CDs at Rite-Aid

I was in a Rite-Aid in the Philly suburbs today and was surprised to a few racks of CDs. Most were $5.99. The Nightfly was $7.99. They had mostly rock and pop compilations and various rock and country albums. It was the sort of stuff Best Buy used to have in those garbage cans. They also had a few newer albums priced higher (e.g., Taylor Swift for $13.99).

Most of the discs they had I either had or didn't want, but it was nice to see racks of CDs. I picked up a reissue of Lionel Richie Dancing on the Ceiling with four 12-inch versions as bonus tracks. A surprise find was a DualDisc titled Punk and New Wave Masters. The price sticker on the DualDisc says "Dynamic Distributors".

 

I've seen them at Rite Aid as well. Sometimes I wonder if the competition goes in their stores to check them out on what they are doing. The reason why I say that is Walgreens is doing the same thing. It is generally back catalog stugg but I HAVE seen them sell new releases. And people ARE buying them, just the other day I was in line and I saw a gal buy several cd's.

 

I would think that that the only reason a drug store would have a rack of $5.99 CDs is because they are paying about 60 cents each for them. There's never going to be a CD aisle at Rite-Aid, but in small stores (drug stores/gas stations), the space is extremely valuable, so an item like CDs that don't take up a lot of space can actually make sense if you can ensure a ridiculously high mark-up AND/OR the vendor has a friendly return policy for unsold merchandise.