Meat, potatoes and a pinch of DVD

SUPERMARKET CHANNEL GUIDE: A look at what supermarkets are stocking

By Buzz McClain -- Video Business, 5/1/2006

DVDs, and VHS before them, have never really found a comfortable fit amid the meat and potato product lines of most of the nation’s supermarkets.

Few grocery store chains boast dedicated in-store video rental and sales departments. For the most part, DVDs are positioned as impulse items among the food and household products that make up the core lines of supermarkets.

Still, with 86,000 grocery stores in the U.S., those impulses can add up to significant sales.

“Every store for us is different” when it comes to DVD, allows Maria Brous, media and community relations director for the Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix Super Markets. “Some stores carry it by the customer service desk, some have it by the greeting card section, some have it in line in the middle of the store. It really depends on how customers shop the store.”

Not all 876 Publix carry DVDs. “We do it as an added benefit for our customers to pick up new releases,” Brous says of the Publix stores that do carry DVD.

DVDs usually turn up in grocery stores in end-cap displays or in pre-stocked, pre-stickered cardboard shippers. Those mobile displays are easy to move until the store manager finds a place that works, often in the area near the point-of-sale registers or in the aisle of magazine racks. Having the displays pre-stocked saves the grocery retailer the trouble of ordering and advertising titles.

Supermarket executives suggest price points less than $10 work best, and family and comedy movies are still the genres customers feel most comfortable picking up with the pork chops and laundry detergent.

UPCOMING TITLES

Buena Vista

Despite its countless airings on the Disney Channel, Buena Vista’s High School Musical is expecting plenty of enrollments from kids (street May 23, prebook now; $26.99). It’s the first made-for-TV movie to get its soundtrack to the No. 1 position on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Boys like the basketball scenes and girls like actor Zac Efron. Buena Vista’s Glory Road, based on a true story with Josh Lucas as a college basketball coach, slam-dunks on June 6 (prebook April 25; $29.99).

Fox

The Family Stone (street May 2, prebook now; $29.98) comes to retail from Fox with such bonuses as commentaries, deleted scenes and an Easter egg of the “family” singing Christmas carols. Undercover agent Hattie Mae Pierce, a.k.a. Big Momma, saves the country again in Fox’s Big Momma’s House 2 (street May 9, prebook now; $29.98). Cheaper By the Dozen 2 (street May 23, prebook April 26; $29.98) wasn’t cheap at the box office, with $83 million worth of tickets sold. The DVD includes Fox Channel’s casting featurette among other extras. Fox’s mermaid-out-of-water tweener comedy Aquamarine will make a splash on June 13 (prebook May 17; $29.98).

Lionsgate

Tyler Perry’s $63 million box-office surprise hit Madea’s Family Reunion found an audience in theaters. Expect even more when Lionsgate releases the movie on DVD June 27 (prebook June 7; $28.98).

Paramount

Paramount’s Last Holiday (street May 2, prebook now; $29.95) features Queen Latifah in the role played by Alec Guinness in the 1950 original. Needless to say, the story has gone through a few changes. The $64 million success of Paramount’s Failure to Launch (street June 27, prebook May 16; $29.95) launched Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker into even bigger orbits.

Sony

Steve Martin’s homage to The Pink Panther, with Beyonce Knowles as Inspector Clouseau’s love interest, hits the streets June 13 (prebook May 11; $28.95) from Sony.

Weinstein/Genius

The computer-generated update of “Little Red Riding Hood,” Hookwinked (street May 2, prebook now; $29.95), gathered $52 million during its theatrical run. It’s coming from Weinstein/Genius along with the G-rated, CG-animated Doogal (street May 16, prebook now; $28.95), which features the voices of Jimmy Fallon and Jon Stewart.

Other Supermarket Channel Guide stories:
Grocers gab about DVD

Markets get dedicated to category

DVD kiosks offer one-stop shopping

Standing out at the supermarket

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