MariahQ
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« on: 18 March, 2011, 07:00:40 PM » |
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I was wondering if some of you UK members could enlighten this California girl as to good online sources to buy Region 2 DVDs. I only know amazon.co.uk, and while some of the prices are astonishingly good (15 pounds as opposed to 70 dollars, say), and I have purchased several things there (complete series of Lovejoy, Bergerac, Little Britain) I'd be happy to learn of alternatives for price comparison purposes. I'm building my library of British television programs and am ferretting out many that have never been shown over here. We have one website, dvdpricesearch.com, that compares the prices at all online retailers so you can see at a glance who has the best price on a given day. Is there anything like that over there?
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Gomez Addams
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« Reply #1 on: 18 March, 2011, 08:08:23 PM » |
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Buying from abroad myself, my favourite source remains Amazon UK, but another good online shop is Play.com In my experience, these two are hard to beat on prices, especially Amazon, but here's a few price comparison sources: http://www.find-dvd.co.uk/http://www.search-dvd.co.uk/http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/http://www.best-dvd-price.co.uk/http://www.dvdpricesearch.co.uk/http://www.dvdcollections.co.uk/You might want to check first what's available on Amazon USA, however... I had a few problems in the past when buying from the USA myself, not because of Amazon but the nasty customs, dunno how it works the other way 'round. These days, apart from preferring region 2 DVDs, I buy even American stuff from Amazon UK, I spend a bit more, but then I save on the shipping, which is free in Europe, and I don't have to bother with the customs. |
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MariahQ
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« Reply #2 on: 18 March, 2011, 10:13:27 PM » |
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Thank you so much for the information. I'll make good use of it. The prices charged for Region 1 DVDs on amazon.com are often triple or quadruple the price of a Region 2 equivalent on amazon.co.uk. A good example today is the complete series of One Foot in the Grave: amazon.com price $95.49; amazon.co.uk price 17.93 pounds, which is, what, 26 dollars? Shipping is only 3 or 4 dollars. In fact, since that's one of the series on my list to acquire, I think I'll order it today. Here's another one I just found. Coupling, complete Seasons 1-4 on amazon.com: $74.99; amazon.co.uk price 11.99 pounds! That's about $18! I'm ordering that one too. My collection is becoming rather extensive, if I do say so myself.  |
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PhilGlass
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« Reply #3 on: 18 March, 2011, 10:55:45 PM » |
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I find Amazon to be VERY expensive. Maybe I;m just usiing it wrong, but I've never seen anything on there that was cheaper than somewhere else.
HMV put its prices up dramatically when they kncoked Vigin / Zavvi out of business. In Manchester we have a shop called FOPP which is very cheap, and a new chain has opened called BIG...
But Amazon is not for me, I often check there, but they are far too expensive.
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MariahQ
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« Reply #4 on: 19 March, 2011, 04:17:23 AM » |
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PhilGlass,
I'm keen to be the smartest consumer I can be. Would you say that 18 pounds, say 22 pounds with shipping, is still too high for the complete series of One Foot in the Grave? Only by listening to you folks can I become wiser.
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Gomez Addams
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« Reply #5 on: 19 March, 2011, 08:42:48 AM » |
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Best price I can find for the "One Foot In The Grave" box-set is 17.85. Amazon sells it for 17.93, I would hardly call that "very expensive".
Guess some high street retailers MIGHT have better prices on specific items, at times, but it's hard to check from abroad, and it wouldn't be terribly convenient to jump on a plane from California to go shopping in England in order to spare a few pennies, methinks...
My personal appreciation of Amazon comes from over ten years of extremely satisfying dealings with them, on both sides of the Pond, and besides the price, I can't praise their terrific customer service high enough.
But that's just my 2 cents, of course.
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MariahQ
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« Reply #6 on: 19 March, 2011, 09:43:49 AM » |
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Thanks, Gomez, the perspective of more in-the-know folks is what I'm looking for. Prices for British DVDs leap around so alarmingly, I can't tell what's a good price and what isn't. Several months ago I got the entire series of Lovejoy for 32 pounds. Today the price is 139 pounds. Uh, excuse me, what???  I must have been terribly lucky and stumbled upon a secret one-day sale or something. |
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Gomez Addams
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« Reply #7 on: 19 March, 2011, 12:42:29 PM » |
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About Lovejoy, what actually happened there is that Amazon ran out of it.
The current listing refers to third party sources, shops connected to Amazon as selling "channel" but independent from it, and those are, indeed, "shop prices".
Look for the "in stock" caption for items actually sold by Amazon, if it says "available from these sellers" it's not them, they're just acting as middlemen.
That is still useful if you're looking for stuff long out of print, also second-hand, but prices are not exactly "competitive", as you can see.
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PhilGlass
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« Reply #8 on: 19 March, 2011, 07:34:57 PM » |
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No £18 is not expensive at all. And the One Foot In The Grave box set is fantastic, a real treat.
Yes, AMazon is good for finding "obscure" items that have been deleted.
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MariahQ
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« Reply #9 on: 20 March, 2011, 10:46:56 PM » |
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I appreciate all your input. I'd forgotten that amazon.co.uk deducts the VAT from the published prices, so my price is actually better than I realized, and that deduction more than makes up for the bit of shipping I have to pay. It's raining buckets here today and I'm happy knowing my DVDs are on their way while I spend my Sunday afternoon looking for more bargains online. I'm in the middle of the third season of Bergerac during the evenings (oh, John, John!) and am grateful to be living this quiet life sans earthquakes, tsunamis, and wars at my door.
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