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Wal-Mart Closes Online Movie Download Service

Posted by Zonk on from the hard-to-fight-the-flix dept.

eldavojohn writes "A year after opening its movie download service, Wal-Mart has abandoned the endeavor. They claim this is a result of HP's decision to stop supporting its video download store software. The article also notes that, unlike iTunes, Wal-Mart offered variable pricing which attracted a lot of studios. 'The world's largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc. Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.' Is this evidence of the strength of unified pricing in media downloads or just another company being squished by the giant Netflix & Apple?"

7 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Wal-Mart "squished"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wal-Mart "squished"? I'd like to see that honestly.

  2. Cost and lack of extras the reason. by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never used the service myself, but apparently, the movies cost $20 each. For that price you could back up to DVD three times, but not to a format that played in a DVD player. Also, you didn't get the extras that typically come on a DVD. So you paid more money, for less content, that could be used in less places. And they wonder why it wasn't successful?

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    1. Re:Cost and lack of extras the reason. by Facetious · · Score: 4, Funny

      I simply don't have much free time... ...says the guy posting to /. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
      --
      Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
  3. Squished? by cheebie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do they actually think Netflix squished something run by Walmart?

    That's like saying the local burger joint is going to crush McDonalds! Sure, Netflix is a big company, but they're nothing compared to the Wally-world behemoth.

    1. Re:Squished? by timster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure they did. In this case, it wasn't even hard.

      Sometimes a big company will try some new endeavor to much fanfare, but not bother to try very hard, assuming somehow that they will win because they are big. When that happens it's easy to take them out. Wal-Mart had no plan here; they just thought selling some videos at terms dictated by the studios might get them some cash. If they ran their retail stores that way, those would fail too, but they put serious effort into their retail stores.

      --
      I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
    2. Re:Squished? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Walmart is large, but it is horribly inefficient"

      I hate my local Walmart as much as the next guy. And individual stores may be inefficient or suck. But the corporation as a whole is extremely efficient. I work in the trucking industry. Walmart is one of the companies that can afford to spend $1000 on an experimental MPG increaser. Whether it be APUs for the trucks, side skirts for the trailers, single tire rears, etc. If engine company X can provide .1 MPG extra per year on average, that's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for Walmart.

      They forced use of APUs on ALL trucks after doing a trial run. At a trucking conference they presented their savings broke even at 16 months. Now a ton of other companies are following their lead.

      I thought I read on /. that they're going to RFID. As soon as Walmart forces RFID, maybe we'll see it everywhere. UPC is nice but old.

      I don't have a lot of nice things to say about walmart, but that they're inefficient isn't one of them.

  4. Wal-mart does what it does by beckerist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wal-mart is successful because it has a very efficient method of physical distribution. This has no baring on their success in digital distribution.