Study Says Salespeople Like Blu-ray
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 2/15/2008
West Lake Village, Calif. — A new J.D. Power and Associates mystery shopper study has found that retail salespeople across the country are strongly recommending Blu-ray Disc players over HD DVD to their customers.
Chris Denove, J.D. Power and Associates VP, said that less than 1-in-10 retail salespeople recommended HD DVD to survey takers posing as shoppers for the syndicated, independent field study.
The HD disc study was part of the Television Retail Insights report, which is jointly produced by J.D. Power and Associates and Market Force Information. Over the course of the year it will be sending over 5,000 mystery shoppers into 30 different retail chains on a regular basis to shop for HDTVs and HDTV peripherals and components.
Also included in the study will be 2,000 to 3,000 telephone shops, and about 1,000 facility audits of what retailers are stocking and displaying to evaluate which brands and categories are getting preferential treatment.
The current study covered electronics salespeople in over 200 storefronts in January. Mystery shoppers posed as people who had just purchased an HDTV and were looking for a nameless dedicated HD disc player.
The survey found 25 percent of all salespeople chose not to recommend one platform over the other. But of those who did, 89 percent recommended Blu-ray, and most of them “very strongly recommended Blu-ray, to the point that a typical customer would have had to think long and hard before buying HD DVD in the face of what salespeople are telling them about the two platforms,” Denove said.
“Best Buy just issued a press release saying it’s going to recommend Blu-ray. But, our data shows that they’ve been recommending Blu-ray all along, in fact, more so than the national average,” Denove told TWICE. “In fact, in January, we didn’t come across a single Best Buy salesperson recommending HD DVD.”
Denove said that typically CE retail sales people were quick to point out to their customers that there was a technology war similar to what occurred back when VHS battled Beta.
“Without even being asked about the battle for DVD supremacy, half the salespeople told our shoppers that there was a battle going on and Blu-ray either was already the winner (or would become the dominant player in the end),” he said.
“About a third of all salespeople said our shoppers should choose Blu-ray because of the strength of the companies behind Blu-ray,” Denove said.
Only one retailer – Rex – had salespeople that were split approximately 50/50 in steering shoppers toward Blu-ray and HD DVD to customers, Denove said.
The study did not bring up gaming consoles with HD DVD or Blu-ray playback ability, but gaming devices were factored into the study if suggested as a consideration by the salesperson.
Denove said that some retail chains – Best Buy in particular – had salespeople that seemed to be more focused on cross selling, where they were more likely to tie in the TV elements of the disc formats with computers or gaming.
In light of recent developments with Warner Bros. endorsing Blu-ray exclusively, “we had expected that salespeople would focus on the title wars in making their recommendation,” Denove said. “Many did, just not quite as focused on titles as we expected. Overall, a little more than a third talked about Blu-ray either having more titles now, or would end up having more titles in the future.”
According to the study, the only advantage of HD DVD mentioned by more than a few salespeople was price.
“Out of nearly 200 mystery shopping experiences, not one salesperson suggested that HD DVD would become the dominant format,” Denove said.
Denove said the survey indicated that the sales push toward Blu-ray “was not related to technical features, instead the focus of most pitches were on the following: 1) there is a format war going on and most salespeople felt that Blu-ray had already won the war or would be the eventual winner of the war; 2) the companies backing Blu-ray are the stronger players, with Sony mentioned most prominently; 3) Blu-ray had the strongest studio support and title selection.
The study concluded that if a change in direction is possible at this stage, the companies supporting HD DVD must do one of the following: either do something to create demand from the consumer up front, so that the consumer is going into the store looking specifically for HD DVD, or do something to sway the overwhelming recommendations of sales people, such as introduce or boost spiff programs or some similar incentive, Denove said.
As for Toshiba’s recent promotional price cuts on HD DVD players, Denove said: salespeople are pushing so heavily in the favor of Blu-ray that only a small percentage of them are even talking about the price advantage of HD DVD, and right now that’s the only thing they seem to want to rally around.”
Even dual-format players failed to leave significant measurements, Denove said.
“Given that our shoppers were trying to decide between Blu-ray and HD DVD, we were surprised that only 7 percent of all salespeople even offered up the option of a combo player so that our shoppers didn’t risk choosing the wrong format. This likely reflects the fact that salespeople seem fairly confident that Blu-ray will win out in the end.”
Denove said the trend suggests that "combo players need to create demand upstream in the decision process to get traction, because salespeople sure aren’t doing anything to drive demand out on the showroom floor."
By brand, salespeople focused almost exclusively on Sony for Blu-ray (Sharp and Samsung came in a distant second and third, respectively), J.D. Power & Associates said. Not surprisingly, of those recommending HD DVD, Toshiba was almost always the recommended brand, said Denove.
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I disagree with the accusation that we make more money on Blue-Ray. The person who walks into our store and purchases is our customer! Someone whom we develope a relationship with! We want that person to be happy with their choices and our continuing support to them, as a "service" provider.
Do your research. The Blu-Ray player is superior by far!
John KEYSER - 2008-19-2 09:19:00 EST -
jd power is silly. this is a poorly conducted study, or misinformation by jd power.
this is exactly what you would expect.
i have been in retail consumer electronics for 30 years, since the introduction of VHS.
If you go to a electronics retailer like BB, they want to get the most revenue out of the consumers wallet so that the days closing total is going to be as large as possible.
so why would they recommend a $150 HD DVD when they can sell you a $399 BD.
You think they will recommend a emachine over a vaio?
or a vizio over a sony?
c'mon...wake up.
If they looked into sell-through at DIY stores, like costco, sams, etc. where you come in and buy what you already have in mind, i bet HD DVD did a lot better than when you are 'guided' by a professional.
Example, compusa.
I had the hardest time getting clients to come back to me with a netgear or similar router.
they would come back with a belkin.
when i asked them why they didnt get the netgear as i instructed, they said that there was a salesman standing nearby, and when i picked up the netgear ($29-49), they recommended the belkin that was on special, and said it was better.
so when i asked how much the belkin was, almost always they told me $79, $99 or similar, and usually after $50 mail in rebate.
caveat emptor people.
wewa - 2008-18-2 20:28:00 EST -
Sales people recommending Bluray over HD. That is like recommending to vote for Obama over Clinton because he is leading and very likely to win the Democratic nomination. We can have more than one format. Look at DVD+ and DVD- blank disks. SD,xD,CF,memory stick and all the memory card formats. PC and Mac. Has Apple stopped making Macintosh computers because over 90 percent of consumers want PCs. HD is the more advanced format of high-def DVD. It will play standard DVD and even upconvert them to HD quality. Bluray can''t do that. Most HD movies come with standard DVD on the flip side. HD players have an ethernet port. And priced much less than Bluray. More bang for your buck. It is obvious Sony has more money than Toshiba,having influenced the big major studios in Hollywood with under the table money. This goes on all the time in business,entertainment industries and politics. If HD goes away for good, Sony and the Bluray camp will have no choice but to allow Adult Titles to be put on Bluray to Disney''s dismay. If Sony and Disney can''t take the heat(po rn on Bluray),then they should get out of the kitchen. Also, Bluray victory may be short-lived,as the next thing coming to a computer near you is Downloadable Hi-Def Movies. This is the future.
Jim Kallas - 2008-18-2 19:05:00 EST -
then how can a HD supporter explain a movie like 300 which went multi-media and sold 2:1 in favor of Blu, among the many other movies that outsold HD. The only HD release that beat it''s blu-ray counterpart was Planet Earth, and that isn''t even a movie.
The new Harry Potter movie had 3 soundtracks compressed od HD, while the blu-ray version had over double that uncompressed and longer extras. The major difference for blu-ray is more space for extras and soundtracks.
Whichever format Disney supports, is generally what the consumers supports. Early dvd support didn''t really take off until Disney began adopting and promoting it, and sony provided most early adopters with the cheapest dvd player in the form of the ps2, like the blu-ray now in the ps3.
I''ll point out 2 other facts as well. For one, entertainment associates at Bestbuy/Futureshop are not paid spiffs or commissions to sell either brand; nor are they paid anything on any computer software, cd''s, dvd''s, videogames or gaming systems they sell. Entertainment associates only get commission selling warranty for game systems. All entertainment associates are also given equal knowledge on both formats, so it basically comes down to personal
preference which format associates recommend.
Secondly, consumers don''''t come into a store wanting to buy 2 formats, they want an associates recommendation for 1 format only. Could you really blame an associate for recommending blu-ray for more audio soundtracks, generally more extra content, newer movies (not old movies that were never filmed in Hi-Def to begin with), better studio support, and Disney movies for the kids?
Anyone who thinks 2 formats would do anything but kill the Hi-Def market is kidding themselves. Adopting 1 format (which Toshiba and Sony couldn''t agree on) will bring down the price quicker when media-factories can mass produce disc for 1 format. Forgive me if I''m wrong, but supporting 1 singular format has always been the quota; from VHS to dvd, and now blu-ray. Now that there''s 1 format, prices can finally come down like dvd''s, or no one will adopt into Hi-Def dvd''s. ;
Bobby L. - 2008-17-2 16:57:00 EST -
Ummmmm... the recommendations have nothing to do with the price of the Blu Ray players, since none of the big box stores are commission anymore. Very few electronics stores are on commission now that asian manufacturers have slashed prices on products so much that there is little, if any, markup on previously high dollar items. Having worked in retail electronics for 10 years, I know what I am talking about.
The Blu Ray recommendation comes from the fact that from the word go, Blu Ray had the stronger industry support than HD-DVD. That is FACT. The more support a product has, the better the chance is for acceptance.
Now, get over yourselves and your losing HD-DVD format, and go out and buy blu ray!
T - 2008-16-2 09:19:00 EST
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