Slashdot Mirror

Hi David,

I'm pretty sure you're in the UK. Here are some of Amazon.co.uk's rivals, who also do delivery:

• Play.com
• HMV
• Waterstones
• John Lewis
• Tesco
• ASDA

It's as simple as ordering from Amazon's rivals instead of Amazon. You don't even need to move from your seat!

Isn't internet capitalism grand?

2. Turn the disc back to the store, claiming it's useless. (it is, sort of)

Unfortunately, many stores, such as HMV have stopped accepting returns on opened CD's, claiming that there is the possibility that they have been copied. At least we know that the CD stores are smart enough to know that any copy protection can and will be broken.

• HMV Canada - their selection of music beats Amazon.com hands down. Doing a search reveals that they sell "Funker Vogt"
• Amazon Germany - great source for music tailored to the german market. The only catch is that you need to understand German (quite normal really ;)
• Amazon UK - great source for music tailored to the german market.
• HMV UK
• HMV Germany
• FNAC - online version of the French media store

BTW If you want to know what is hot in th UK, then BBC1 Radio 1 is a good site, and IMO is info-marketing ratio is 9:1, which is nice to see.

Does anybody know if there are any retailers taking advantage of this price difference?

I don't know about retailers, but as a consumer, I save up all my CD buying for the 2-3 times a year I'm back in Toronto or (even better) Vancouver (CDs are slightly cheaper in Alberta and BC than in the rest of the country). Though I wonder whether prices have gone up since Sam's went out of business?

Even staying in the States, it's often worth it to buy online from HMV. They used to have this incredible deal where you got free shipping within North America on orders of 4 or more units... unfortunately they stopped that a year ago or so. No longer the steal it used to be, but still often worth it.

On an unrelated note, it doesn't specify anywhere in the article what consumers are supposed to do to get their share of the jackpot. Anyone know? I'm pretty sure I don't still have receipts for the CDs I bought back in the late 90s...

[TMB]

Sadly, HMV is not an American franchise. Granted, I'd kill to see on of them stateside...

I cannot speak for the rest of the United States, but there certainly are HMVs in New York City.

Checking HMV.com and its store locator, I turn up ten HMV stores in four states.

Sadly, HMV is not an American franchise. Granted, I'd kill to see on of them stateside...

I cannot speak for the rest of the United States, but there certainly are HMVs in New York City.

Checking HMV.com and its store locator, I turn up ten HMV stores in four states.

This has been my shopping habit until now:
1. AMG Music Guide for finding out bands that I might like.
2. AudioGalaxy to see if I actually do like them.
3. HMV online to buy it.
4. Repeat, lather, rinse.

Now that these blood-suckers have taken out no.2 I have no way of actually test driving music before I buy it. Using this method I've bought over 100 CDs in the last 6 months alone. And they dare accuse me of being a pirate.

Until they offer a similar service, for free, I guess I'll just have to stop buying music.

I hope that other people will now also vote with their dollars.

I've gotten fed up buying my DVD's from Express.com in the US, who, while being cheap, tend to take a good 2 weeks to get to Edmonton because of customs holdups (I swear I'm on the customs hit list. They inspect EVERY package sent to me...) so I've found all kinds of worthwhile online stores based out of Canada. Thats a good thing for two reasons ... one, you avoid duty and Canada Post's $5 "handling fee", and two, Canada Post XPress Post is _really_ cheap and fast within Canada. 2-3 days for a couple of bucks.

So, for DVD's, I'll reccomend www.cnl.com based out of Vancouver. I've only been dealing with them for about 2 weeks now but I've been very happy, and they come highly reccomended to me. Consider, around midnight on a Wednesday I ordered 5 DVD's. Late Thursday I got a shipping confirmation, and I had the DVD's in my hands on Friday afternoon. All for $8 cdn shipping. Prices are quite reasonable, only a little bit more than buying from Express once you factor in shipping and customs fees, plus you get 'em in 2 days (or less), not 2 weeks.

For CD's, I usually buy from Chapters Online, but the trick with Chapters is to only buy items that are listed as "shipping in 24 hours". If it says anything else, especially the dreaded "1-2 weeks", expect to be waiting 1-2 months, if you get it at all. Other options are HMV who's prices seem okay. I preordered Moby's new CD from them because I came across a $5 coupon .. hasn't shipped yet so I can't comment on service. Finally, A&B Sound, who despite the spartan website, are reported to have nice prices.

For books, again, Chapters Online is your best bet. Really good prices, especially with a Chapters One Card (you pay a $15 yearly fee and get 10% off everything, along with $5 in coupons for every $100 you spend). But again, only order if its in stock (shipping in 24 hours), otherwise its a real crap shoot as to when you'll get it.

For computer hardware, the best is easily Onvia. Great prices, and even better free shipping. Nothing better than buying a 21" monitor at a decent price and not having to pay for shipping. Service is great, shipping is fast (they courier it, so 2-3 days or so), and prices are competitive. Fairly often they have $25 and $50 off coupons, too. I've also done a fair bit of shopping from NCIX, based out of Vancouver. Their prices range from really good, to comparable to my local prices, to a bit high, but they're worth checking out. I got a killer deal on my IBM Deskstar 7200rpm 30 gig from them a while back, and got my Pioneer 10x DVD player from them last year when virtually no stores anywhere in North America were selling them. I'll definately continue dealing with both.

Someone forwarded www.goldfishlegs.com to me the other day, and they've got reviews of Canadian E-Tailers, along with coupons and other goodies. I didn't agree with some of their reviews, but it seems like a useful site to keep bookmarked.

In general, my dealings with various Canadian online stores have been positive. Through harsh experience I've learned how to deal with Chapters (thankfully they're very responsive to e-mails), and I've only been ripped off once (www.stupidcomputers.com, they closed up shop and dissappeared, taking a lot of people's money with them. VISA refunded my money, thankfully). In general I'm willing to pay the little bit extra to buy from Canadian stores (support the economy _and_ get it in less than 2 weeks), except for extreme price differences and/or unavailability in Canada.

Hope this helps =)

OK, I'd never buy clothes online ( I mean, really??!) but I love music. From what I've seen, CDNOW is the best online music store out there: lots of information about most of their artists, biographies or histories of the band, etc.
You wanna see crap music sites? go to HMV orSam The Record Man (hey what can I say, i gotta give props to Canadian content :)
HMV requires JavaScript for any of their links to work (goodbye fast loading times) Not a lot of info on some artists, though anything new has some info on it. Sam's search leaves a lot to be desired, and they don't have covers or track listings for a lot of their back catalogue.

I find CDNOW to be immensely valuable for research, even if I haven't bought anything from them yet.

Pope

Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!