Does BidCD have a good rep?
 

I jsut saw that they have some really nice prices, and I was wondering if they have any bad marks on their record or not.

I have never heard of them, and when I go to Bidcd.com, it goes to the magazine outlet. I hope you are not trying to get in free ads on this forum.

Are you talking about BigCD.com?

Yeah, sorry about the typo, I was in a hurry. Have you heard anything about BigCD.com?

Only that this forum had a discount coupon off a $100 purchase. I don't think that many DVDTalkers have ventured there yet. Sorry

A Little about BigCD.com
 

Hello DvdTalkers, since your asking about my store I figure I could at least just tell you a little without really being such a self promoting ******* or considered a spammer.

I come here very often to enjoy the conversation and the reviews as I am just a regular fan like you guys. Bigcd has been in operation for over two years, originally just as an import music source and a place to have a shopping cart for my own record company. I then decided to become a full blown store since I had the smarts to do it.

Only recently have I been spending money on some marketing and advertising programs. I wasn't ready for full time e commerce until I had some nice additions like order status tracking, inventory levels and more automation with scripts and updates with database manipulation.

So since it's inception bigcd has had over 5,000 tickets sold in the cart, and my half.com store since august has shipped over 7,000 orders. I don't know even if thats enough to have a rep in the grand scheme of things really because there are millions of e shoppers around.

The cart has some powerful features I built it pretty much myself with of course the programmers help who designed the system initially. Yes although I am a small company I absolutely can offer the same level service any major corporation can minus a few bells and whistles and moronic untrained customer service reps. I can absolutely offer products cheaper because I don't have a bloated and bulky business model.

I guess the drawbacks are that I don't have any genius programmers. Neither can I answer the phone to help people with orders personally so I don't list a phone number on the website. I do all the email responses myself and personally oversee everything 24/7 except when I am sleeping or rehearsing or doing shows with my radio rock band.

I hope I can offer you guys some good deals as I have found some on my own over these recent months while visiting dvdtalk. Just give it a shot.

Mike - Owner/Slave/ future Rockstar as well.

Thanks Mike. I'll be checking your site out shortly and will report back to the DVDTalk population.

Please keep us informed.

I placed an order for seven dvds about two weeks ago and didn't have any problems. Price wise bigcd is either the lowest or very close to bestprices.com, and this is after you include shipping.

Like the site says, there aren't any gfx, so sometimes it is hard to determine if the dvd you want is the correct one. I just check the part # against Amazon.com, and that works out ok.

I have some suggestions & observations:

- Allow a customer to do an order search by order number, where the customer would enter the order number into a entry box. Or something like Amazon.com where it keeps track of your orders and you can just click on the link.

- Put the rule about credit card purchases with different bill-to ship-to addresses into the faq. I didn't see this info until after I placed my order.

- Site seemed sorta slow given than I am on broadband. Might be because of the holiday or the new advertising.

Anyway, I would order from bigcd.com again.

That's great news! I'll be trying them out shortly.

Merry Christmas everyone!

A few new features in the store.
 

Hi you guys, I put a couple things in the bigcd store.

I grabbed the UPC field from the products database and put it on the items description page. This way you can compare UPC codes to make sure your ordering the proper issue of the title you are looking for. The only thing the store is missing which would be beneficial is the covers for the DVDS. However I do not see this being an option because getting a video account with muze will run anywhere from 1, 2 thousand dollars PER MONTH. In a binding contract and I don't have money to just throw around to "see if this will work".

I also added the store policy page back again after re writing it pretty much from scratch. So check that out If you are interested and give me your feedback. I will most likely add and modify to suit customers needs and feedback. I just had to get something up there that described shipping, payment, returns and what not.

I'm thinking about taking out free shipping on everything and make it free shipping for $20 or more order. I'm actually losing money when someone buys something for like 7.99 or what have you because of free shipping... I was hoping more people would select the priority option because its much fast and secure but also then i make like a little bit more. I know most people here don't care either way if a store makes money and survives the dot com crashes but for me this is how I make my living or how I try to at least.

Mike BigCD

BigCD lower prices for a while.
 

Hello fellow Dvdtalkers. I am just posting in my own thread here. I have lowered just about everything in the store to most likely record low prices.

I am doing this so I can observe the buying pattens and compare the prices with other online retailers. I will then be raising prices on specific items accordingly when this period is ended. I need to be able to recognize what customers like to buy and for those products the ones that I can raise prices a couple dollars on and still give the customer a deal and save some money to buy veggie burgers for the week for myself.

I won't cancel orders unless I see prices lower than my cost, but my pricing script should be working so I make at least $1 per dvd. I have come to the conclusion to maximize my profits I need to price products individually accordingly to the current market. There is no way to do this without using customers as guniea pigs. I can't just run a mathematical percentage from cost markup. It's not effective. So come enjoy the benefits of me spilling my guts about why I sit in front of the computer 10 hours a day and I'm honestly not looking at pron.

Mike.

PS for anyone who cares, the bands CD is coming out in a few weeks then we will see what major labels would be interested in us.

I placed an order on Jan. 9th. Today being Jan. 26th, the order status shows it as being "OPENORD." My credit card has already been charged, so I'm guessing it might ship soon....

Anyone else have similar experience with BigCD.com?

The order status pages shows nothing's happened since 01.14.2002.

I placed an order a week ago yesterday and never received an email notifying my order had been shipped (as advertised). My order has also not shown up on this spreadsheet, yet my creditcard was billed.

I email'd the 'customer service' address and did not receive any response. I'll probably cancel my order after another week.


zeek

I just have returned.
 

Hello I'm sorry for the delay but I was gone on tour with my radio rock band. I hired someone to do orders and some other basic tasks but he turned out to only show up one time so I have hundreds of orders to now process and tons of work to do. Everything will be handled shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Mike

Well they don't seem to have a "good rep" with vendor reviewers @ dvdpricesearch.

While I laugh @ people that say "I ordered it 2 Day's where's my DVD" I do not think the claims of no responses to customer service questions is acceptable. I have not used them before but I might buy 1 dvd to try them out and report my findings.

Also awaiting for a reply to the email I sent them a week ago :(

Spero D.

Contact now.
 

Hello, like I said on the top. I was gone for a week on tour with my rock band. I run bigcd myself so if I am gone then nobody can respond. i did train and hire a guy to update the store and send orders in but he only showed up one time so there still is a lot of catching up to do.

Our band is on the verge of getting a major record deal and becoming famous so doing the band is just as important as bigcd for me.

Mike

Something to consider when ordering ... is price the only factor, is service a factor, if so how important ...
:johnwoo:

So, what happens when you can't find your order number on the site? I have a print out or my order, my order number and everything, but I can't log on, nor can I get any verification at all that my order is processing or has shipped, or anything.

any suggestions?

Robyn Young

Problems...
 

I am having a few problems with my distributor trying to work them out now. Orders have been delayed unfrotunately but those are sometimes the growing pains a business experiences. Everything hopefully will be worked out shortly.

NEVER ORDER FROM THEM!!! I HAVEN'T GOT MY ORDER IN OVER A MONTH!!
 

I place an order with them over a month ago, my credit card was charged and THE ORDER STILL HAS NOT SHIPPED!!!

A credit card should never be charged unless the order has shipped. Repeated emails were met with standard useless answers, I requested a refund to which I never received a response. I can understand growing pains but.....

Mike BigCD states:


I am having a few problems with my distributor trying to work them out now. Orders have been delayed unfrotunately but those are sometimes the growing pains a business experiences. Everything hopefully will be worked out shortly.

Hopefully things will be worked out shortly??? HOW long is shortly? I have already waited a MONTH!!! If you didn't charge my credit card, Hey no big deal, BUT you did charge my card and DIDN'T SEND THE GOODS!!

I can't possibly see how I will ever use your company again, if you can't ship out the orders you should not charge the cards. Plain and simple......

I absolutely agree. My CC was also charged within a few hours, and my order was never shipped.

The last email I received from them said "maybe next week, we've got over $50,000 worth of merchandise waiting to go out". Doesn't make me feel all that great that my order is stuck somewhere in that big glut.

Nothing should have been charged until the order was ready to ship. I will wait a little longer for this to ship because of monetary reasons (I'm not using my CC anymore so this was my last big hu-rah) but I will not be ordering from BigCD anymore.


zeek

:
Thanks for the heads up guys, looks like a place to avoid... doesn't sound like $50,000 in orders is too important to him ... definitely not a place for me to do busines with.

:johnwoo

Exactly like it says...
 

I hope things will be worked out soon. Too many complications and technical and what not things to explain here but yeah things are delayed right now.

Cards are being charged because soon as the details are worked out the orders will ship. My contract is under renegotiations among other things because it's up in less than a month.

I respond to everyone who emails and tell them that.

The entire system is on hold pending these negotiations reviewing of the account etc. Thats why no order status pages have been updated. I care about the expeditious shipping of your orders but the distributor does not. They will not release orders right now until details and issues are worked out and on paper. They are fully aware of the amount of orders and what have you that are waiting to ship. They just don't care about anything but themselves. Typical of any big company or corporation.

I am doing everything in my power to push this to resolution.

Thanks for your patience.

Re: Exactly like it says...
 

Maybe it's me, but consumers don't care about your distribution problems. They just want the product that they are already billed for. I have been reading your posts and I simply will not order from you due to the lack of reponsibility your claiming for yourself. Instead of blaming your distributor, why don't you suck it up and claim the blame for yourself. You're the sole person to blame not your distributor.

I also think you should post these problems on your home page, so potential customers know these problem exists and they will have advance notice that it may take a long time to get the product. Oh yeah, you also might want to post that your band is more inportant than those customers.

Dude, your shooting yourself in the foot with those stupid responses.

Situation
 

I don't see anything stupid at all. Just because I went on tour didn't have anything to do with my distributor. It is my distributors fault and my processors fault the orders are on hold. It is not my fault, and I will not claim responsibility for it. I am doing everything possible to get the orders sent out. Thats all I can say, the company is just me and because of this I have a feeling all the business partners involved just want me out of business so they are doing quite a good job at putting road blocks in my way.

It's mainly financial but it's also quite bureaucratic in nature. Of course resolving any of this is none of the business partners priorities and they don't care about your orders. "It's always under review and we will let you know" type of deals.

Sorry really but thats all i can say.

as far as we are concerned it is just you. If you are having distribution issues, there's a fix ... stop taking new orders.

I agree, doesn't seem like you are taking responsibility ... in one sentence you say the orders are just about to ship and that's why cards have been charged ... in the next you say your having distribution problems ... Either the merchandise is about to ship to your customers or it is not. Your problems with your suppliers is exactly that... your problem. The bottom line is you have taken payment for something and not delivered so far.

In any case, I'll bet you have lost more customers than you have gained with your responses.

Re: Exactly like it says...
 

Coming from someone who admits that he ignored customer service questions for an entire week because "I was gone for a week on tour with my rock band.", I find this comment humorous.

While I appreciate you coming here to respond to comments and promote your company, please understand that I would NEVER place an order at your company. Passing the blame around when you have charged customers for items that have not shipped is unacceptable (and likely in violation of your agreements with the credit card companies).

Nothing personal, but I would think that you'd be a little more concerned being a one-man operation with $50k in unshipped product. The fact that you are still taking orders when you clearly aren't ready or able to run a company this size is troubling.

Ok then I'll start ignoring customers and not respond to anyone. I guess that is what you want. I try to do the right thing and now I am attacked for it. So from now on I will start acting like a ******* corporation and will ingore everyone. Thats sarcasm.

Dude!!! You still don't get it do you? Amazing!!!

Whoa!

Pretty hot in here wouldn't you say?

Mike BigCD, I just placed an order before reading this thread. What is a realistic timeframe to wait before my order is filled? Two weeks; a month?

Please let me know. Your response is appreciated.....

You have already done that, I have emailed you and asked for a refund. That request WAS and still has been ignored by you. Plain and simple you need to refund my money you did not send out the items. I do not care what your problems are, you should not have charged my card unless you shipped the items. I will be contacting my credit card company on Monday if you do not refund my card. Like I said before it would not be that big of a deal BUT you charged my card and it now sounds like you have no idea when the items will ship.

I bought Manchurian Candidate from BigCD off half.com, and waited a month for it to ship and it never arrived. I filed a complaint with Half.com, and they forwarded it to BigCD, and Big CD replied that it was likely a processing error, and someone would manually enter in the order. I waited another 2 weeks and received nothing, and filed a complaint with half.com to get my money refunded (which hasn't happened yet).

So, I'm 0 for 1 with them, and out $9.00 and no DVD...

Yikes what an unhappy thread. On one hand I can be sympathetic with the plight of the 'little guy' and the problems a small business can have when dealing with big corporations but on the other hand this thread is a great example of how the road to hell can be paved with good intentions and customers have real needs and concerns which need to be met.

Unfortunately I've had to give advice to several stores as they pulled through rought times and so here's what I've said in the past (which I think would help both BigCD and the customers here who are really getting burned).

#1 Do not charge credit cards before product has shipped. This is a pretty big no no and can get you in some hot water, as well as give customers a real reason to file complaints and risk your merchant stauts.
#2 Make it easy for unhappy customers to cancel their order. You can't hold orders hostage, it's very important that customers who don't want to 'wait it out' can cancel their order and get an immediate refund. I think you'll find that some customers are WILLING to sweat it out if they have faith they can 'get out' at any time.
#3 Make it clear on your site that you are experiencing shipping delays and that people will not be getting their product ASAP.
#4 Find an interm distributor to get the pending orders out. There's nothing better to show a distributor that they can't mess with your business by taking your business elsewhere.
#5 Separate your frustration with your distributor from the needs of your customers. The people in this thread have every reason to be concerned, their money/order has been effected by your distributor problem as much as yours has. It's better to give updates than get bitter

Hopefully this will help. I hate to see things like this happen, it's bad for customers, bad for stores, and in the end no one wins.

Time to call the cc company and reverse the charges, what a scam artist! How can he justify starting a business and than leaving it unattended for a gig with his band and than start charging people without shipping any product? :mad:

I run a small DVD company as well, and I have had none of the problems Mike has had. I only list product I have sitting in front of me. I do roughly $100,000 in retail sales a year, but most of my business is wholesale. My customers would not put up with this. My website is down and I am not spamming, so I will not divulge the name of my company, but customer service is a must. These wholesalers do not always ask for contracts, a lot of them dont actually. Find a new distributor would be my suggestion.
Philip

Last month I ordered a dreamcast game off of half.com from bigcd, and it showed up and made me very happy. No complaints here.

I would have responded to this thread earlier, but I was on a world tour with MY radio rock band and by "world tour" my band just went door to door in an apartment complex taking requests (There's a major-label bidding war going on right now). Seriously though I wanted to weigh in on the topic and say that I was so confused by the layout of the site and then becoming more confused with the media mail/priority thing that I just said "Forget this! The online retailer I normally use works just fine for me! Why screw up a good thing" By the way, rock and roll is a full time job and demands all your attention, as does running a business.

updates
 

Yes there is shortly going to be several majors interested in us. I have a band and were going to be successfull. I can own and run bigcd.com from the road easily with a laptop this does not matter at this point.

This has no bearing on the fact that my credit card processor is holding thousands of dollars from me. Or the fact that half.com takes 3 weeks to pay for the orders they submit and tell customers they are shipped that day. It's just not going to happen nobody is going to send out 50,000 in orders without recieving money for them.

As soon as half.com sends me the 45,000 they owe me the orders will be released. I am instructing my distributor to send out all the store orders first then the half.com orders second. I'm sure a bunch of the later half.com orders will not be released until more money is recieved most likely from my card processor. It's all going to work out but it's not really up to me it's up to the companies who like to hold small business's hostage by holding money and revoking credit lines and threatening me with collection agencies when it's thier fault the business is in trouble in the first place. It's not mine and the only thing i could personally do at this point is get a loan to deposit it down for a line of credit.

Then there is absolutely the issue with my fullfillment contract is almost up so a new one needs to be worked on very shortly. Distributor just will not care unless money is recieved and until the money is recieved I'm on hold now. As soon as half.com sends the wire I'll be sending it in and all the store orders and more than half of the half.com orders will be paid for and sent out. So thats that and I am not looking responses or people threatening me personally. SO please don't and stop calling here threatening me as well. I am doing everything I can. It comes down to big business does not care about small business and frankly my business is not that small I do 50,000 in orders a monnth now. I am an individual however so they like to browbeat little people like myself.

Mike BigCD

more updates
 

It looks like a ray of sunshine has permeated the overcast sky.

My card processor is now sending me some of the money they are holding. They are also raising my limit again but yet again they took another security deposit.

So please if you have contacted your banks cancel the claims they take a serious amount of time and they cost me and the card processor money. The orders will be sent out shortly, and everything will come to as close as normal as possible. Thanks for your patience.

Mike