Circuit City tries to pump up Blu-ray disc sales with $14.99 pricing
Posted by: in Marketing and AdvertisingFiled under: Marketing and advertising, Best Purchase (BBY), Circuit City Stores (CC)
Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) is joining competitor Best Purchase Stores, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) in trying to pump up the slumbering Blu-ray disc format by introducing many titles at up to half off. The latest promo puts many Blu-ray movie titles at $14.99, a discount figure of up to 40%. The main reason: Blu-ray movie titles aren’t exactly flying off the shelves these days, regardless of the high-definition resolution that fanatics claim make movies way more enjoyable.
Last week, I wrote about Best Buy’s Blu-ray disc player price drop from $399.99 to $349.99, which was a complete non-event. The hardware manufacturers must _MUST_ get Blu-ray hardware players down to under $200 or Blu-ray will never become mainstream. Of course, the manufacturers and retailers are trying to milk the early period with profits, which is a standard exercise. Promoting Blu-ray motion picture titles to $15 (and even $20) is a great way to drum up interest in the format. Circuit City’s move here, while great, still won’t make up for the fact that the hardware is still too high-priced for mass appeal.
Toshiba (OTC: TOSBF), the company that lost out in the high-definition disc format war to Sony Corp.’s (NYSE: SNE) Blu-ray, even rolled out a new upconverting standard DVD player so that consumers could watch existing DVDs in near-HD format if they didn’t want to invest in Blu-ray’s high-priced hardware prices just yet. So far, the retailers championing the Blu-ray format are promoting the format well, but it will need much more before becoming a mass format like DVD has become. Is standard DVD good enough for you? Sound off in comments below and let me know.
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