Page 1 of Definitive guide to the BEST Online Retailers

I thought it would be great if everyone could post who they think are the top online retailers for buying DVDs of all regions, to give a definitive ``personal experience" guide for people to reference, listing why they are so good. And maybe ones to avoid too.

Over to you guys...

This should be in retailers reviews... :p

Personal experience...

CDWow.... fantastic service and no complaints (untill the SOTD delay)

DVD Soon...still waiting for a disk ordered over a month ago....thats nothing special apparently. I doubt I will make regular orders with them

Play.com...never used em but read good reviews...I have the Hellraiser lament box and Star wars on order to try em out

Sendit only used em once but they had friendly and helpful customer service and fast delivery

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"If I had time....and a hammer, I`d track down every bootleg copy and smash it........"
- George Lucas

My DVD collection

This item was edited on Tuesday, 7th September 2004, 22:25

DVD Soon would be ...ok if you can wait, often very cheap. Just got a 2 disc Gormenghast dvd for less than 4 quid, but I had to wait about a month to get it dispatched.

TOP RETAILERS

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CD WOW - Bargain Price Foreign DVDs. Fast Dispatch. Fast reply to emails.
DDD House - Bargain Price Asian DVDs. Fast Dispatch.
Play - Excellent UK DVDs. Fast Dispatch


POOR (From my experience)

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DVD Pacific - Account was hijacked and lost money.
DVD Soon - Ordered twice and on one occasion DVD took over 2 months, other time took over 1 month, even though site stated 72 hours for dispatch. Over 2 weeks to respond to email.
WHSmith - They cancelled my order twice due to pricing error, blamed lack of supply on both occasions even though they clearly still had the item in stock.

DVDSoon for pre-release & in stock items good, out of stock can take a lil time (Ghormenghast arrived on Monday for that price I can wait) - Still have Shrek2 & somew Clint Eastwood westerns on back order, but they are all for Christmas again so speed not vital.

Play are good from past experience - But started using DVDSoon as prices were cheaper & didnt have R1 & R2 in two different domains.

WHS - Ordered 3 books - Thus far only ones arrived.

Scan & Aria (both .co.uk) for PC bits good deals on Today Only, for some reason always had some niggly issues with ScanCom kit (sister site for Scan mobiles).

This item was edited on Tuesday, 7th September 2004, 23:43

I must be losing my marbles, because i was positive i posted this thread under `Retailer Reviews`. Well, until the moderator kindly E-mailed me to tell me they`d moved it to here. Doh!

Play.com - Free delivery, very good service, good prices. Best UK retailer, in my opinion, for single purchases.

DVDImport.com - All my orders have been fine with them (touch wood!). Generally, i find that certain items do take a while to ship, so if you`re not in any rush, they`re a good place to go for boxsets. But they still haven`t shipped my DVD released yesterday! >:(

CD-wow.com - Although i like these guys, i hadn`t ordered for a while, due to finding cheaper `older` DVD elsewhere. Definately best place on the web for CDs though. Recently ordered a load of box sets, and am chewing my nails to the quick over whether i`ll be battered by customs. They say no, and are willing to refund any customs charges. That`s got to be good.

Movietyme.com/DVDCrave.com - I`ve ordered stuff from them blind. I hope i`ve done good!

CaimenUSA - This is an Amazon Marketplace ZShop. Brilliant service, cheap prices. I`ve ordered heaps from here.Only downside, you can`t do a thorough search of the store - have to look for something in particular and check if Caimen have it! Great for rare CDs.

1) PLAY.COM - I`ve used them for nearly three years and they`ve never let me down.

Fast delivery, although bubble-lined envelopes for some cardboard box-sets don`t give enough protection. Sometimes they use `wraparound` card packaging which is better

2) CD-WOW - Great prices and a fast service both for CDs and DVDs

I`ve also used MVC about three times lately (for CDs). Although prices are not particularly competitive, I`ve received goods within 24 - 48 hours

I`g like to know about THEHUT.COM . They are offering FLEETWOOD MAC - LIVE IN BOSTON (2 DVD + CD) for £13.89 - several pounds cheaper than anyone else !!

There are several things to consider when deciding how good a DVD online retailer is - price is very important, but so is actually delivering the thing in a reasonable time (especially if the Web site doesn`t specifically say it`s out of stock - some sites fail to mention that...). There`s also the question of what they do about import duty (either avoid it via clever postal routing like CD WOW, agree to refund any charges or just warn you that you`ll have to pay them - a site that does none of those [i.e. just keeps quiet about them] is misleading UK customers about how much imported DVDs could potentially cost).

Of the several I`m registered on, I probably order the most from DVD Soon and CD Wow. I used to order from play.com (who are very impressive w.r.t. speed of delivery), but they are being consistently beaten on all their prices now by DVD Soon and CD Wow, especially if you have affiliate URLs and/or vouchers for the latter, which can knock up to 2.50 quid off the price.

As people have said, DVD Soon are quite slow if the item isn`t stated as being in stock (if it is in stock, they almost always deliver within a week, which is fine by me) and they also debit your credit card on placement of the order, not when it`s actually shipped, which can be an issue for some folks (if the retailer`s reliable, I have no problem with that).

Oh, for CDs, CD WOW with URLs/vouchers is completely unbeatable really, but be very careful about the track listings - they don`t number the tracks (yes an OL tag instead of an UL tag would do that - I asked them ages ago to number the tracks, but they didn`t bother), so watch out that UK CD releases deliberately have bonus tracks to discourage you ordering the non-UK versions (CD WOW usually don`t have those bonus tracks). I use www.amazon.co.uk to check the UK tracklist and if it`s the same as CD WOW, buy it from CD WOW :)

CD-WOW, Play.com / usa: for all the reasons people have already posted!!

dddhouse.com: Very good and cheap prices for Region 3 DVD`s. I`ve always had excellent service from these people.

Loaded247.com: Although they can take longer if it is not in stock. Using less of them these days as they only stock Region 1 and Region 2 DVD`s.

yesasia.com: Region 3 DVD`s at very competitive prices and free postage and VAT to UK.

;)