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Aug
19
The UK on-line DVD retail market is getting interesting again. Even ignoring imports, the Region 2 market was for a year or two pretty much a 2 horse race between Play.com and CDwow.
Play.com are based in Jersey and can take advantage of the no-VAT loophole. Recently, however, they’ve been gradually raising their prices, foolishly believing that customers won’t notice.
CDwow are in Hong Kong and ship from various locations around Europe (recently Sweden). [They're also under investigation from the BPI for their music imports]. They’re usually cheaper than Play but carry a narrower range.
For a long time Amazon was completely out of it - relying on their name more than their price. But with the introduction of their super saver shipping to the UK they suddenly became competitive - as long as your order was over the £25 threshold. Coupled with their 20% discounts on new releases - particularly box sets - this often made them the cheapest.
Now BlackStar have decided to become competitive again. They’ve finally brought back free postage to the UK and Ireland, and have started shipping low value items from Jersey.
So now it’s worth shopping around again. To take an example, the new Season 1 and Season 2 combined DVD box-set of 24 is now £54.99 at Play.com, £53.99 at BlackStar, £52.99 at CDwow, and £49.99 at Amazon.
Chicago is £13.99 at all of them, except Play.com where it’s £14.99 (but will incur postage at Amazon unless it’s part of a bigger order).
Teachers Season 1 is £17.99 at Play, £15.99 at Amazon and BlackStar and unavailable at CDwow.
And in back catalogue, The Pillow Book is £9.99 at Amazon, £8.99 at BlackStar and £7.99 at Play.
And there’s a few new kids on the block with cheap prices as well: PriceStorm are based out of Guernsey rather than Jersey, and DVDplus has been resurrected as part of the new THE. And ChoicesDirect are always worth checking out; they still have the 20% automatic pre-order discount, and are often the cheapest if you’re looking for something on VHS.
And that’s not counting everyone’s special offers…
Interesting times, indeed.