Amazon.com Weighs In On Toshiba
February 19, 2008

With HD DVD flying the white flag this week, it'll be fascinating to watch how retailers deal with any existing software or hardware in the format. I think that retailers saw the writing on the wall after Warner embraced Blu-ray exclusively. But geez, I don't know if anyone could have predicted how fast the dominoes would fall.  Netflix, Best Buy, Walmart, Toshiba, Universal- that all happened within days of each other! But even if Toshiba is stopping production in March on its players, and Universal is soon going Blu-ray, there are still some lingering HD DVD items on shelves. How will retailers deal?
Amazon.com took some initiative on Tuesday and quickly put up a statement about HD DVD on its main movie page. Also, there are links to Amazon.com staffers blogging to the news as well.
Maddeningly, however, I couldn't tell from its notices how HD DVD's death will immediately impact Amazon.com's merchandising of in-stock HD DVD products. Let me know if you can read between the lines better than me.  
But the overall gist that I got is that Amazon.com is pleading with customers to buy HD DVD at their own risk. The retailer is almost throwing up its hands, yelling, 'Don't Blame Us!' when your friend starts teasing you about that HD DVD player you bought over Black Friday. Or something to that effect.
Amazon.com does say it will be updating its High-Def 101 page in the next few days with the latest info on the high-def player landscape. That may provide further clues to its merchandising strategies.
I wonder if online retailers would continue to offer HD DVD, even if it's as obscure as VHS is today. Amazon.com still offers VHS, even though the brick-and-mortars haven't had sizeable sections in some time. The retailer enjoys the shelf-free ability to offer a vast variety of things. But HD DVD seems to have been counted out much quicker than VHS became replaced by DVD. So it could be totally reasonable to see Amazon.com soon offer little selection of HD DVD titles, if at all.
UPDATE:
Well, that was quick. Amazon.com has come out in formal support of Blu-ray, and will soon change its previous even-stevens format merchandising strategies. Look for its High Def 101 section to essentially become a crash-course on Blu-ray exclusively, said music and movies VP Peter Faricy. Also there could be Amazon.com rebates available to help HD DVD adopting folks get some sort of site discount on making the switch to Blu-ray. That, Faricy said, is up for discussion, but Amazon.com is trying to help out its customers as best they can.

Posted by Susanne Ault on February 19, 2008 | Comments (0)