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In the sell-through DVD business, new release titles are assigned a "street date" (first date available for retail purchase), which is determined by the title's vendor. Consumers have grown accustomed to "New Release Tuesdays," as Tuesday is almost always the street date for new titles. With the growth of sell-through DVD advertising, particularly in print media, consumers are frequently aware of the street date of DVD releases.
Street date represents 30-50% of first week sales of a new release title. The greatest opportunity to maximize new release sales exists by having titles in stock on street date. Late arrivals translate into lost sales, since consumers excited about a new release title will buy that title wherever it is available. The number of titles not available on street date, and the relative importance of those titles to the consumer, varies.
The approach for this project was to review the in-store arrival date of new release titles relative to each title's street date. We found that 23% of new release titles arrived at the stores on or after street date, qualifying them as late. This data was further analyzed by shipping source, as some titles are shipped directly from a vendor's manufacturing facility to the retail store locations in California, while others are routed through the parent company's warehouse in Illinois. The shipping source is determined by the parent company's agreement with each vendor and may be influenced by cost deals or other factors. The data was also analyzed by the performance of individual vendors, independent of shipping source.
The findings showed that a small number of vendors, responsible for 36% of our new release titles, were also responsible for 50% of our late new release arrivals. Most of these vendors ship product directly to the store locations, although the Illinois-shipping vendors on the list had on-time records that were worse than the group average. This project provides recommendations for improving performance by vendor.
The expectation is the actions identified will yield a 50% reduction in the number of late-arriving new release titles. If the provided recommendations result in the intended improvement, implementation will occur vendor-wide. The identified improvement provided annual revenues in the six-figure range.
To see the full report on the identified opportunities for improvement of promise date stock positions, please contact sales at (630) 775-3300.
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