Best Buy cuts back anime selection.

Best Buy will be changing their anime strategy to focus on stores where anime has performed well historically. These stores will continue to carry a full selection of anime titles, while other stores will cut their selection to only the top selling anime.

The selection will be cut at approximately 800 stores out of Best Buy's just over 1,000 (1,006 as of February 19) stores in the USA. Of these, 461 stores will carry only the top-20 titles.

According to ICv2 and confirmed by ANN's sources, the stores where anime is being cut account for only a very small percentage (less than 20%) of overall anime sales at Best Buy. The remaining 540 stores will carry over 100 anime skus with the top 200 of those stores continuing to carry a large selection similar to what they currently carry.

Best Buy will divide their catalog into A-List titles, B-List titles and C-List titles, based on sales performance. The A-List anime titles will be the top-20 performing anime and will be carried in all Best Buy locations. The B-List titles will be carried in 500 stores nationwide, and the C-List titles will only be carried in the top 200 stores nationwide.

You can check out the full article here.

...Damn. *disappears*

Totally. Fucking. Gay.

I have never understood the rationale behind shit like this. I mean, is it actually costing the store money to stock titles that don't sell as fast? Does it somehow cut into profits to keep these titles on the shelf space that they already have? Are they looking to expand other sections across the board? What the hell for?

*Impotent fanboy rage!*

Actually, yes it does hurt the store's profits.

If they see anime as a good source of income and allow it a sufficient amount of space on the shelves, they expect to have it sell well. If the anime does not sell than the space is just a profitless advertisement. They could use that space for other things in their store which they know sell excellently. It really is all about the business with them. They see everything in the store as a piece of business waiting to become profit. Which is why they will try and get you to buy more than you want. Sure they can help you get some good electronics or an entertaining movie and series, but business without profit is pointless to them. So the only logical reason for Best Buy is to remove any failing business and replace it with successful items.

I get my anime from Rightstuf.com, so it really doesn't hurt me that much. I'm sure though that it will affect others.

...I know BestBuy is a business. I get that.

What I'm wondering is what they actually need all that space for? Is this just the solution to a problem that doesn't affect our store? Are we just caught in the crossfire?

Eh!?