Best Buy has begun to marginalise minidisc, so MD's heyday with the
country's #1 consumer electronics retailer is long gone. I work as a
merchandiser for one of the chain's special SOP2 concept stores, and I've
been very disappointed so far with what has happened to minidisc in our
store remodel. We still have an MD portable section, but it is in the music
department, and we haven't yet even gotten a new fixture for it. (Since the
remodel isn't 100% complete, we may still get one, but the outlook isn't
good.) As for the component decks, they've been placed with the other
digital recording decks in the new Home Theatre department, and so far, we
haven't gotten in any new signage spotlighting MD. I haven't seen our MD
shelf system for the last two weeks, so it might have been moved to the
shelf systems area in the music department.
As for MP3, Best Buy is heavily promoting it in the computer department,
devoting a full twelve feet to the stupid format in our new SOP2 stores. I
believe that's overkill, but obviously someone at corporate thinks that it's
more than just a passing fad. Best Buy isn't hedging its bets, however, on
the viability of Napster and the continued popularity of MP3 -- my store has
installed several CD-burning kiosks that will be going online soon. Once
they do, one will be able to burn songs in our stores and pay for each one,
individually. Best Buy may yet make honest people out of us....
Daryl
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