EDIT: My apologies, Hank. I completely misread your post.

I hear you. My only point was that all 3 of the options I listed have the same result in terms of prices on the website, but they have different effects on consumers, resulting in different consumer decisions. I think the current practice of #1, having a sitewide sale while having to raise prices on A FEW items to counter the sale is best for them and for us.

#3 could also be accomplished by #2, specifically excluding said items from the sale, and advertising "thousands of items on sale" or "almost every DVD on sale." Or it could be accomplished by #1, raising the price by 25% and then reducing it by 20%, resulting in the same price as if it weren't on sale. The latter is actually illegal in many(?) states, and would be considered fraud(*), but only if DD does it in a major way. Listing 20,000 DVDs and then doing that with 500 would probably be laughed at in court (unless they were the major hot items that everybody's looking for at the moment).


(*)Here's a quick link to one site that claims it is illegal in Massachusetts:

masslegalhelp.org/consumer/unfair-deceptive-trade-practices

(I left out the direct link and the www. to avoid DVDTalk's forum's strangeness with links.)

And here's some text from that site that seems to apply, in case you don't want to read it:

"Claiming that the item is on sale by artificially and untruthfully pretending the product usually sells for a price higher than its normal price. The price represented to be the products "regular" price must be a real price that the product in fact sold for during some significant time in the recent past in the seller's own stores."

"Placing fake price stickers on merchandise with higher than actual prices so that the product appears to be marked down when in fact it isn't"

"Using the terms "special price" or "priced for sale" or "clearance priced" or similar terms when the items are not being sold at reduced prices and without clearly disclosing the actual former price or the percentage reduction from the former price that is actually being offered."


I think Wikipedia says it's illegal in 57 states.

Wow, are you Hank1215's own personal DVD stalker, monitoring his want-list and tracking price fluctuations? Maybe he only has 3 things there, and he knows they've never changed in price.

I was obviously referring to this portion of his statement. I assumed that he wasn't speaking only of his personal experience. If he was, then of course, I accept his claim as being completely truthful.

My apologies, Hank.

I guess I missed what transpired here, so no harm no foul. I am only going off of my wishlist, which I have been keeping track of since a number of people started talking about the price fluctuations before a 20% off sale. If anything I have found that some items went down from a few cents to a couple of dollars. Items that were on some kind of sale just previous to the 20%er did go back up to their previous price, making it seem like a price jump.

All warner hd-dvds went up a LOT in price

John ADams went up $8+. Rescue Me Season 4 went up nearly $7 (good thing I ordered that one last week)
However the Girl In The Cafe did go down $4.

she charged me $7