Target Is Stocking Less Physical Media: Here’s How It Can Do More

Target recently clarified some details on its pullback from physical media, IGN reported, and while it’s not as comprehensive a retreat from the category as one Twitter account had initially reported, it will greatly reduce the number of physical films (not games) Target keeps on the store shelf. While the chain will continue to sell thousands of discs online, it’s paring down its in-store selection, focusing on new releases and offering more during the Christmas and Black Friday season, when people are more likely to buy movies.

Before getting into how Target
Target
could do physical media better, even as it cuts down its assortment, I should say that I firmly believe that the world is worse for everybody when there is less physical media out there. Last year I lamented Netflix
Netflix
killing its pioneering disc-by-mail rental service, as even in its waning years I sang the service’s praises. Despite Netflix DVD falling into increasing obscurity after the 2011 announcement of plans to eventually sunset the service, I never wavered in my stance that its selection and price made it an unparalleled deal for discovering, watching and appreciating film. The fact that, towards the end, people on the street looked at me like they’d seen a time traveler when I was carrying that red envelope to the mailbox, was an issue of branding, not of value. I was hardly the only person who read Netflix’s retreat from the physical as a blow to the art of cinema as a whole. At the time Richard Lorber, CEO of film distributor Kino Lorber, explored why physical media is an essential part of film appreciation and, to some extent, humanity.

While it’s impossible to deny that viewing habits have changed over the past decade, and while I myself watch plenty on streaming services, it also strikes me that the momentum to get rid of physical media tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Mr. Lorber points out, Netflix killed its DVD service despite it making $146 billion in its previous year. There’s still a market for physical copies of films (DVD, Blu-Ray and 4k), and there is still a way for Target to merchandise discs and attract customers, rather than letting the department wither and declaring discs dead as a result of low interest.

Don’t Treat Physical Media As An Afterthought

Target’s history with physical media partnerships has actually been pretty ambitious, and has been so well into the era of ubiquitous streaming. A decade ago the retailer partnered to launch a line of fashion accessories pegged to the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Hunger Games: Catching Fire. In 2017, the chain released a special-edition, Target-only Blu-Ray of the Netflix original series Stranger Things. Such intentionally cultivated, curated and promoted strategies for individuals releases are a far cry from what I saw when last I checked out the physical media section in Target—which, granted, was only one store, but seemed to be in a state of disarray with its selection greatly diminished. It seems like if the chain is focusing on a smaller assortment of products, it could direct more resources to the types of exclusive products and partnerships it had hits with before.

Since Target is keeping its online assortment, it could also use its data from online disc sales to determine if anything is trending in a given region, move the big online sellers to the physical shelf, and do some thoughtful in-store promotion around those.

More curation is always an option, but the question is—does Target want to be in the business of curation?

It may be that this pull-back is really a wind-down. It may be that, while physical media is thriving among film fanatics, this is a niche better left to mom-and-pops with their hearts and souls in the product. Still I can’t help but think that pulling movies from the shelves of well-trafficked Big Box retailers is knee-jerk, slow-moving as that jerk may be, and has downsides for customers and retailers. So my hope is that there is more to Target pulling discs from the shelves than just going with the apparent flow.

Profiting Instead of Provoking a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Some might argue that I’m swimming upstream against a streaming-only world, but I’d say that even as some major retailers cut their disc selections, the downsides of even casual movie viewers being fully reliant on streaming services are becoming more obvious. Beyond concerns over image quality, diminishing selection and the paradox of choice that comes with staring at streaming service menus, there’s the proliferation of ads even on paid streaming services, increased streaming costs, the need to pay for multiple services and the omnipresent threat of losing content that you purchased.

While it might take some technological catastrophe to diminish streaming convenience at scale, there’s always a chance of new audiences starting to appreciate the benefits of physical mediums. It may be worth noting that, while the looming death of physical media has been a perennial discussion topic since about 2002, neither vinyl records nor even the CD have been killed off by music sharing or streaming. Similarly e-books, which some anticipated, decades ago, replacing the old-fashioned codex entirely, have leveled out at between 20 to 30 percent of sales as readers consistently prefer physical books, which they read in tandem with their on-screen counterparts.

In any case, there could still be some surprising successes for Target and similar retailers if they take physical media as seriously as the fans of the films who want to buy them—and as Target has in the semi-recent past. Whether it wants to appeal to the shopper there for something else looking for something interesting to pick up, or if it wants to remake its limited disc selection again into a destination, it can still do a lot to get physical shoppers looking at its physical media.