The golden age of DVD online sales

[2099net]

Can anybody remember the dawn of both online shopping and the DVD format?

I ask because prices were insanely cheap - Amazon and others, such as the long since bankrupt DVDExpress would be in competition with each other and regularly offer discounts of 50%-60% on new titles. You often could apply promotional codes to these discounts too!

Plus, the pound was strong against the dollar then from my own point of view (it sort of went ga-ga for a while after Black Wednesday) - I sometimes got discs for free or for the stupidly low price of £4-6 each. Amazon.Com sent me Braveheart on DVD simply because it was the most requested disc to be released and.... actually I don't know why really. But I got it. Free.

But those days didn't last. When online shopping was new, the shops thought if they hooked you in, you would become a loyal customer. But then price comparison sites started up, and they realised nobody would be loyal online. (Saying that, I do have a strong loyalty to Amazon because they have always treated me right).

Sadly, those "golden days" got me addicted to buying DVDs. Even when the price shot up, I bought just as many.

Curse you, "Golden Days" of DVD buying! And Curse you God for making me this way! It's your fault I have so many round, shiny, discs.

[Lazario]

I don't know what time you'd probably call the "Golden Age" of online DVD prices / buying. But I'd say there have always been (or at least for a long while) some very good deals to be found online. If only WalMart's prices were a little cheaper since you can still get more DVD's online.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Well, we can still have 30% or so off - not bad at all!

[Lazario]

Today is probably not the cheapest era of online DVD sales. WalMart keeps going lower and lower. They're without a doubt the best deal you'll find on Freddy Vs. Jason (though, who would want it)- only $6.50! And the Jeepers Creepers double feature, and the Mommie Dearest special edition (only $7.50- nowhere online do you find a better deal than that, right?). $7.50 also for The Net: Special Edition.

[ichabod]

I know what Netty is talking about, I remember years ago when I first started buying online, some of the prices were ridiculously cheap. Some online retailers would go against each other like crazy. Some would literally have crazy DVD preorder prices, just to get in the trade.

Most of these sites went bankrupt and are now gone simply because they were selling their DVDs for less than it cost to buy them themselves.

I remember DVDSoon would always be ridiculously cheap I remember preordering most films for less than $10. In fact I bought a load of Disney DVDs from them for about $3.98.

They eventually went bust and took about $40 of my money with them, but since they had saved me so much over the years I suppose it didn't really matter.

[azul017]

Yeah, DVDs are so much cheaper online... unless it's Black Friday or I can't a better price online I rarely go to the stores.

But I think Deep Discount offers the best kind of deals on their items. Their prices may not be cheapest when compared to the likes of Amazon, but they include free shipping and no sales taxes (if you don't live in Illinois). In addition to that, they have a biyearly sales (one during either June or July and one in November) in which there are online coupons you can use to take 20% off the retail price. I remember I wasn't going to pay more than $19 for either The Adventures of Robin Hood: 2-Disc Special Edition or A Nightmare on Elm Street: 2-disc Infinifilm Edition, but with the DD sale I was able to get them for $15.74 a pop.

[DarthPrime]

I remember those days, and it wasn't just on DVDs. A lot of items were like that. I do miss some of the deals, although I don't miss my 14.4 dial up connection at all.