Wal-Mart... Always, not getting it.

Posted At : February 6, 2007 12:26 PM | Posted By : John
Related Categories: Technology Thoughts,I am a consumer

(Yes that's their logo, it requires a colored background to be seen correctly)

The nation's largest retailer is using its buying power to beat the prices charged by other download services in many cases, offering films from $12.88 to $19.88 and individual TV episodes for $1.96 — 4 cents less than Apple Inc.'s iTunes store.

Four cents? 4 pennies? Despite the abyssmal failure of it's Hub Myspace "killer" which lasted like 2 months, or something like that, Wal-mart feels they can come back to the intertubes and try to entice people away from the iTunes Store with 4 pennies.

Wal-Mart is known for Loss Leading in order to kill it's competition, but 4 pennies? Only Wal-Mart would think 4 pennies will lure people to them. 4 Pennies may entice a Wal-Mart shopper to buy a gallon of Vlassic pickles, but I'd be willing to put money on this not working for video downloads. Add to that, their complete disregard for the iPod,

Wal-Mart's movie service is only available in Windows Media. This means, the movies are not playable on the Mac or iPod.

which is where a very large number of people are watching these movies... 2 months, maybe 3 and this service will be in the round file next to "The Hub"

Let me see, get my movie through iTunes, where I can watch it on my laptop on the plane, or throw it on my iPod when I'm taking the train (this isn't me, by the way) or save 4 pennies to get the video in WMV where I can play it... nowhere but my laptop (my PC laptop, for the most part). Hard choice...

Wal-Mart obviously isn't clear on the way the world outside bargain basement pickles works. Being the big guy who cna loss leader, or ham fist your way into the market, does not promise success (and often promises failure).

Stick to Kathy Lee clothes, and Sam's Choice soda. Know your market, Wal-Mart.

(at the time I'm writing this, the site no worky on Mac Firefox. I suppose since the vide content isn't very usable on a mac to begin with, maybe they don't care. Worked in Safari though, mostly.)