Informal Amazon Poll
 

I was just wondering how many of us are begining to do more shopping outside of Amazon? I'm buying more and more at other online merchants and at Best Buy (B&M). They are becoming less friendly to the consumer....Higher prices, longer delivery times, etc... I only use them at all because their customer service is still the best. But who knows how long that will last?

:)

amazon could eliminate their cs department altogether and send us spam mail on an hourly basis and still we would all buy from them regardless. they have us as a captive buyer as long as we keep getting gc's from vividence and other giveaways. i constantly shop at amazon and never spend a cent of my own money.

I still shop with Amazon because my experiences with them have been far superior to just about any other e-tailer I've dealt with. Oh yeah, and also because of all the GCs. :D

Actually, I never buy from Amazon. Haven't had the best experiences in the past, and have since found much better alternatives (and not just for DVD's). CDNOW and DVDEmpire have cheaper pre-orders (esp. CDNOW, the new X-Files box is almost $10 less), and that alone is enough for me.

CDNow's shipping rates kill me, though. :eek: Unless you buy in huge orders, Amazon's cheaper for preorders (usually).

It's funny you mentioned that (well, not FUNNY funny, but odd :)). I just e-mailed their CS department earlier in the week to ask them about it (being that it is on the high side), and I was told it was slated to drop within the next week or so. It is something I will certainly keep an eye on, as that would already sweeten the deal.

That is funny (funny strange not funny ha-ha)...way to go, Idaho! King Slender got CDNow to lower their shipping rates! Three cheers for the King! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! eh, someone can finish it, this is getting old.

I don't see everyone's beef with amazon. I have ordered from them in the past and haven't had any problems. I really like the ease of use of the site and their reccomendations.

I use Amazon as a last resort because of following:

Too expensive on titles. (many cheaper sites)
Shipping too expensive for international (cheaper elsewhere).
Shipping delivery is slow compared to other stores.

I only use them if:
Other stores I use don't have title and Amazon does
I have gift certificates.
On preorders which I don't do much anyway.

Things I like about Amazon:
The ability to add gift certificates to an order that hasn't shipped yet.
Their packaging is second to none.
Returns policy, they will often just send replacement on being notified of fault or transit damage.
Their database of information on titles......... Look out Tower Records has a very good one now.

Things I hate about them
Idiot CSR people who don't understand the system or what you are relating to them.

Idiot CSR people who send a canned response to an email which took you forever to compose in detail, and they send you an idiotic one back often with nothing to do with what you asked them, and waiting too long for the reply.

I've given up on Amazon unless I have a GC to use and then I only buy catalogue titles that I'm not in a hurry to recieve. For almost the past year I have had to call them everytime something I've ordered has been released because it will just sit in "1 on hand" mode for weeks until someone calls/e-mails the warehouse to get it sent out. They always apologize and say that they don't know why the computer insists upon trying to save me money by shipping out titles together even though I select the send them out when they become available option. I can't figure out what their problem is and I'm tired of calling them to get my DVDs. I'm now using DVDEmpire mostly and a couple of other sites to spread out my orders. DVDEmpire sends out my DVDs in a timely manner and I never have to call them to get things shipped.

I only use Amazon if i have GCs. With the Amazon Visa GCs i end up paying nothing, so why not? http://www.ameritech.net/users/dvdtalk/ck.gif

I haven't used Amazon in about 3 months now. They really screwed up my last order which took nearly a month to get :mad:. 2 DVDs, with the "ships in 24 hours" false advertisment on the site, nearly one month :mad:. Calls to customer service seemed to worsen the situation. I was debating ordering from them again, but whenever I think about my last order it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm going to try a new etailer, because I can't find Hollywood Shuffle anywhere :( Lately I've been picking up DVDs at BB B&M.

Hollywood Shuffle
 

CDNOW has it for around $15-$16, didn't get a chance to look elsewhere...

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Re: Informal Amazon Poll
 

They're still my exclusive book dealer. I also use them for
CDs and the occasional video game, but their DVD prices
are mostly too high for my blood.

They've treated me right over the years, so I'll stick with them.

==Jake

I've ordered probably 15 times in the past four month's and have never had a bad experience with amazon. Shopping wisely and using the Free Shipping offer in the past along with coupons I have managed to get better deals than going elsewhere. As long as they continue offer coupons or good sale price's I'll still use them for future orders.

saintsfan

Like most of us, I use Amazon for a bulk of my 100 or so DVD purchases with the help of GC's. I'm one of the cheap schmucks that only buy DVD's with atleast some kind of coupon or deep discount...so Amazon has been my primary shop. These GC's have allowed me to only spend an average of about $5 per DVD...that's including the two DVDs my wife paid (sniffle) retail for.

With the death of GC's from the click-and-earn's, my purchasing has slowed in general, not shifted. But as long as amazon keeps their GC's in circulation, I'll be shopping to some extent. I'll use any GC that comes my way as long as the CS is quasi-dependable.

Except for $5 GC (on 1 DVD) I had to burn about a month ago, I haven't used amazon since March. They are not any cheaper than the B&Ms and they don't get preorders out before street like CDNow (plus CDNow has better preorder prices and coupons). CDNow gets all of my online business and Costco gets my B&M business.

I used to use Amazon exclusively, but haven't ordered from them in ages. Since their prices started going up, I can usually get better prices at a B&M (and instant gratification), especially on Criterion titles; it seems those are pretty much list price now. For online ordering, I have been very satisfied with buy.com. I've never had a problem with the service from either place.

I also used to order only at Amazon.com but now 80% of my business goes to CD NOW. Why?
- CDNow's (international) shipping is lower than Amazon's
- CDNow's prices are lower (30% off)
- CDNow's coupons are better (15% off)
- CDNow ships always in two parts (more convenient, less customs worries)
- Never had a problem with CDNow (also not with Amazon btw)