New DVD’s are generally released on Tuesday. Obviously, they’re not being delivered Tuesday morning. I’ve occasionally seen stores announcing they’ll put an eagerly anticipated movie on sale at the stroke of midnight. So when do the movies actually get delivered to the stores?
The reason I’m asking is Silver Linings Playbook is due to be released next Tuesday. But I saw one store that had copies for sale today (Thursday). I know they’re not supposed to sell the movie early but I would have thought it wasn’t even possible to sell the movie this early.
Do stores really get deliveries of new releases five days before the official release date?
I used to be the receiving manager for Borders - we’d get shipments sometimes 2 weeks before the sale date and then stock them on shelves in the supply cage divided by actual release date. Occasionally some idiot would put things on the floor early (a big no-no that could get your store fined), which is likely what happened at the store you visited.
Yep, when I worked at a video store we’d get them on the Friday prior to release on Tuesday. One time I went across the street to the grocery store where they were selling Finding Nemo early and played pretend lawyer until the manager came out and removed the DVD display.
Hmmm. The store I saw selling Silver Linings Playbook was also a grocery store. Maybe they figure they’re not as likely to be noticed if they cheat on an early release.
What surprises me is that, even if they put it out accidentally, it still would ring up. Aren’t UPC codes now universal, instead of a store-by-store thing?
I was going to say you might had seen just an empty display box that they sell as a pre-order nowdays. (Unlikely since you said it was a grocery store.) I saw a couple guys at a walmart last month debating wether to buy Django Unchained to take home and watch. I didn’t have the heart to tell them they were just holding an empty pre- order box.
No, this was definitely the actual movie. I checked to make sure because I was wondering that myself.
On a related note, I often buy movies at pawn shops. I was at one last month and they had some of those WalMart pre-order boxes on their shelf. I asked if they had the movies and found out they hadn’t known the boxes were empty. I told them how the pre-order thing worked. Apparently some guy had brought them in and sold them to the pawn shop which thought the movies were inside.
I sensed that guy would regret it if he ever went back to that pawn shop.
I can’t believe any store would be so dumb as to buy a DVD/BR case without first opening it up. Not just to make sure the disc is there, but also to make sure it’s not scratched to hell.
Not saying I think you’re lying, just wow, what kinda dummy is running that store sort of amazement.
These were still in the sealed packages, which are easier to sell than used movies. So opening them to check on them would reduce their value. Of course in this particular case, those sealed packages were empty.