Dive Brief:

• Wal-Mart has discounted Walmart.com preorders of several soon-to-be-released Disney DVD and BluRay titles by 40% and has seen orders rise by 40% to as much as 90%, the company said.

• The move appears to be a way to take advantage of Amazon’s negotiating tactic of preventing any such pre-orders during its negotiations with Disney. The e-retail giant has done that before, with movies titles from Warner Bros. and books published by Hachette Book Group.

• The Disney films affected include “Muppets Most Wanted," "Maleficent," "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” Bloomberg reported that Amazon had no comment.

Dive Insight:

For now, the situation isn't that one can’t preorder the DVD copy of "Maleficent," it’s that one can’t preorder the DVD copy of "Maleficent" from Amazon. And, indeed, Walmart.com has swooped in to take advantage of that. Perhaps Amazon is playing the long game here, and maybe it will recover from any alienation of customers who can’t preorder movie titles. But the tactic remains a curious one, considering that consumers have options. In fact, to a great extent, it is Amazon that has taught consumers so well to shop around.