avatar rental retail rant

Well maybe not so much a rant but a highly biased version of the facts.

Just kidding.

Day 100 by estherhase on flickr

100 copies of Avatar will be on order soon.

Yes, 100 copies.

Why 100 copies?  Well besides the obvious insane hold queue that James Cameron’s technically amazing film will generate, let’s talk about something not so obvious–the Rental v. Retail strategy being employed by Fox and other companies.

Companies  started producing two editions of DVDs in 2009.  Typically rental editions contain the theatrical version of the film and nothing more.  Also the rental edition is usually released for a window of time and then goes out of print. The retail edition contains those  DVD extras that most of us never watch, and is available until demand dries up and the film goes out of print.

I’ve been buying the retail edition in the past because I wanted to be able to purchase the additional copies in the future to meet hold queues, or as replacements due to damage or loss.  If I’d purchased the rental edition first then after it went out of print I’d be forced to buy the retail edition anyway, and we’d end  up with two records in the catalog.  Our customers are not usually well served by these additional records in the catalog because they don’t often look at the number of available copies in the other record.  Consequently, they’ll place a hold on an title that has only a few copies left while directly below is another record with 22 copies and no holds.

With Avatar though, I’ve chosen to buy the rental edition for several  reasons.

1. The rental and retail versions both contain only the theatrical version of the film and no DVD extras.
2. Both editions are available for only 60 days and then will be pulled from the market.  Another edition will be released in November with DVD extras.
3. Our DVD vendor can only guarantee order fulfillment on the rental edition.
4. The rental edition is $4.00 cheaper.

Since both versions are the same picking the rental edition is a no brainer.  Read more about rental and retail DVDs

Midwest Tapes News and Views:  Avatar announced for April Release in Rental and Retail editions.

posting by jim

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