hello everyone! i'm new to this forum.

i have a ''''''disagreement'''''' to settle with my friend. i told him i was picking up the new star trek from wal-mart, b/c for the three disc edition, it's $19.99, as compared to $24.99 from best buy. he said that he boycotts walmart's blu-ray/dvd's b/c, and i quote, ''''''i'm convinced that in order to sell to walmart at such low prices, manufacturers (not just dvd manufacturers) produce lesser quality products specifically for them.''''''

i then told him that the studio's decide the pricing, to which he replied, ''''''walmart has control over the price they pay from manufacturers. amazon is not retail. walmart is. i'm talking about the middle men. the distributors and the jobbers. walmart says how much they are going to pay for an item and the disributors have to allow because walmart is too big to fight. the distributor then has to find a way to get the product cheaper from the manufacturer and so the manufacturer makes a lesser quality product. and it's not just with blu-rays and dvd's. my god i sound like a conspiracy theorist!''''''

that was all copied and pasted from facebook chat. i told him he was bogus and sounded like a douchebag. can you please help me settle this once and for all. thank you for your help.

tim

there is no difference in quality where you buy. however, since walmart can move a lot of volume, they can command lower price from the manufacturer. this is a huge advantage for walmart. same goes for amazon but to be honest with you the only reason why amazon can sell for less is because their over head is low compared to brick and mortal stores. think about it, all amazon has to do is to list the product on their website and people can purchase. contrary to that, walmart has to hire someone to ring up the merchant as well as the cost associated with distribution of products. (shipping, packaging, transferring from warehouses, which amazon do not have to deal with since they have one or two distribution center).

furthermore, amazon does not cost much to add to list one more product on their webpage so the cost is relatively low if not nothing at all.

as far as bestbuy goes, if you look carefully, sometimes their blu-ray movies are cheaper than walmart when they are having a sale. so it is all relative.

hope this helps.

thanks for the explanations!