The AP has a story today about the upcoming holiday season and what it could mean for DVD sales. Wal-Mart has slashed the online pre-order prices of some hit summer blockbusters by more than half. This comes after the megastore cut prices on books during the month of October.

So in response Amazon.com and Target also reduced the prices of some online pre-order prices. Now Wal-Mart’s trying to up the savings ante, even it’s by a few cents. $10 becomes $9.99 becomes $9.98. New DVDs of Star Trek, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Julie & Julia can be found for $10 or less.

Now these savings are only applied to single disc titles. Those who like your DVD releases with all the extra bells and whistles will have to fork over more money.

As the DVD titles come out, the prices will go up, but will probably be discounted less than what you would find in a Best Buy or any other brick-and-mortar location that sells DVDs.

The AP story goes on and says that “Wal-Mart’s DVD price cut follows its announcement late last month that it would reduce prices weekly on top-selling items from bananas to board games and hold those cuts through the holiday season.”

I am all for this competitive nature amongst online retailers. Amazon has been very aggressive about price matching items found in weekly circulars or on the web. They read bargain website forums and try to match offers the best they can. And one of the best carrots they offer is no sales tax (depending on the state in which you live) and and no shipping costs. Both are a good thing in this turbulent economy.