I'm a manager of a Tower Records (yup, still exists in Ireland and Japan) and I'm happy to report that we're doing just fine, but there's a very particular reason for this: variety.

Tower here was always an alternative to bigger brands like HMV or Virgin. While they would focus on bulk buying, Tower didn't and doesn't. The store's philosophy has always been that it's better to have 1 or 2 copies of 30 things than 60 copies of 1 thing. It's served us well for 30 years now, 21 of them independently (the rights to the branding were offered for sale in 2002 to all international corporate or franchise Tower outlets, a lot of these did buy out the branding but only two companies survive who still use it).

If you discount two Irish TV shows and the complete box set of Breaking Bad, in the last 30 years the two biggest sellers on DVD for Tower have been Spirited Away and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, titles that you just wouldn't really see in a bulk scenario that often (or not at all in the case of Darkplace). We're a cult shop for collectors, and the model still works (for us at least).

What this does mean is that prices are higher but the variety is better, and as physical media shrinks overall, the demand for particular offbeat or mostly forgotten titles has remained about the same. We have a very specific audience and that's who we cater to. You could sell Season 4 of Succession one moment, and an obscure Italian horror film the next. Sometimes there are total anomalies, like Dungeons and Dragons comprehensively outselling Super Mario Bros.

Streaming services absolutely can be great, and for the vast majority it's everything they would ever want, but not for everyone. Those who still like physical media and will seek it out are more likely to like and seek out variety, so places that are still trying to use bulk buying and popularity or buzz of a title as a business practice and getting in as much of it as possible just doesn't work anymore. Those who would have bought the DVD historically just won't now, they'll stream it instead.

For comparison, I worked for HMV back from 2009 to 2013 when it first closed in Ireland (the brand has now reappeared for a fourth run in the market). At one point, Twilight: New Moon came out. My store got 7 different variants of it, totalling 2500 copies (including one which was just a big cardboard box with a mirror and a 2 Disc DVD in it that cost 4 times as much). All eventually sold within about two months. If a store bought 10% of that for something like, say, Barbie, yes it would sell, but it would take significantly longer to do so as most would naturally wait for it to show up on a streaming service rather than hang on to the physical copy.

The demand just isn't there. Bulk ordering means more profit (in theory), but that focus just doesn't work in execution anymore, and places like Best Buy won't take the risk on a bigger catalogue of stuff that runs the risk of sitting on shelves not selling for years in some cases. But those things always will sell eventually, if you are willing to wait.

There is room for physical media. Even CDs are resurging a bit for us, and vinyl is by far our biggest market as well. Special editions / Remasters etc. do far more for us than most new releases do, but for places like Best Buy, you may get some, but not too many. This is part of the problem with trying to cater to too big and generic an audience; you just can't take a risk on something that won't fly straight out the door.

For physical media at this point you have to have a business model actually aligned to the demands of those who still want to buy it, and that isn't one that's driven solely by maximising margins and clearing shelves out as quickly as possible to get the next lot in, but rather trying to ensure that you have that obscure 1970s TV show or that repress of a jazz album or that copy of a film with a particular documentary in the extras, and you only get that with cult offering stores. It would be really nice to see more of them.