Best Buy to Pull CDs

Megalith

Megalith

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Starting in July, Best Buy will no longer be selling CDs in its stores: that part of the business only generated about $40 million for the retailer last year. Target is also reducing CD sales with its new consignment-based policy, in which it will only pay for discs that are actually sold.

While it says it's planning to pull out CDs, Best Buy will continue to carry vinyl for the next two years, keeping a commitment it made to vendors. The vinyl will now be merchandised with the turntables, sources suggest. Meanwhile, sources say that Target has demanded to music suppliers that it wants to be sold on what amounts to a consignment basis.
 
Vinyl might outlive CDs, I mean as a market. Obviously vinyl records last longer than CDs as an item.
 
They are going to stop selling CDs for the same reason places don't sell floppy disks anymore. But just like the halting of floppy disk sales didn't stop computer programs from being sold, the halting of CD sales won't stop digital music from being sold. No one needs a cheap physical container for their digital content anymore.

I somewhat understand Best Buy's predicament though. Aside from a $5 Pandora subscription, I have not paid for music since the 20th century, and i'm sure i'm not the only one.
 
Not just that, but the amount of space that the CD racks take in stores isn't small... The revenue/margin per sqft for something else would obviously be higher.
 
No surprise
 

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GotNoRice said:
No one needs a cheap physical container for their digital content anymore.
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Whilst i agree and i archived my CD collection a long time ago it does mean that the only way to consume content is to have a personal computer with storage and downloadable files or via a mobile device with limited storage using streaming services. Of course non of this is new but personal computing, storage and file maintenance is even becoming fringe. What is relatively new and expanding in every aspect of life is the notion of ownership, meaning your permanently tethered to monthly subscription for life.. unless you close the account and lose your 50,000 track playlists you carefully manicured over the years.

I dunno, maybe the flip side is that it's good for the environment, in that hundreds of millions of plastic CD's are not produced and thrown away every year along with the associated cost of transportation, storage and retail shops needed to stock them. Not to mention the cost of additional hardware to play them which must be pretty much limited to cars these days. Also if your a minimalist your not going to need that storage space anymore :p
 
drescherjm said:
Limited competition in some markets.
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Used to be, you had Circuit City, Sears, BB, and several mom & pop stores for competition. At least where I live, only BB is left. Actually, there might be a Sears but I haven't been to one in so long, I can't even remember if it is still there :)
At least Home Depot and Lowes sell appliances. I can still shop around for those next time I need to buy one.
 
GNUse_the_force said:
Whilst i agree and i archived my CD collection a long time ago it does mean that the only way to consume content is to have a personal computer with storage and downloadable files or via a mobile device with limited storage using streaming services. Of course non of this is new but personal computing, storage and file maintenance is even becoming fringe. What is relatively new and expanding in every aspect of life is the notion of ownership, meaning your permanently tethered to monthly subscription for life.. unless you close the account and lose your 50,000 track playlists you carefully manicured over the years.

I dunno, maybe the flip side is that it's good for the environment, in that hundreds of millions of plastic CD's are not produced and thrown away every year along with the associated cost of transportation, storage and retail shops needed to stock them. Not to mention the cost of additional hardware to play them which must be pretty much limited to cars these days. Also if your a minimalist your not going to need that storage space anymore :p
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You do make a good point, but you could say the same thing during the rise of tape from vinyl, and CD from tape - you needed the device to play the new media. At least digital formats have adopted some cross-platform standards and they are not terribly taxing, so you can pick up a player for a few bucks, and play it on a myriad of devices. And it doesn't skip when you drive over railroad tracks.

Tangent to that is the fact that you never owned the music on a CD (or tape/vinyl/etc) anymore than you do digital distribution. All you owned was the physical media, you still just licensed the music.

The risk of a digital streaming system cutting off access is real. Or of losing a digital file and being unable to re-download later it is also real. So is the risk of scratching that CD and having it be useless.

You lose the music without re-paying for it in all cases.

I am a big believer that digital is better (if you lose a file, in most cases, your allowed to re-download it, whereas with CDs once it's scratched you had to re-buy it). Streaming only I'm ... still on the fence about. I like the ability to stream, and the technicals behind streaming, but a plan that has only access to a streaming library is ... maybe great for someone who loves the top 40, but not so great for people who like the deep tracks and esoteric artists that may not necessarily stay in an online cloud library.

With regard to environmentals - yeah maybe. Less petroleum derived plastic for sure, and fuel saved on shipping. But your also burning a lot more electricity - the player may use less watts than a CD player, but if you are streaming, there's a big power hungry network behind that access, especially mobile/cellular streaming. And all of the physical components that go into making electronics aren't necessarily any better or different that went into pressing CDs.
 
$40 million? Really?

Just about every CD section at any retailer always seems like a dead zone. I'm surprise there was any money at all.
 
Not surprising but a little bit sad that soon well be forced to not only be 100% digital but also almost exclusively stream. I can't stand the idea of streaming as the only viable option for media because it requires not only a 3rd party service medium to obtain the content, but that same service is monitored, metered, and controlled. Someone else decides for you how much you must pay for the ability to use or consume the actual content or product that you want. As opposed to say, just walking into the store and buying it yourself.
 
sort of sad.. the hardware (good stuff anyways) that plays CD can be amazing looking devices ... So many people just seem to have bluetooth speaker(s) or something now.. and playing spotify or whatever from their phones..

the headphone out on my 1992~ Sony ES CD changer is quite good and can drive my DT880 250ohms headphone pretty well

I have this hooked up to my PC ...

tan77es_ns344_2.jpg


I guess with a meh' as popular music is these days (lots of good music still being made ... but it isn't really in the mainstream ) it isn't surprising people has such meh' speakers / amps..etc stuff these days..

The Sony ES stack (C75ES cd changer not pictured) will shake the walls pretty good with these Yammy NS-344 speakers... and will sound dang good doing it.


record stores used to be a great place to go hang out meet interesting people see flyers for interesting shows.. deal with indifferent record store employees..

I realize their are online communities but it ain't the same ... oh well..
 
Disco_Stu_04 said:
I like BB. They price match Amazon.

Meaning I can get what I need in 15 minutes instead of two days, which had come in handy in a few occasions.

Besides, I don't want Amazon to be the only option, it's nice having a B&M store.
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More like one week. * Unless you pay $100 annually, then you can get comparable shipping speed to Newegg's, B&H, Walmart and other stores free shipping! For the added price of only $100. Yay.

Also the return policy is great, and sometimes it is nice to see how a mouse feels in person before buying.
 
No sweat. Amazon and Walmart have new CDs covered- both new songs and songs that go way back. Gave up on BB cd section a year or so ago when they dumped the $5 assortment bin that I was used to rummaging through when I went to look at a mouse or keyboard or get a boxed PC game.

Amazon has surprised me with what they have- meaning Amazon itself and not a 3rd party seller-- even stuff from 1980-1990 that is not a reissue or remaster. Even got a few imported discs from them.
 
Their stores are already almost empty... lets free up some more space for no one to shop.
 
What's a CD ????????? Sarcasm Alarm has been sounded LOL. Seriously that format has pretty much been dead for at least 10 years, and BB would be the last place i would go to for a CD or anything in general.
 
GotNoRice said:
They are going to stop selling CDs for the same reason places don't sell floppy disks anymore. But just like the halting of floppy disk sales didn't stop computer programs from being sold, the halting of CD sales won't stop digital music from being sold. No one needs a cheap physical container for their digital content anymore.

I somewhat understand Best Buy's predicament though. Aside from a $5 Pandora subscription, I have not paid for music since the 20th century, and i'm sure i'm not the only one.
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Up until some fashion forward persons starts talking about how CDs have all these advantages and it becomes hip to have CDs again.
 
I still listen to CDs exclusively in my car along with my own digital collection. But I don't really listen to modern popular music either. Mostly soundtracks. To much homogeny in the toxic hits driven music industry where if you don't have hit singles then you aren't successful. Where musicians are exploited at the benefit of their corporate overlords and are forced to tour just to make any actual money. (Which is either going to ruin your hearing or give you tinnitus or both).
 
And the reason Best Buy will go out of business is apparent from this action.

Cd sales are declining? Let’s stop selling them and lose all profits.

OR

If they were smart, they’d open a digital storefront to service the people who want the highest quality source material - and sell reasonably priced flac files. Even better, they’d link up with Spotify or something and give me an easy “oh you like this song, one click buy the flac files from Best Buy button”

I’d use it...
 
Danny Dawg said:
No sweat. Amazon and Walmart have new CDs covered- both new songs and songs that go way back. Gave up on BB cd section a year or so ago when they dumped the $5 assortment bin that I was used to rummaging through when I went to look at a mouse or keyboard or get a boxed PC game.

Amazon has surprised me with what they have- meaning Amazon itself and not a 3rd party seller-- even stuff from 1980-1990 that is not a reissue or remaster. Even got a few imported discs from them.
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Have you bought CDs from Amazon lately? Virtually everyone I order arrives damaged and has to be sent back (often more than once). Sometimes I just got to BBY and price match Amazon and call it a day

GotNoRice said:
They are going to stop selling CDs for the same reason places don't sell floppy disks anymore. But just like the halting of floppy disk sales didn't stop computer programs from being sold, the halting of CD sales won't stop digital music from being sold. No one needs a cheap physical container for their digital content anymore.
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It'd be a loss for me. I refuse to pay for files. CD->Flac. Streaming is also something I'm not going to pay for. If I'm streaming, I want a programmed station (see radioparadise.com) or satellite radio and neither of those costs as much as Apple Music or Spotify. The latter's free version is good for those occasions I want to see if I want to buy an album by an unknown (to me) artist.


Twisted Kidney said:
Vinyl might outlive CDs, I mean as a market. Obviously vinyl records last longer than CDs as an item.
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I don't follow this. How does vinyl outlive a CD? Vinyl generally starts getting pops and clicks in a relatively short period of time. I've got CDs from 1985 that still play like they're new. Technically all but 1 (maybe 2, but I'm only aware of 1) of my hundreds of CDs plays as new regardless of age. And unlike someone that buys a file, I've got a nice backup if something goes wrong and I don't have towrry about the retailer going out of business if I want to replace it.
 
DVDs and Blu-rays will be next, but it might be another 3-5 years before they're removed from the shelves. Amazon and other online stores are eating Best Buy for lunch.
 
dark_reign said:
DVDs and Blu-rays will be next, but it might be another 3-5 years before they're removed from the shelves. Amazon and other online stores are eating Best Buy for lunch.
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At least they can ship a movie without ruining the case. Mot of my CDs have been from Amazon for several years, but in the last few months, they've just tossed them in a padded envelope and it arrives cracked to hell (repeatedly). The last one only had to travel within Dallas, and they still couldn't get it to me in decent shape.
 
tetris42 said:
Piracy, all of it!
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Most people are satisfied with streaming and youtube as their source of music. I'm not. I like browsing cds in stores, but I wasn't able to buy anything recently, since what I wanted was never on the shelf. So all I could do is order from amazon anyway.
 
Didn't know they still sold CDs at BB. I go in there quite often for other things, Amazon price match is awesome, but never to get CDs. Ever since my bro turned me on to HD Tracks and high bit FLAC files, I never looked back. Although I will "endure" Spotify for it's convenience most of the times I listen to music.
 
How can it be good business to decide not to take $40 million per year?
 
Stimpy88 said:
How can it be good business to decide not to take $40 million per year?
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Because sales of physical media has been declining fast over the last few years. Music and video streaming services is where the big money is.
 
Is Best Buy in such great shape that it can dump a $40 million revenue stream?

Idiots run this country and more of the same run big business.
 
It saddens me that physical media is dying, and everything is moving towards digital streaming. I remember when DVDs first came out in 1997, and that was a jump from VHS not only in terms of resolution, but also multiple audio and subtitle tracks, plus the extra material such as trailers, behind the scenes, and commentary. For some of the DVDs, it was not just a film, it was a good film school. Some of the CDs I have are long out-of-print. But, for all of my CDs, I've ripped all of them to high-bitrate MP3s.

It should be noted that the last new car model to even include cassette tape as an option was the 2010 Lexus SC 430. Starting in 2016, some car models including the Toyota Scion, Honda Civic, and some GM models have omitted the CD player. Ford announced in 2017 that they were removing the CD in their cars. We all know how slow carmakers adapt to technological change (*cough* Toyota *cough* Android Auto *cough* CarPlay *COUGH*), but up to now, they were wary about removing the CD player for fear of alienating the older car buyer. Not anymore. A CD player in a car is more sophisticated than a regular CD player, and has about five pounds of parts that can go wrong in the harsh environment of a car during a harsh Minnesota winter or a hot Arizona summer. I know that when I was shopping for a car in early 2016, one of the factors was making sure that my car had a CD player. In 2014, when that car got rear-ended and totaled, my concern was not a CD player, but Bluetooth.

I know that some audio purists purists knock the compressed nature of MP3s and Bluetooth, but quite frankly, my car is not a concert hall. I would rather lose my smartphone rather than some rare CDs.
 
EchoWars said:
Is Best Buy in such great shape that it can dump a $40 million revenue stream?

Idiots run this country and more of the same run big business.
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$40 Million divided by 1,026 stores equals per store average of ~$38,986 of sales. At $10 per CD, or a little over 11 CDs per calendar day, or 75 CDs per week. Hopefully my guess of $10 per CD is fairly close, and accounts for the higher price of new releases, and the lower cost of older titles. But, if my numbers are correct, 75 CDs is around a goal for a daily basis, not a weekly basis.
 
Kongar said:
And the reason Best Buy will go out of business is apparent from this action.

Cd sales are declining? Let’s stop selling them and lose all profits.”...
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Stimpy88 said:
How can it be good business to decide not to take $40 million per year?
Click to expand...

EchoWars said:
Is Best Buy in such great shape that it can dump a $40 million revenue stream?

Idiots run this country and more of the same run big business.
Click to expand...


They're not 'giving up' $40 million. They are opening more physical space in their stores to sale items that make them MORE than $40 million. This is no different than IBM getting rid of their consumer computer business, or GE selling off their light bulb division. They are mature markets that have moved on to become a commodity. It is difficult to have a large profit margin on these types of items. So they unburden themselves of devoting so much floor space to a low profit product. They expand higher margin goods, such as high-end theater equipment or appliances, and make more money than they would have selling CD's.
 
maddude said:
They're not 'giving up' $40 million. They are opening more physical space in their stores to sale items that make them MORE than $40 million. This is no different than IBM getting rid of their consumer computer business, or GE selling off their light bulb division. They are mature markets that have moved on to become a commodity. It is difficult to have a large profit margin on these types of items. So they unburden themselves of devoting so much floor space to a low profit product. They expand higher margin goods, such as high-end theater equipment or appliances, and make more money than they would have selling CD's.
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Right idea, bad analogy. Best Buy likely does want to free up the space to sell something else that corporate believes will be more profitable, since there's only so much space in a store. Those are entire divisions, where the idea was to either cut losses or take an attractive buyout (with both also likely for significant tax reasons), unless there was zero ability to expand corporate office space and they needed more room for executives in the surviving divisions.

Another point about GE is that they recently sold their large home appliances division to Haier, which as far I know mainly made cheap, shoddy products for export so I'll not likely be buying another GE stove or fridge.
 
Exactly. All part of Best Buy's streamlining product offerings as part of their continuing efforts away from being a one stop shop for everything. A strategy which is paying off on their bottom line.

Kongar said:
And the reason Best Buy will go out of business is apparent from this action.
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Going out of business? Has anyone looked at their company statistics lately? Over $40 billion in revenue last year with $2.5 billion or so in operating cash. Little wonder the stock is up near 70% in the last year.
 
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Biggest downside is the drop in quality. You can only find commercial, uncompressed media (.FLAC) on a handful of websites. Big fan of what .MP3s did for music, but not totally losing higher quality content.
 
Kongar said:
And the reason Best Buy will go out of business is apparent from this action.

Cd sales are declining? Let’s stop selling them and lose all profits.

OR

If they were smart, they’d open a digital storefront to service the people who want the highest quality source material - and sell reasonably priced flac files. Even better, they’d link up with Spotify or something and give me an easy “oh you like this song, one click buy the flac files from Best Buy button”

I’d use it...
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Pretty sure they tried something similar to that already

Best Buy Buys Napster in 2008

And it didn't work out well for them

Best Buy sells Napster in 2011

Until streaming came around, no one has really been able to compete with Apple for digital music purchase. Now, Spotify is the 800lb gorilla, with partnerships with Microsoft and Sony. Apple and Amazon are pretty close to each other, but at a distant second place to Spotify. Spotify doesn't need a partner in order to facilitate direct digital sales - they already handle that themselves (and have since 2009).
 
Has to have been 5-10 years since I bought a CD. I still have a changer in my office with some old jazz cd's but I only turn that thing on once a year, if that.

I archived everything to my server a long long time ago, but honestly I barely even listen to that, it's all streaming now
 
Jim Kim said:
"only" $40 million, they probably make more off the candy at the checkouts. :happy:
But seriously I don't know how worst buy is still in business.
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As a former best buy hater, I'll answer this.

1) TVs. Saving $200 on a TV means jack when it shows up smashed to shit.
2) They actually price match the prices you are probably cross shopping now.
3) They offer attractive financing unlike in the past. Don't want apple, but want to spread the purchase over 12 months at 0% interest? Go to best buy.
4) They have a less stupid inventory now. For example, their laptop selection isn't just the lowest, or near lowest, speced options at market up prices set up to be confusing to the purchaser and be mixed up with the prices for the max optioned versions. There's actual variety and stocked skus with sufficient HD, RAM, etc.
5) They toned down the best buy warranty bullshit.
6) I haven't heard peep one about configuration charges or geek squad bullshit.

At least by me, they are a viable place to shop again for many things.
 
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