Sean and I went to Best Buy today to take a look at voice recorders, and I was shocked to find that (a) their prices are competitive with Amazon.com and (b) that their music selection is laughably skimpy and has been relegated to the back of the store.
I guess the fact that I’m just now noticing this says something about how my music purchasing habits have changed. I used to pop into a Best Buy almost weekly to grab a new CD. Now I don’t even bother shopping there because my taste has become too eclectic. So I either order discs from Amazon or I download music from iTunes.
So I’m by no means a typical music consumer, i.e. the sort that retail chains make money off of. I used to be, but I grew out of it. So what has changed about the core consumer, the impulse buyer? Is he disappearing? Is he on peer-to-peer sites? Or is it all iTunes?
I seriously doubt Best Buy, Borders, WalMart, and etc. would decrease their inventories and move them to the back of the store if they were making much money on CD sales.
How long will it be before the same thing happens with movies?
Update – So, Best Buy’s prices weren’t as competitive with Amazon’s as I thought: Best Buy is about 50% higher. I wrote down the price for the wrong model. Of course, by the time I went back to buy my Olympus D40 voice recorder, having it shipped from Amazon was no longer an option.
I think you might actually be a typical music consumer, and that is exactly why Best Buy has their five CDs shoved to the back of the store. I haven’t bought a physical CD since 1994. Well, not really, but it’s been a long time. It’s just not worth it, and we all know why, because we all do it. I can shop in my underwear(and often do), burn the music to disc if I need to, put it on my iPod, back it up on a couple different hard drives, the works. And unless I am a huge audiophile, I’m not concerned about the slight loss of quality from CD to MPwhatever. Heck, now Pandora is even taking over as my preferred listening tool, just for the shear variety (but not too much!!).
Also, to answer your last question, I predict 3 1/2 years until buying movies is as passe as buying CDs is now.