DVD players, as opposed to the 90% penetration of VHS players, Charles Van Horn, president of the International Recording Media Association, suggested Circuit City is “giving up too early” on the aging VHS format. “It’s leaving some profits on the table by turning over to DVD too quickly,” he said.
However, with Circuit City offering hit DVD titles as a way to augment sales of DVD players, Van Horn also acknowledged, “How much profit margin can be left in selling VCRs?”
A spokesman for Circuit City said that VHS will continue to be offered at CircuitCity.com through the company’s fulfillment deal with Alliance Entertainment Corp.
A spokeswoman for Best Buy wouldn’t comment on the decision by her company’s biggest competitor to discontinue VHS sales. However, she did say that Best Buy has “no immediate plans to not sell VHS titles.”
Effective with this issue, Circuit City has stopped supplying its VHS rankings for VB’s Top VHS Sellers chart.
Additional reporting by Cheryl Biggs
MTFBWY and HH!!
Jar Jar Binks
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