Physical media such as Blu-ray discs have gotten more expensive since the top U.S. retailer Best Buy made its decision to stop selling them.
That’s according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, which said in a recent report that the price of Blu-rays and DVDs has risen by almost 29% from the same time one year earlier.
It noted that prices of physical media jumped in March, by around 14% across all retailers it tracks. Things have calmed down now, somewhat, but prices are still creeping up. In April for instance, prices rose by 2%. In addition, prices of second hand Blu-rays and DVDs are also said to be rising, the Bureau of Labor revealed.
So why are physical media disk prices going up? Simple, it’s all about supply and demand. Both Blu-rays and DVDs are being increasingly sought after, the Bureau says, but at the same time, they are becoming much more difficult to find.
The demand for physical media comes at a time when the weakness of the video streaming services model are becoming more apparent to consumers. Recently, the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ all increased their subscription prices, and that is becoming a problem for cash-strapped consumers, because these days it’s virtually impossible to find all of your favorite films and shows offered on a single platform. As such, many people have to subscribe to more than one streamer. Furthermore, many movies and TV shows are delisted from those streaming platforms, which means the only way to watch it is by buying a physical copy.
This is why the Bureau says more consumers are buying up physical media than before, despite many forecasts that the market will eventually be replaced entirely by streaming. And with the likes of Best Buy no longer selling Blu-rays, it gets harder to find these hard copies, which means prices are going up.
Blu-rays and DVDs are becoming a seller’s market for the few outlets that continue to sell them. Best Buy was previously one of the go-to places to snap up physical media, but that changed when the retailer exited the market for good earlier this year.
Another retailer, Target, recently announced that it will no longer sell Blu-rays and DVDs in its physical stores, so instead consumers are forced to buy them online. FlatPanels HD speculates that this decision may result in Target selling more Blu-rays and UHD Blu-Rays than cheap and cheerful DVDs, which are often impulse buys made by people as they browse through products in-store, further pushing up the price.
It’s notable that physical media sales prices were on the rise even before Best Buy opted to exit the market.
