Steal this DVD
Online coupons, consumer sites help viewers get off cheap
I'VE NEVER BEEN a big proponent of buying things online. Not because I'm one of these Luddite privacy freaks who fear lurking hackers are waiting to snatch credit card information from cyberspace. No, I've never been big on e-commerce simply because I'm an impatient bastard who demands immediate gratification. Most of my food is irradiated to proper serving temperature in less than five minutes -- you think I'm going to wait four or five days to get my hands on The Matrix? Not bloody likely.
All that has changed in the past two or three months. E-commerce has exploded, and DVDs are just one of the many consumables being passed along to us consumers at heart-stoppingly low prices. Several DVD superstores have sprung up on the 'net, generating competition so fierce that each Web site offers at least a few drastically underpriced loss leaders to suck you in. Currently the big boys in the DVD world are 800.com (which is trying to become the Best Buy of the 'net), Big Star (you've probably seen their annoying biohazard-orange mobile billboards on the freeway), DVD Express, and Reel.com. Even Amazon.com has jumped onto the DVD wagon, offering moderately priced discs to the Oprah Book Club crowd.
Sitting around and waiting sucks, no doubt about it. But I've found that by preordering titles that I'm looking forward to, nine times out of ten I get the discs the date they're released -- sometimes even a day or two before, depending on the caprices of the postal service. It's almost like you're not really waiting for shipping, since you end up getting your disc about the same time it's available at retailers. Plus you don't have to drive somewhere and wait in line -- which is a boon for shut-in agoraphobics, hostile antisocial nutcases with a taste for digital porno, and anyone who lives out in the boonies.
DVD aficionados tend to be holdover laser disc snobs, which means they're usually very picky, have money to burn, and fit into the Geek scale somewhere between Star Trek Fan and Still Living in Mom's Basement. In other words, dorky but not terminally so, with a good working knowledge of computers and the Internet, from which most of their sexual experiences are downloaded. As a class of people who make a good sum of money, yet still demand something for nothing, DVD diehards have raised e-shopping to an art form.
Enter DVD Talk and DVD Price Search, the true future of online shopping. Between them, these two sites have saved me hundreds of dollars in the last four months. Because I am, like most geeks, a collector, and nothing satisfies a collector as much as feeling like you just put one over on the Man. Both these sites are dedicated to helping hoarders pinch their pennies down to the subatomic level.
DVD Talk is, in a word, awesome. Never have I seen a group of people come together like this to help each other shop and swindle. The site is set up to help you find current bargains (usually revolving around soon-to-be-released blockbusters, like The Blair Witch Project or the Disney stuff), special deals that are floating around, and what titles the big DVD online stores are currently offering for cheapo sale prices. DVD Talk also has a weekly e-mail newsletter that goes right to your in-box -- in case you've forgotten to check out the page lately -- and a very active community posting feedback on their bulletin boards.
All the specials listed on the site are hyperlinks that will conveniently pop you right over to the targeted store, allowing you to quickly fill out an order form and then jump back to DVD Talk. If DVD Talk was really smart, it would have links open a new page instead of taking you to the next site. This way, you'd be able to order the title instantly and go back to browsing through DVD Talk without having to use the Back button.
Hidden inside DVD Talk's user forums on its is an innocuous-sounding topic of conversation: DVD Bargains. Like whiskey to my Irish ancestors, this discussion forum calls to me with a siren song of undeniable seductiveness. For here is the spot to revel in my current consumer addiction: e-coupons.
Several of the big retail sites (most notably Reel.com and Bigstar) offer hidden discounts and special offers that they distribute across the Internet in order to entice new customers and other Web sites to hook up with them. DVD Talk's hard-working 'net detectives make it their life's purpose to search these instant rebates out, then list them here for all to use. A user by the handle of "SLYDoggie" is the ninja master of Reel.com e-coupons, changing and updating the thread as new coupons come in and old ones are laid to rest. S-Dogg, if I ever meet you in RL (real life), I promise to buy you a couple of drinks, homey.
E-coupons usually take the form of hyperlinks that send you into a Web site with an automatic discount added, or as code words that you type in on a separate line during the checkout process. E-coupons are usually good for things like "ten dollars off purchase of $25 or more," "twenty dollars off your next purchase," free shipping, etc. E-Coupons can usually only be used once, but wily shoppers can usually find a way to get more life out of them. It's amazing how many DVDs my fianc?, mom, sister, and coworkers have ordered since I discovered e-coupons.
In one memorable coup, I scored an "800 cents off your next purchase over $15" e-coupon from 800.com, which I used to preorder There's Something about Mary, on sale at the time for $16.95 (MSRP on Mary: $29.99). The end result was a brand-new DVD that cost a measly $8.95 and was shipped free of charge (another incentive 800.com offered at the time).
Yeah, it's not exactly big-game hunting or the conquest of France, but in this modern world, we take our victories where we can find them.
DVD Price Search, on the other hand, is a lot less community-oriented than DVD Talk, but much more single-mindedly focused at the same time. Price Search has one mission: to help you find the best price for any given DVD via a clever search engine. Type in the name of the movie or movies you're looking for (you can also look up by price, store or category) and click on Search. Punch in Apocalypse Now," for instance, and if the DVD is on the database, Price Search will bust out a store-by-store comparison of everyone's favorite Nam surfing movie, displaying a range of prices from eight different sources, including shipping and handling and any applicable sales tax. You can even do multiple searches and Price Search will magically figure out if it's cheaper for you to buy a selection of movies from a single store or from a bunch of different sites. Once you've decided, the links from this search will take you right to the Web pages, where you can now order your discs.
Before you click on the Add to my Shopping Cart button, take a moment to check out the rep of the store that you're about to bless with your business. DVD Talk has a new forum where they rate the online superstores, which can save you a serious customer service headache. For instance, inquiring about Saving Private Ryan on DVD Price Search currently shows that small-potato operator DVD Wave has the best price going. Or so it would seem. Since I'd never heard of these bozos, I ran a check with DVD Talk's "Online Store Reviews" to see what the other folks out there were saying. I'm glad I took the precaution. Seems like DVD Wave's got itself a pretty crappy rep, presenting itself as a big-time discount destination when it's little more than a trumped-up rental store that makes promises it can't deliver on. Also in DVD Talk's "Not Recommended" category: the execrable Buy.com, one of the single worst e-commerce sites staining this planet's global information network, the ass-backwards Shopping.com, and suprisingly, Virginmega.com, the online home of the Virgin Megastore, which has been pretty flaky from both a price and a technical standing.
The only drawback I've found with this whole phantom operation is that it's very easy to forget how many discs you've just ordered during a late-night frenzy of pointing and clicking. Sure, it's cheaper to surf than shop, but at the end of the month all these virtual purchases are going to end up putting in a surprise reappearance on your credit card statement. And those damn e-coupons are just so tempting that it's almost impossible for me to pass one up.
The end result is that I now scoff at my few friends who still buy their discs retail. When you poke around online and find that you can preorder The Matrix for $11.95 or Saving Private Ryan for $20.95, it seems slightly ridiculous when you pick up a disc at Tower and see a $24.95 or $34.95 price tag attached. My minor 'net skepticism has also completely evaporated since I've started using these sites. I've never been burned, I haven't seen any increase in spam, and the one time an order was late, I sent a whiny e-mail to the company's customer service department and it ended up apologizing profusely and refunding five bucks to my credit card.
If, in the new millennium, the Internet is going to shake out to be nothing more than a new way for people to jack off, shop, or both, I hope we see more places like DVD Talk and DVD Price Search appear. Now if only there was an e-coupon to take a few thousand off the cost of that 80-inch HDTV from Mitsubishi ...
By Chris Kramer