I'm saying that there is a certain price point (or a certain percentage of discount) when they will start losing money. You and I don't know what that point is. You can't just assume that because they sold a lot of product that they are making lots of money. It's not like a 20% discount is going to break them, but it might be enough to get rid of most or all of their profit margins. That's my point.

I suppose your other 69 orders were also placed at time when the DDD servers were getting the crap kicked out of them? Honestly, past orders really aren't relevant. This is pretty obviously a special case.

Wow--I was without an internet connection for a few days, and all heck broke loose :)

to me, if they can make money on (for example) the first $100,000 in orders with the 20% discount, they should be able to make a profit on the next $100,000...and the next and the next...

Well on the first sale they raised their prices before allowing the 20% discount. They didn't do it this time around so the margins we're dealing with are much smaller to begin with.

have you ever taken an economics class before? if so, you might recall something called the "Law of Diminishing Returns" which basically means that as you put in more of an input, you're output is gonna grow at a decreasing rate. Basically, no company is gonna have economies of scale forever. There's gonna come a point where there is diseconomies of scale.

Plus, you need to factor in the fact that DDD has different profit margins on different DVDs. They may charge $10 for both DVD A and DVD B, but DVD A might cost them $9.50 whereas DVD B might cost them $5.

i would think that in the long run the expenses per item go down. its like a companies start up costs - at first they are in the red but over time they can start making money.

but hell i dont know...i didnt make an order either so i dont care :)

at first, most ppl, including myself, would think this as well.

All retailers have fixed costs and variable costs. The more items you sell, the average cost should go down in the long run due to the decreasing average fixed cost (e.g. you have a store that costs $1,000. if you sell 100 items, then your average fixed cost per item is $10, but if you sell 1000 items, then your average fixed cost per item is $1).

Some factors that most ppl forget to consider is that due to all the increased order volume, a retailer like DDD.com might have to upgrade their servers which is another fixed cost. They will probably have to hire more workers to field the calls and package the orders. There will probably be overtime pay. All these different overhead costs need to be factored in.

Another factor you need to remember is that not every worker is the same. Just because you double your workforce doesn't mean that the output is gonna double. Each person works at a different rate and some ppl will shirk (they have their own agenda so they may not work at 100%).

If it were possible to achieve economies of scale forever, then every company would do it. But since that doesn't occur, companies have to find that point where they can maximize their profits (that point is when Marginal Costs = Marginal Revenues). Neways, enough econ for tonight, I'm tired.

you are right for a manufacturer of a product. For a retailer the costs are fixed by the studios. They are not going to reduce the cost of a dvd just because they get a few more orders from DDD. I am sure DDD is far down the chain on amount of dvd's sold so a sales spike will give them no way to bargain for a reduction in costs.


I am sure after factoring in free shipping they lost money on almost every order.

DDD didn't raise the prices beyond the normal price fluctuations that occur every week of the year. This issue came up during that sale, and no one provided any evidence that DDD raised prices for the sale. I remember checking the price changes at bargainflix and there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Remember that person had one example during that last sale and of course the thousands of examples to the contrary still will not change the mind of those who think everyone is against them :)

I thought my order was okay but the web site now shows everything as being cancelled (was in process), I haven't called or emailed them at all.

Actually, two popular titles come to mind:

The Matrix and Pirates of the Carribbean

I believe, at the time, The Matrix was lowered to $9.99 for some type of WB Sale, then when the 20% off hit, DDD raised the price back to $14.99.

The price for Pirates was somewhere around $17.89, then hiked up to $19.89 during the 20% off sale.

Found some more:
Indiana Jones went from $44 to $49
Paramount Titles on sale for $9.36 jumped to $13 (Dragonslayer)

Maybe this works out for me.
Quick recap I called yesterday and was told my order was lost, well about an hour later I get an Email confirmation with an order number but the prices show full price. So I call them up and they tell me they are not honoring the 20% off. So I cancel the order and then I looked at my order status and its showing with the 20% discount applied, but I had canceled the order. So another call explaining I wouldnt have canceled the order had I not been told I wasnt getting the discount. Again told sorry nothing they could do. Finally I had enough and asked to speak with a supervisor and then the CSR said he would manually enter another order with the 20%. So hoping thats it but still not showing on order status and its almost 24 hours.

So I guess it may just be that its taking tme to sort the mess and if you ever speak to the CSRS you know that there computer system is not state of the art.

Hmmm. I ordered Indiana Jones from DDD last Thursday for $51.00 less 20% = $40.80

DDPRD006125D ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES (LBX) 1 $51.00

Got my confirmation order email. Also got an email saying it shipped!

Amazingly... I placed 2 orders... a large first order with all preorders
and a second which included in stock items... the second went through fine, but the first... showed up with no discount... which did upset me... if they cancelled orders, why not cancel discounts on both and be done with it

A call to the customer rep got me nowhere, other than him stating since they were all preorders, thats why the FIRST order took a while to process, thus receiving no discount

One concerned email to DDD later, stating how I was only looking for a deal, and the amount of word of mouth advertising I provide to DDD (I ALWAYS point friends and family to DDD), and I get a response stating the discount was applied (I also sent them the first email from them that included the discount)..

Upon logging into my account, the first order with discount DOES show up

And for this DDD will continue to receive the big chunk of my dvd spending

...
 

So, after ordering Thursday morning, on Saturday I recieved my email confirmation on my order of 3 preorders. However, the price did not show the discount. On the DDD webpage under order status, it does have the discount applied, so I emailed them to ask that they honor the price, as the email showed the wrong price. They will honor it, correct?

well if they are losing money and still honored the discount, thats very respectable of them!

however, why would they offer such a discount knowing that they could lose money?

Like D-Ball said, they didn't do anything differently with prices that they normally do.

DDD.com will temporarily lower prices to beat a competitor's price by 10 cents. Usually it's to beat CC or Best Buy.

Matrix was lowered to $9.99 to beat Best Buy or Circuit City. When CC/BBY's sale was over, they raised the price back to their regular price.

In regards to POTC & Indiana Jones,
For the new titles that came out that week, DDD.com didn't match the competitors prices (e.g. POTC was $15.99 at Best Buy & CC). They didn't match the price for possibly 2 different reasons:
1) They were too busy with the huge increase of orders to match other competitor's prices
2) Their price with the discount was lower than CC or Best Buy.

For Dragonslayer. They had the price to low cuz they thought that the MSRP was $14.99 instead of $19.99. They actually had it for $5.99 for a while cuz they though that the MSRP was $9.99.

i Have over $ 260 Pre-Order & some instock titles (Anime Only) but still didn't received email comfirmation. Also, can't find my order in order status :(

I didn't get in on the deal before they shut it down, but I would just like to thank all the posters so far for using the words "lose" and "loose" correctly for ONCE on the internet! It's very refreshing for a change, keep up the good work!

I just noticed that DDD has charged me $31.20, two different charges for the same title, which is a title that I even canclled.

I am not pleased.

I emailed them a very nice email, and I'll call them tomorrow. They better refund me that $31.20 very soon.

Well, with the two orders I got in, at least by having them pre-ordered on Amazon, I've got nothing to loose if they're cancelled.

Sorry, couldn't help myself ;)

Hahaha, what a looser :P