“Worst Part of the Job” — Frustrated Walmart Employee Digs in $5 DVD Bin to Fulfill Mobile Order

Walmart Picker and TikTok user Tio (@tio_choco) has a bone to pick with folks who place mobile orders for $5 DVDs and he aired his grievances, demonstrating why it's such a hassle to fulfill these purchases.

"Today someone ordered one of the five dollar movies," the Walmart personal shopper says while showing off the mobile device employees use to manage inventory in the store: it's the 2015 animated comedy Home on DVD.

It should be a relatively easy job, right? All he needs to do is head to the entertainment section of the store, grab the flick from the shelf, drop it in the basket that has the customer's name/order number on it, and then proceed with the rest of his tasks until it's time to clock out.

The trouble with the order, however, is with the fact that it's one of the store's discounted movie titles, which are pretty difficult to spot, a point he drives home when he moves the mobile device to reveal that he's standing in front of a massive bin of DVDs: all of them various titles of different genres.

"How fun," he says as he begins to dig through the gargantuan pile of DVD cases as he searches for the DreamWorks picture before the video cuts out.

The first question one may ask themselves is: wait, people still actually buy DVDs? And the second might be: why doesn't Walmart have a better system in place to locate these flicks?

(What wasn't a question, judging from the comments in response to the video, however, was whether or not legendary Walmart worker Gail Lewis would be able to locate the movie.)

To answer the first question: yes, people do still buy physical copies of films. Sure, sales of the entertainment medium have ultimately plummeted a whopping 86% since 2008, however, money is still being made off of these discs: in 2022 it was still a $1.58 billion business, and while that may seem like a high number, it's a steep decline from the previous year's $1.97 billion.

As for Walmart's bargain bin of DVDs and Blu-Rays, it would appear that many shoppers have disparate attitudes towards them — there are some folks who appreciate the fact that while ambling through Walmart's aisles they can stop at one of these bins and sift around to find a title they may like.

Like this one Redditor who uploaded a photo of 11 flicks they picked up out of the retail giant's trademark bins. The post indicates that they completed their haul in early 2023, which indicates that there are still folks out there who prefer to not watching all of their movies via streaming platforms. Oh, and their upload was made to a sub on the site that's dedicated to DVD collecting to boot.

Some people have even complained about these bins disappearing from stores, like these users on a Home Theater Forum thread.

Robotbutt reported in 2020 that Walmart shoppers can also expect to find fewer and fewer bargain DVDs available at their favorite location in the years to come, and USA Today reported that major retailer Best Buy will discontinue all DVD sales after the 2023 Holiday Season.

Which means that there could be a lot of opportunities for folks to snag up some discount DVDs in the near future, until presumably they are entirely phased out, even if there are those who believe that they will most certainly be around for longer than many people think.

And while there are plenty of DVD stans out there willing to profess their love for the dumpster diving approach to snagging $5 movie deals, there are others who absolutely hate seeing these mounds in retail stores.

Some enjoy these bins so much that they've uploaded footage of themselves dedicating time to organizing movie piles, which probably would've made Tio's job a lot easier.

While the TikToker's clip certainly highlights an instance where fulfilling customer orders can be frustrating, Walmart's order picker position is one that has been lauded by some as being a low-stress and chill way to earn an average of $16.85 an hour.

As for why Walmart decides to place all of these DVDs in a bin instead of lining them up on shelves: there could be several reasons for this. The first being that because they are being sold at such lower price points than newer releases the store doesn't necessarily give them the star treatment.

Another, simpler answer is a possibility too: if they've been around for so long, then that must mean someone is buying physical copies of movies, which Tio confirmed in his TikTok.