What's going on with Deepdiscountdvd? (1 Viewer)

[Joel Vardy]

I have been purchasing a good part of my DVD collection through the Internet and go back to the DVD Express days ('97/'98). Recently I've heard that Deepdiscountdvd.com is an excellent place to shop with 'free shipping' and overall best 'total prices'. I've been mostly taking advantage of some of the excellent B&M pricing of late. Though this still makes it tough to catch less popular titles from Criterion and others.

I've placed three orders with them over the last 10 days and have yet to get a single confirmation email about any of them. Is this normal for them? I did see a 48 hour delay before they posted my orders on their website but still no confirmation email. Additionally, I've emailed them about it and received at best an email saying they received my email (autoamatic response) with a 24 hour turnaround commitment. Still no go. I've been calling them and they are saying that their Internet Group has access to my stuff and the Customer Service group is 'blind' to much of what I've come to expect from 'Good Etailers' in the DVD space. Problem is Customer Service is the customer-facing part of their business and they should be able to not only see everything that is going on but take corrective action. Trust me, this is what I do for a living nowadays.

I thought that DVD Express represented a 'high class' operation if you go back to 1998/1999 (before their downfall). Having worked in the high tech community since the mid-80's I was very impressed with the overall design and function of the DVD Express site and their Customer Service was 'Superb'. It seems we have entered the era of lower prices (sometimes) and lower service levels as well.

I know that Deepdiscountdvd has had a system change that has caused them continued problems for the last few weeks but I have seen no improvement in their process over the last 2. Today I called to cancel my Grease order (line item with a couple of other titles so that I can couple the purchase with an upcoming boxset) and they could not locate it despite the order having been placed last Friday. They had to put my account on 'hold' in order to address this at some later time (maybe today -- maybe not). They partially shipped some of my orders while not posting the actual status properly on their site nor informing me by email. Every one of my transactions requires multiple phone calls making them more of a mail order house than a competent Internet site.

Anyone else experiencing any frustrations with this relative newcomer?

Joel

 

[Joel Vardy]

I tried deepdiscountdvd due to the rave reviews I've seen in the past here at HTF. Is there noone out there with recent experience willing to share?

Joel

 

[Randy_M]

I wouldn't touch 'em with a 10 foot pole...My brother has tried using them and he waits......and waits........and waits........

I'm not a patient guy.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Is there noone out there with recent experience willing to share?

How recent do you need?
Deep Discount DVD ... my vendor of choice (most recent post: 8/24/02)
deepdiscount vs dvdempire (7/14/02)
I recently bought Monsters, Inc. from DDD. Email confirmation came promptly as usual; ditto for the confirmation of mailing. It arrived on the street date, using their free shipping option.
M.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

My recent Deep Discount experience has left me with a question. They put my Swingers CE on backorder, so I called to cancel it.

As I was hanging up, the lady said, "Thank you for calling Critic's Choice." I know the name Critic's Choice as a second-rate Columbia House ... has DeepDiscountDVD always been part of them, is this a recent change, or did this lady just make a boo-boo?

 

[Joel Vardy]

Thanks for the feedback. Clearly, there are those that have had good experience with this vendor and if the service levels have changed recently they are inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I, on the other hand, don't have a long history with them and have high expectations from the early days of online DVD vendors.

Maybe in the short future there will be an equilibration of the etailers and B&M's that will see only the best of each carry on as suppliers to our hobby. I hope I can see the winners emerge sooner rather than later since we are still in the formative stages and today's clear leader can drop off the face of the earth faster than ever.

Dave Lambert is providing us with an excellent service in giving us weekly update of comparative B&M prices. If someone would be willing to combine that with the best of the etailers then we might have a clearer picture. I will need to do my own research through DVD Profiler's Price Finder and DVD Price Search engines to complement the information found at HTF. This should be combined with our experience with each of the vendors to yield not only "Lowest Total Price" per order but "Best Service at the Lowest Total Price" balance point.

Joel