Entertainment products typically have a release date and stores can be penalized for breaking this and selling early. What’s the benefit of making stores hold an item until a particular day?
Back when I was managing a video store, it was said that it was to give everyone - from the big guys like us to the little mom-n-pops, “fair shot” at having their stuff in stock before the masses descended on the stores to buy or rent. Generally speaking, the larger your order, the earlier your ship date, and so Blockbuster and Wal-Mart often get their stock a couple of weeks before the release date. If they put it out when they got it, no one, the theory goes, would wait to buy it at Sally’s View and Brew two weeks later.
Now why Blockbuster or Wal-Mart or Viacom or Paramount would give two shits about being “fair” was never explained to me. Goodness knows we didn’t worry about fairness when it came to depth of title stock or exclusive releases. But we did, religiously, observe street date, because if we didn’t, the distributors would stop sending us stuff early, the threat went. Maybe it was just the distributors way of trying to prevent an effective monopoly.
If your store released the product a day early, you could charge a premium for all the fans who wanted it right away. So then the inevitable result is a release-date war, where every store puts the item on the shelves as soon as they get it. Then, whoever can afford to pay the distributor more can get the item earlier than the smaller stores, and they lose business.
You might argue that this is perfectly fair free-market competition, but record stores going out of business is bad news for the distributors, so they make these rules in the hope of making competition a little less fierce.
Another reason for a fixed release date is that it allows publishers/producers to coordinate marketing efforts for that date. For a recent example, consider the release of the seventh Harry Potter book, which was a major media event.
I would think it also removes any discrepencies in when the DVDs, CDs etc. are delivered to the stores. If one store happened to get it’s delivery on Thursday and another on Friday it would give one of them a leg up. I can imagine the distributor wants to just keep everything consistent so no one feels cheated.
Many good answers of things that I’d never considered before. Thanks.
I don’t think it’s a fairness thing at all. Looking at it from all three sides (consumer, retailer, author), I see these reasons:
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It builds anticipation and creates news. “WOW! Did you see the line for that new book this morning?”
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If there’s a clearly posted and advertised release date, then consumers don’t have to keep calling to see if the store has the product yet, and retailers don’t have to respond, “not yet – check back tomorrow.” They can just say, “It’s coming out next Tuesday.” Answer the question once per person, not every stinkin’ day.
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Release dates allow for planned media campaigns. If the product is hitting the streets on the 25th, then an intense ad campaign can run for a week from the 19th to 25th. If it’s coming out “sometime next month” or if different stores have different release dates, the media campaign is diffused over a longer period of time. Given a fixed budget, this means less penetration right before release.
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Release dates allow stores to plan events. Given the most extreme example, my store set up a Harry Potter #7 release party. It was organized far enough in advance that we could promote the date even in monthly periodicals. UPS knew it was coming. I had a window display designed in advance. The standup display with countdown (“days remaining”) sign built anticipation.
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Release dates allow distribution centers to plan ahead. Even when you’re not dealing with a Harry Potter book, shipping companies need advance notice when you’re going to be sending out 100,000 copies of something.