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Amazon Walmart Target Lower Dvd Prices

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by Matt Haber
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Nov 06 2009 8:06am EDT

Retail War II: Discount DVDs

There's a new front in the online sales war Amazon, Target, and Walmart are waging for consumers' holiday gift dollars: DVDs.

After weeks of undercutting one another on select hardcover book prices—which has infuriated independent booksellers and led to partial rationing—the big online retailers are now dropping prices on some DVDs to as low as $9.99, according to the Wall Street Journal's Miguel Bustillo and Ann Zimmerman.

Pricing DVDs that low pretty much ensures losses by the retailers, but that doesn't seem to matter to them. It may not matter to consumers, either, since DVD sales have steadily declined since 2004, as The Wrap's Daniel Frankel noted earlier this week.

The Los Angeles Times' Ben Fritz throws in another variable to the discussion of DVD sales: Those ubiquitous Red Box DVD kiosks that are popping up at supermarkets and pharmacies. Fritz reports that there are nearly 21,000 of them nationwide—and more coming soon. Instead of buying disks and building a home library, consumers are renting them for $1-a-night: Red Box has reported a revenue growth of 90 percent in the third quarter with operating income of $34.5 million.

Matt Haber is the media blogger for Portfolio.com.

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