rmw650

However one looks at it, especially with the way the economy is and the holidays vastly approaching, this is just a stupid bonehead move on DD's part and it's nothing more than a Borders-type sale, where you can print out a 40% off coupon and take it into the store and get that amount off the MSRP. This is a bad business decision and hoping they can reverse trend on this quickly; if not, then it's Amazon and other stores for me. Pitiful!

bsmith

I have as anyone has from all of these vendors. Generally speaking disks arrive to me within 5 business days, which is no different then the free shipping service I get from Amazon when I purchase over $25. Any damaged disks I have received during shipping have been replaced at no extra expense to me. I'm not really concerned about getting disks shipped any quicker, which is why I always opt for free shipping whenever I can.

In my experience, the customer service is no different then any of the others except for Amazon, which is a step above the rest. I like the fact that Amazon will ship out replacements without waiting for the originals to be received.

As far as quality of packing, again they are all a mixed bag at times from using soft packaging, bubble wrap bags, and too large of boxes with inadequate packing material allowing merchandise to slide around too much. At times Amazon will shrink warp the merchandise to a base piece of cardboard that prevents damage the best. But even they are inconsistent in this regard.

I currently have an order outstanding from Amazon that was shipped on 10/30 and has not received yet at 11/11 with no tracking information updates since the package was initially picked up for shipment. I need to inform them today, at their request, so thet replacements can be shipped. Unfortunate things can happen from any of these vendors.

Generally speaking if price is the same I will go with Amazon. Otherwise I go the cheapest, which is usually Amazon or DD. Again, I will give the nod to Amazon if the merchandise is easily prone to damage for their potentially better packaging and return service.

DD is still one of the best options for me today, as well as when I started purchasing from them many many years ago.

bsmith

From what I recall Borders generally gives you a 40% off coupon on one item most of the time. And some times only in-store which has a very limited selection. Not to forget, as most have stated this sale isn't much off of what there current pricing is on most items, which means they are generally close to 40% off at all times, unlike a Borders. This sale primarily just helps those items that rarely see good discounts.

If lowest pricing is what attracts you to a deal then you will continue purchasing from DD since according to the search tool DD has more items at the lowest price then even Amazon on a regular basis. As someone else put it, if you only shopped at DD for the big sales and are willing to move your purchases to another vendor regardless of lowest price out of spite, then you really aren't the type of customer they are concerned about keeping anyway.

Was I looking forward to the sale with wish list in hand? Absolutely. But I've never seen a vendor get so much negative backlash, even during the big sales, as DD gets. It may have actually been a smart move to get away from those sales, as someone else already posted. The bad move, imo, was to try and replace it with something less that wouldn't be able to compete. It would have been better for them to just not do a sale at all.

Personally, I will still shop for the lowest price and statistically that means I will be buying from DD in the future.

g

I think if it was 50 percent off MSRP that would satisfy me. But most of the stuff I looked at would be the same price with this sale so it has little point.

Panko

yeah, i would've been happy with 10 or 15% off regular prices. upset that it wasn't 20/25%, of course, but i still would've saved at minimum a couple of dollars off each item. with this msrp discount i'm only saving mere pennies on most of the stuff i want.

perhaps DD will do so later?

Mosskeeto

For some titles these discounts are probably very good: remember how some studios (i.e. Anime) pulled their films off the site during earlier sales because they refused to absorb the extra discount.

DD does get added volume incentives/special discounts from the studios to help maintain a reasonable profit margin when they have these sales and they purchase additional material from liquidators as overstock from merchants who don't maintain the wide range of titles that DD does. Many of us have received DVDs from them that still have other B&M price tags on them like Bestbuy or Walmart.
I really doubt that they lose any money from any sale.

Josh-da-man

DD also hasn't very good sales in quite a while.

Last year, they had quite a few good "buy one, get one free" sales. You could get Criterions for $12-$16, the Twilight Zone boxed sets for about $20 each, Anchor Bay titles for $4, A&E boxed sets for about 70% off.

This year, nothing.

That'sAllFolks

Yes, but that "retraining" never works for internet companies. Look at 800.com, reel and a host of others. "Loyalty" may get you to buy something you were going to buy anyway, if the price is really competitive. The convenience of doing searches for a product price with multiple vendors really negates real loyalty. It's not like you walk in to B&M and see the product and buy it. FOR THE MOST PART, people (esp. DVD Talkers) buy based on price. Only if the company is shady, do people stay away.

I've only bought a few things this year. In the past, I've spent hundreds of dollars on some of their sales. Although they do have slow shipping (which doesn't bother me too much), they have always done me right with their customer service.

I've often wondered if they could somehow manage their combined shipping they might fair a bit better. I ordered 4 Midnite movies from their last sale. All shipped seperatedly. That's got to add up after a while.

Anyway, they will always be a serious contender for my business, esp. if I need a gift or single item, but these weak sales have caused me to spend my big bucks elsewhere.

ericjanderson

I see this as a "testing the waters" action, to see if people will still buy without deep, deep discounts. And frankly, I have enough DVD sets still in the shrink wrap to last a year, so the only thing that would entice me to buy would be prices that are spectacular. Plus I'm recording many shows from digital broadcast TV and burning them on DVD for later viewing, so that adds to the wealth of viewing material I have backlogged. With the economy in the current shape it is in, it should be a buyers market. Retailers who are not planning on offering discounts comparable to past years should expect to see sales volume diminished. I think we could call this the DeepDisappointment 40% sale.

manicsounds

Or call it the ShallowDiscount Sale

calhoun07

Why is it whenever Deep Discount does a massive sale like this there's always somebody surprised that all the other sales end before the new one begins?

old-boo-radley

I don't know about you guys, but their sale enticed me to buy crap I didn't even need. In particular one year I placed a whole $300 order I just shook my head about afterward. So, let's not forgot how much money DD is going to lose not just from the regular sale for essential items we always were going to get, but from stuff we got just because it's cheap. I think this one is really going to bomb.

twinstar

Have to admit I'm disappointed as well. I passed up other sales on titles I wanted in anticipation of DD's semi-annual sales even though I may have got them at a better prices elsewhere at different times of the year; partly for the convenience of one-stop shopping and partly out of my mentality that it's ok/fun to splurge on DVD's twice a year.

I may pick up a couple of dvd's which may come out cheaper than Amazon's price considering the free shipping under $25, but I won't be splurging on hundreds of dollars worth of dvd's like I usually do. The big 20-25% sale would get me into a shopping frenzy where I would buy titles that I probably wouldn't buy if it wasn't for the "deep discount." With this sale, it will only be bare "essentials" which in this economy, might be a good thing for me.

rmw650

I love their ads on their webiste when they mention "Why pay such and such" if you can get it for their price and yet, they're providing this sale with MSRP prices intertwined within the purchase. Brilliant move Deep Discount! They deserve, in my opinion now, to be ripped for staging something like this and you'd think they would have done their research BEFORE even placing such an ad for anyone to see.

marald

I don't know if your referring to me, but I wasn't referring to their current sales being over. I was talking about their 20%-25% sales being over.

Silverscreenvid

The people who are posting in this thread are NOT typical shoppers. We usually purchase considerably more titles but we are also considerably more disciplined about when and where we purchase.

For most people, a broad based "sale" a month before Christmas gives them an opportunity to buy their Christmas presents at somewhat of a savings over B&M stores without having to pay shipping or sales tax. Unless Amazon does something crazy, I predict DD will do fairly well. I've bought a bunch of Christmas presents for out-of-town relatives with them because I can get free shipping on a single item going to someone in another state. That's worth a good bit to me. I'll look at their prices and may do it again this time around.

It's amazing that year in and year out, DD tends to have more items on sale at better prices more often than anyone else (including Amazon) yet they get far more criticism than anyone else on this board.

marald

I agree. I've always wondered why so many dvdtalkers seem to hate Deepdiscount and love Amazon so much. I actually have faster free shipping with Deepdiscount than with Amazon's free shipping. I think Amazon's cs is alot better than DD's though. I don't think Deepdiscount's prices are nearly as good as they used to be but I go where I can get the best deal, be it Amazon, Deepdiscount, or wherever. I plan to buy a few things from DD I was going to buy anyway, that will save me a few dollars with the sale.

JamesDFarrow

I, for one, am waiting for the sale to start. I have money burning a hole in my pocket. By Friday it will be in my shoe. LOL!

James

old-boo-radley

Of course we're not typical shoppers, but come on guys, not even typical shoppers will be enticed by a "Come and check out our jacked up/same prices on over 100,000 DVDs!" sale. Everyone thought the consumer was really dumb, and it's true to an extent, but with the economy now, people do compare more than ever. I don't know of anyone who just drops items in a cart and puts an order in without shopping around at least a bit.

I'm not saying people weren't crazy for dissing them for rock bottom prices on their 20-25% sale, I agree with everyone there, but this is barely a sale, especially for their alienated international customer base.

To me, the worst part of not having this sale is that a big tradition has ended. My buddy and I would literally drop everything at the announcement of the sale and scan their entire horror DVD catalogue and plan out our orders and give each other advice on how to round out our orders and take into account OOP items and all that. It was fun, it was gluttonous and it was an experience every time.

meddle72

The four items I was looking at were around 15 to 20 % off suggested retail price. Is this 40% off all DVD's and BluRay's or just up to 40% off?

bsmith

While I don't have statistics to prove it, I don't think DD's regular prices have changed as much as competition has caught up to them. I think Amazon over the last few years has become much more competitive with DD making it appear as if DD doesn't offer as good of deals.

bsmith

If you check the DVD search engine you would see that DD has more lowest priced DVDs then Amazon even before the sale. During the sale you would expect this to move even more in their favor, unless Amazon tries to match. So for any consumer doing price comparisons they will still end up at DD more often then not, regardless that this sale isn't as much a discount as in years past.

This is true. For those that really got into the sale it will be a big loss. It was more then just buying DVDs but scouting out the really good deals, looking at what other purchased, and buying more once you saw the finds from others. That will be missed.

Mosskeeto

I have a strong feeling that they'll do quite well with this sale, despite the complaints from most of the posters here.
The average consumer will just be aware of the general terms and assume it's as good as any previous sale. Remember all those clueless shoppers at first days of CircuitCity and Blockbuster closing sales, buying huge quantities of DVDs at 10% off retail...that's your average consumer and they'll be buying at DD.

GroveStud

I too am disappointed, but I can't believe the bashing on this thread. DD is still my favorite source for DVDs. I always check DD and Amazon when I want to buy a DVD and 70% of the time DD is cheaper.

With this new sale, I checked out my wishlist which is mostly some Kino collections and the average savings off of DD's normal prices is 14%. Considering they were already cheaper than Amazon, this makes them an even better deal. Would I prefer 25%? Sure. Will I still buy from DD? Absolutely.

Phibes

The Blockbuster sale thread flits like a ghost into this thread perhaps. In that some "going out of business" BB stores marked their used products up higher than when they were in business, but the consumer bought them up like hotcakes since it was a "going out of business" sale.

They'll just see 40% off and buy.

We had a sporting goods store in a local mall that did so well with it's "going out of business" sale that it stayed in business for years and continued to have it. Though it eventually did close up.