Weird thing happened to me at Best Buy today

[TLPL]

I went to Best Buy today to get my copy of The Princess and the Frog sound track. After I seached everywhere, I finally found it on the new release rack, Reg $14.99 and on sale for $11.99. I was so happy I found it, I told it to the check out. When the lady scan the bar code, it didn't it on the system. I was like that's weird, I must be the first one in this store to get it and they haven't got it on system yet or something. But then she went to her manager and talk to her. When she came back, she told me it is illegal to sell the CD to me unitl Dec 1......!!! I was like... what?? illegal?? Did I just do something wrong? I checked online for weeks waiting for the release date (yesterday) and got the CD off the rack and now I can't buy it??

 

[C&B Young]

It's not "illegal", but if Best Buy violates the street date it'll be fined by the record company. It appears the US release date was November 23rd, so either Canada has a different date, or Best Buy doesn't know what they're talking about...

 

[disneydreamgirl]

Similar situation happened to my BIL with the new U2 release. Best Buy had put it out on the shelf prior to the release date and then gave him a hassle when he went to pay for it. He didn't know it was out early. It was supposed to be held for him at Customer Service and when he went back to get it, it was nowhere to be found. We've both had sketchy service there in the last while, so it's not my first choice to shop at, that's for sure.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

A similar thing happened to me, however it was a different outcome. A few years ago when I went to Best Buy so I could purchase the NHL 08 game and asked if they had it in? Well when they showed it to me it was NHL 2K8, which is a different game and not the one I wanted. Well they the person came back and said it was to be released the next day, so I was wrong about it's release day. However they let me purchase it one day early. Now maybe they didn't care that it was one day, however I am just saying the experience I went through.

 

[Tiger926]

I ran the Electronics department at Zellers while in University, and Disney is very strict with their release dates. One time, at a Zellers in London, an employee put out the newest Disney release on VHS, and a Disney employee just happened to be auditing stores at the time and they were fined, a rather large fee for early release.

At my store, we didn't even put the merchandise out until the actual street date of release. They would stay in the stockroom, until I, or another employee set up the display. Stores can advertise future releases - Best Buy, Future Shop and Zellers do this all of the time in their flyers, but they are not allowed to actually display or sell until release date.

Over the past few years, Disney has made U.S. and Canada release dates the same - they used to be different though. I'm pretty sure that the CD has been released. All Disney merchandise is released on Tuesdays, so this week, would have been Nov. 24th and that was the actual release date, IIRC.

Good luck with getting your CD, Tiger

 

[disneyfreak89]

...she told me it is illegal to sell the CD to me unitl Dec 1......!!!

So why put it out on the shelves then for customers to buy?

 

[Tiger926]

So why put it out on the shelves then for customers to buy?

That's the whole point - as you can see from my post above, they aren't even allowed to display until release date. Disney attaches huge labels on the outside of their boxes with a "Do not display until...". Not sure why Best Buy can't seem to follow this rule? It is bad for customers, and it's bad as they are breaking Disney's release date procedures.

Tiger

 

[C&B Young]

I used to work at a record store (remember when there were record stores? ) and I would imagine Best Buy didn't get a huge shipment of this particular CD, as movie soundtracks generally don't move a lot of units. It may have been mixed in with other releases from this week. But that's what always bugged me about the record companies and distributors - if a CD isn't officially "released" until weeks from now, why even ship it to the store? We'd have some titles sitting in the back room a month before we were even allowed to sell it!

 

[glenpreece]

I had this happen at Futureshop once with the Destiny's Child #1's cd/dvd. The cd was supposed to be out but not the dual disc edition thing. So I went up and tried to buy it but they said it wasn't for sale. But aftr I explained that I don't live locally or drive etc they let me have it for the same price as the single disc edition.

 

[TimNDansMom]

This is interesting to read this because I had the same thing happen to me yesterday when I tried to buy Lady GaGa's The Fame Monster at Future Shop. There was an empty spot in the "new releases" section for the dvds for $14.99 and I asked if they had any more. The guy looked it up on their computer and discovered there were 15 in the store and found them in another section of the shelving with a sticker for $12.99, so I thought "great!" but when I went to pay for it, the computer wouldn't accept it and I was told the "street date" was for December 1 and I couldn't buy it! Why it was even out on the shelf is beyond me!!