Whats most important?
 

When your shopping for DVD's online, what is the most important thing you are looking from a website?

Prices and Deals kind of go hand in hand... but I picked cheap prices.

Yeah, all things being considered, price is always my first concern...

I think most people, especially here, would say price, but all those things are important. What good are cheap prices if the store
a) doesn't have what you want (wide selection, may not be super important, see below)
b) has nothing in-stock, so orders are pending forever (in-stock availability)
c) has horrendous shipping prices/methods (deals, which would really be kind analogous to pricing anyway)


Admittedly, look/feel of the site is secondary, though a badly designed site would make me worry not only about the professionalism of the site, but also how well they can guard my payment information. And I think the one thing that is usually overlooked is customer service... that's very important. People may not want to pay more for it, but as soon as their order goes wrong and their calls go to an answering machine, they'll start complaining.

Here's an example:
I buy a lot of my anime DVDs from Rightstuf. On first glance, they have terrible pricing, especially compared to other stores. But they have incredible deals, including weekly specials and occasional studio sales, as well as a free shipping threshold. They also have excellent customer service. Their selection is limited (mainly anime and related stuff), but they have everything in that genre. Their site has gotten better over the years, but it's still not flashy... very serviceable, though. Sure if they had no deals, I probably wouldn't shop there as much, but it's really their excellent customer service, as well as the excellent word of mouth that such service gets them from frequent buyers, that impresses me the most.

Price is the biggest factor for me. Also, any place that has free shipping is probably going to get my money first as well.

I don't mind waiting a week or two in slow shipping if the price is right. I've got over 100 titles in my backlog, so it's not like I ever need something right away. I mainly purchase from DDD, but will go to the Best Buy to pick up the loss leaders, and price-match if they don't have the right price. I'll also buy it first at their price, and then price-match it because then you get the "10% of the difference", which is usually like 10-20 cents. Hey, those dimes add up over time, man!

Selection first, they've gotta have what I want for me to buy it.
Then prices, including shipping.
Most titles I can wait a reasonable time for, I don't need it tomorrow, so price beats shipping speed for me [of course, I don't want to wait six months either].
I'd link 'deals' in with 'price'--a store that has beats every other store by 30%, but charges 5 bucks an order plus 3 bucks an item shipping, probably won't get my business.

I do the buy/PM/get 110% back at BB too, but it depends on how much money I'd get back, and if I'm going there anyway. I won't make an extra trip up there for 50 cents, I'd burn that in gas. But if it's a couple bucks, or if I'm going anyway, I'll do it.

Look/feel isn't really a big issue for me, but 'apparent trustworthiness' [based on the look] is. I also don't like sites with lots of java or animated stuff or that are hard to get around, but I'll deal with that if they have an item I want at the best price. I like TRSI's site, it's simple but functional, and the search results screen is pretty flexible. I'm not a huge fan of DDD's site, it's not that great to browse and the search results screen is inflexible. But their prices keep me checking them out.

Basically everything dtcarson just said. :lol: