What
Are Coupons?
Briefly,
"coupons" are ways to get your DVDs cheaper.
An online
retailer of DVDs and CDs will often offer special discounts in order to
publicize their site. These offers can appear in magazines such as Premiere
or Entertainment Weekly, in trade magazines such as Variety,
or as inserts in credit card statements.
Typically,
they will offer a discount off a minimum purchase. The most common
values today are $5 off a purchase of $15 or more, and $10 off $25 or
more.
There are
several types of coupons. The most common two are special links to
hidden pages on the retailer's website (Amazon.com tends to use these), or
a special code to be entered in the "Gift Certificate" or
"Coupon" space upon checkout (such as the codes offered by
Reel.com and DvdExpress.com).
Can
anybody use them?
These offers
are available to anyone; you just need to be lucky enough to find
them. We're constantly scouring the typical places where they
appear; when we find one, we post it here.
How
long are they good for?
Most coupons
have an expiration date, which --when it's known -- we post along with the
coupon.
You've
got a coupon that's supposed to be good, but it comes up 'expired'
Sometimes,
coupons expire before their posted expiration date. When a third
party such as Visa offers a coupon to their customers for an
online DVD retailer, they may have in fact paid the retailer for $10,000
worth of discounts (or for the total that's been used before the
expiration date, if less). Every time somebody opens up their Visa
mailing and uses the DVD coupon, Visa pays some portion of the coupon
value to the DVD retailer. If a greater-than-expected number of
people use the code, the $10,000 is used up and the coupon becomes
inactive. It's not the fault of the retailer or the third party;
it's simply how the contract is written.
Often, too,
a DVD retailer will offer a special that is far more successful than they
expected. It may be a difficult choice -- go broke, or suffer ill
will by canceling the offer early. Sometimes there is no choice.
If there's a
very good coupon or offer posted, we strongly suggest that you use it
early.
You
said before that there are other kinds of offers. Such as..?
Some
extraordinary offers are often seen when a major DVD retailer first sets
up shop. A year or so ago, 800.com offered 3 DVDs (from a list of a
hundred or so) for $1, shipped. When we see an offer like these we
post it as soon as possible. When you see it, jump on it.
It won't last.
A
mid-November 1999 Ernst & Young survey asking "What Consumers
Want From Commerce Sites" revealed that the majority of respondents wanted less expensive shipping (63%, vs. 61% asking for cheaper
prices*). Most large retailers responded immediately to this survey
by lowering shipping prices or, in some cases, offering free shipping
(which, of course, ended immediately after the holidays). Though
this sort of thing is not a coupon per se, we will post such events
on this website since they often represent a savings of $2 or more per DVD.
*The full
results were:
-
63%
Lower shipping costs
-
61%
Lower/more competitive pricing
-
22%
Easier to find internet site
-
21%
More choices / selections
-
20%
Guarantee of credit-card purchase security
-
16%
More information about products
-
16%
Faster shipping
-
14%
Toll-free telephone support
This survey
was the driving force behind the spate of no-shipping promotions this past
holiday shopping season.
