black friday sales - sites shipping to down under ? eg amazon zavvi ?

[mikezilla2]

just wondering what sites will ship to AUS as far as black friday sales go ? i konw amazon are pretty good for BDs but they charge 9USD per game shipped and like wise the more suppliers the better so i am wondering what other sites are there that will ship to AU for both BDs and games and wont take my arms and legs on the postage in the processes ?

am interested in local and abroad or tho mostly trying to get a list of US and UK suppliers.

[nitin]

Originally Posted by mikezilla2

just wondering what sites will ship to AUS as far as black friday sales go ? i konw amazon are pretty good for BDs but they charge 9USD per game shipped and like wise the more suppliers the better so i am wondering what other sites are there that will ship to AU for both BDs and games and wont take my arms and legs on the postage in the processes ?

am interested in local and abroad or tho mostly trying to get a list of US and UK suppliers.

Almost all US suppliers at the moment charge you a base rate of $5 or more for the first item with a per item charge applicable after that. So shipping is expensive unless you buy 2 or more items. In terms of actual etailers, there's Amazon, deepdiscount, dvdplanet, importcds and bn.com

As for the UK, zavvi obviously has a 0.99 charge per order which is pretty neat (although can be somewhat negated by no VAT removal). I also like base.com that generally have very decent shipping charges per item (usually 1.49-1.99 GBP), unless it's a boxset. Unlike zavvi, base takes VAT off too.

[mikezilla2]

thanks , well thats true enough - il probbly be buying quite a few BDs from amazon , barring that if the deals on other sites are relly good the $5 base price may not matter due to the exchange rate being were it is heck even some time ago import CDs ended up being not so good dvd planet overcharge overall = postage/ item prices so hardly ever , deepdiscount i assume is around the same ? and are bernes and noble relly shipping overseas now ? would be using rightstuff for anime if it wernt for the fact that they have relly absurd policy for paying for stuff , with zavvi if its cheaper then everywere else thats bascily why i use them , even zavvi tho recntly i orderd the house box set and shipping was just 1.99

so yea this might be a tough one i mean yea so far all iv seen for blu rays is amazon ..... games well outside of the normal ones , its a crying shame to as stores like blow it out there dont ship down under ......

edit that being said any unknown etailers ? ie ones with out a history of fraud that will ship ?

[nitin]

Barnes and Nobel have been shipping overseas for a while, I use them almost exclusively for Criterions although sometimes they have other good deals too.

Same goes for deepdiscount and dvdplanet, generally they are not worth it, but every now and then they have the best prices for Kino, Olive, Cohen and Scream/Shout discs. For example, in the last couple of days, dvdplanet had 10% off which when combined with their sale on select horror Criterion discs meant they were ~$15 + shipping each which is a very good deal.

[shireguy]

Originally Posted by mikezilla2

just wondering what sites will ship to AUS as far as black friday sales go ? i konw amazon are pretty good for BDs but they charge 9USD per game shipped and like wise the more suppliers the better so i am wondering what other sites are there that will ship to AU for both BDs and games and wont take my arms and legs on the postage in the processes ?

am interested in local and abroad or tho mostly trying to get a list of US and UK suppliers.

Re - Black Friday 'sales' : you'll be basically limited to Amazon US for purchases (unless you have friends in the US to get stuff from BB, Target or Wallymart). B&N don't get into BF specials online. (and re 'games' - I was lead to believe that Amazon had some restrictions sending games ??)


I used to maintain a list of US and UK shipping rates on DTVForum - however the number of merchants willing to send stuff down under has reduced over the years.

UK - Amazon UK (removes VAT), Zavvi - The Hut (doesn't remove VAT), Base (removes VAT). That's about it !

US - Amazon US, B&N, DeepDiscount - there's probably a few others... but nothing that most use.

[r9800pro]

I think only US sites have BF deals and since I use Amazon.com exclusively, I am ready with ~$160 Gift Credit

The problem with Amazon.com is their shipping for me here in Egypt. Standard can take more than a month, tried Expedited twice and one arrived in 3 weeks and the other never arrived (Bond 50 Collection including Skyfall) plus shipping was expensive ($18 base and $3 per additional item). Finally their AmazonGlobal is insanely expensive ($40 base and $10 per additional item) but it arrives in 4 days.

What I did was to sign up for Aramex SnS (Shopandship) and send my packages to the Aramex US NY address with free Standard shipping, then Aramex forwards them to me.
Their rates are good ($12 for the first pound and $9 per additional pound) and the packages arrive in 6-8 days so I am gonna use that for my BF purchases.

[Wireduck1]

If you're looking at Amazon do yourself a favour (sounds like molly?) and look at Amazon.CA too.

With the Canadian dollar pretty much matching ours and the US dollar a bit high Canada might offer an alternative, especially since they have improved their postal speed to Australia greatly this year. I have shifted a lot of my Amazon purchases North this year.

[shireguy]

Originally Posted by Wireduck1

If you're looking at Amazon do yourself a favour (sounds like molly?) and look at Amazon.CA too.

With the Canadian dollar pretty much matching ours and the US dollar a bit high Canada might offer an alternative, especially since they have improved their postal speed to Australia greatly this year. I have shifted a lot of my Amazon purchases North this year.

Have to see what comes up for Amazon.ca - it's a $1 extra on shipping .. plus there's always those bilingual covers......

like ... ALIEN.... honestly... couldn't the French just have called it ALIEN as well ???
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Alien...lu-ray/110312/


Canada - Standard International Shipping

10 to 12 Weeks
Per Shipment* Per Item
DVDs $4.99 $2.99
-------------------------------------------------------
US - Standard Shipping
Product Category Per Shipment Per Item
CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Music Cassettes, Vinyl $4.99 $1.99*

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by shireguy

Have to see what comes up for Amazon.ca - it's a $1 extra on shipping .. plus there's always those bilingual covers......

like ... ALIEN.... honestly... couldn't the French just have called it ALIEN as well ???
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Alien...lu-ray/110312/


Canada - Standard International Shipping

10 to 12 Weeks
Per Shipment* Per Item
DVDs $4.99 $2.99
-------------------------------------------------------
US - Standard Shipping
Product Category Per Shipment Per Item
CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Music Cassettes, Vinyl $4.99 $1.99*

To the UK at least Amazon.ca upgrade even the cheapest shipping option to courier delivery so arrives in 2 to 3 days, rather than the 2 to 3 weeks of Amazon.com

Also as said the Canadian exchange rate is currently very favourable as its fallen as the USD has strengthened.

For the OP in terms of Black Friday in the UK only Amaazon.co.uk really do it as its a US tradition not British linked to their public holidays in the run up to Christmas.

During the week Amazon.co.uk copy the U.S. site with great lightening deals but in much lower quantities. You need to be ready to click the buy button the instant it goes live as some sell out in 1 or 2 seconds ! plus timing not good for you guys in Australia as daytime UK means night for you.

[shireguy]

Originally Posted by malcy30

During the week Amazon.co.uk copy the U.S. site with great lightening deals but in much lower quantities. You need to be ready to click the buy button the instant it goes live as some sell out in 1 or 2 seconds ! plus timing not good for you guys in Australia as daytime UK means night for you.

I can't recall (over the past two years of Black Friday sale) that Amazon UK have sold/promoted much of any interest at all !! Maybe a box set... and at such limited quantity that it hasn't been worth any effort bothering. It pales compared to the US sale..... granted that the Amazon US 'BF' and follow up sales have been quite poor as well.

Given local prices / deals at JB - it pays nowdays just to wait a little longer.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by malcy30

For the OP in terms of Black Friday in the UK only Amaazon.co.uk really do it as its a US tradition not British linked to their public holidays in the run up to Christmas.

During the week Amazon.co.uk copy the U.S. site with great lightening deals but in much lower quantities. You need to be ready to click the buy button the instant it goes live as some sell out in 1 or 2 seconds ! plus timing not good for you guys in Australia as daytime UK means night for you.

ASDA do Black Friday events as well, but I think it's only instore, and I don't know if they'll continue, as last year's first try caused some controversy, although was later called a "massive success"...

[Caustic]

Don't you think it is a bit of a false dichotomy with Zaavi though? Sure it is cheap shipping but non sale items are typically more expensive then Amazon UK. I won't talk about steel books as they are typically exclusives you can't get anywhere else so pricing has different dynamics.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by Caustic

Don't you think it is a bit of a false dichotomy with Zaavi though? Sure it is cheap shipping but non sale items are typically more expensive then Amazon UK. I won't talk about steel books as they are typically exclusives you can't get anywhere else so pricing has different dynamics.

Depends what you're buying, for big sets they're a hell of a lot cheaper than Amazon, for small sets they're often more expensive...

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by shireguy

I can't recall (over the past two years of Black Friday sale) that Amazon UK have sold/promoted much of any interest at all !! Maybe a box set... and at such limited quantity that it hasn't been worth any effort bothering. It pales compared to the US sale..... granted that the Amazon US 'BF' and follow up sales have been quite poor as well.

Given local prices / deals at JB - it pays nowdays just to wait a little longer.

I had very limited success with the Amazon.co.uk BF deals
The one I most wanted was the Battlestar Galactica complete boxset, but that sold out and filled the wait list instantly whilst my browser refreshed the buy button. I do think they had more stock in 2013 than 2012 as did get a few really good deals last year, but that was on books as the BDs sold out much faster and either titles I had or were not interested in.

[mikezilla2]

do ASDA even ship things down under ? that is a key point here as im nether in the US or the UK.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by mikezilla2

do ASDA even ship things down under ? that is a key point here as im nether in the US or the UK.

Almost certainly no. Their online BD range is also extremely limited.
I think you will be restricted to looking at Amazon.co.uk as per my earlier posts.

[dav2708]

The BF sales aren't much worth it these days.
Our $ is 20% lower than previous years and Amazon postage has increased in that time as well.
The JB 20% deals on top of the usual sales means we get the films just as cheap as Amazon BF if you wait just a little longer.
Only TV boxsets end up being a good deal on Black Friday as compared to local prices for the most part.
This year, I only have about 4 or so titles i will probably get if they make the deal. Previously I could get up to a couple of dozen.

[mikezilla2]

true enough and shipping can be pesky but dos any bother using mail forwarders at all ?

[Sutekh]

After figuring in shipping costs (even higher for NZ then OZ least for Amazon), Black Friday sales just aren't worth it. Prime example are the Star Trek TNG seasons. $31.50 sounds like an awesome deal. But that's $40 NZ and then another $20 shipping at least. Might as well just buy it at JB or slightly used off of TradeMe