Blu-ray shops in London?

[hhhrrrinnn]

Hi there,

I'm leaving France to live in London for 6 months and I would like to know if some of you guys knew fine blu dealers in London? Some places where I could get new blus for not as expensive as they can be at hmv or other places where I could get used ones at good bargain.

Thanks a lot for your help,
cheers!

hhhrrrinnn

[freddiecarr]

Originally Posted by hhhrrrinnn

Hi there,

I'm leaving France to live in London for 6 months and I would like to know if some of you guys knew fine blu dealers in London? Some places where I could get new blus for not as expensive as they can be at hmv or other places where I could get used ones at good bargain.

Thanks a lot for your help,
cheers!

hhhrrrinnn

Just buy them online and sent to your London address.

Asda (a massive supermarket) are probably the cheapest, but I hardly ever buy blu-rays in shops nowadays, last one was proabably rush hour 3 when it first come out about two years ago and that cost me £20 (from asda ironically, it was 17.99 online).

[kolibri]

I'll agree with freddiecarr on this. The UK high street isn't particularly competitive when it comes to blu-ray. Once in while HMV (on the high street) can come up with the occasional deal, however I'd stick with amazon.co.uk, play.com or even hmv.com.

HMV's instore pricing policy seems to be, quite frankly, schizophrenic...

[matts4it]

Uk shops tend to be marked up in price compared to online stores like amazon.co.uk and play.com. You do get the odd bargins in hmv and asda, but these tend to be on bluray films that have been out for a while, on the whole online seems to be cheaper. Also online stores tend to drop their prices for new blu ray titles alot quicker in the first few months compared to high street stores.

I'd just advise you to not rush into buys and do some some research online first, ie check out play.com, amazon and other well known uk online stores then visit high street stores, that way you can find the best bargins. Although that can be a bit time consuming, but i guess if you find a bargin then its worth while.

[hhhrrrinnn]

Ok guys!

Thanks for these advices, i guess i'll stick on the internet shopping then

[Hugh K. David]

hhhrrrinnn, hi,

Where exactly in London are you going to be based? Around the city and the country are branches of exchange chain CEX. I regularly trade in old DVDs against BDs that are technically second-hand, but frequently seem to be like new. I know it's not the best solution, but when you can pick up the X-Men trilogy on week of release for £30, which at the time made it £2 cheaper than Amazon, it was worth my time.

The majority of my BD collection comes from the two central London branches of CEX, including last week Che 1 & 2 set, The International and the BBC Pride & Prejudice. All booklets and cases were intact, no scratches on the discs, and they all play fine. For pricing you can check out www.cex.co.uk.

Amazon and Play are still the cheapest online vendors - Amazon have The Good The Bad The Weird at £7.98 at the moment!

[Johnny Vinyl]

Are there possibly some rental outlets that sell-off previously viewed BD's, like they do in Canada and the U.S.? I've found that they can be great places for super deals.

John

[Hugh K. David]

Blockbuster sell off DVDs and are starting to sell off BDs, as well as stocking new BDs on occasionally decent deals.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Hugh K. David

Blockbuster sell off DVDs and are starting to sell off BDs, as well as stocking new BDs on occasionally decent deals.

Excellent. Another avenue for the OP to check on.

John

[kolibri]

Thanks Hugh. I must admit, I wasn't aware of CEX...

[Hugh K. David]

Kolibri,

I used to be really sniffy about places like Cash Converters and CEX, treating them like fences for stolen goods. Over the years, working in the DVD business has made me realise that (a) a lot of people prefer to trade rather than buy, as an alternative to limited rental windows; (b) when people are hard-up, entire collections can get put back into circulation; (c) I keep my consumer spends down by trading as well as selling on stuff on Amazon UK; (d) I am certain that legit new stock finds its way to 2nd hand outlets from high street retailers when there are minor issues from delivery from the warehouse that make the product unsellable by law.

I've not only spent a fortune over the last few years there, I've also cleared off stuff from my shelves I've realised I'm never going to go back and watch, making it available to fans of the titles in question. With the recession on, they're opening more branches, and are definitely a reasonable alternative. I have friends who work at branches, and I'm aware that some are better than others for customer service, but you can do worse.

[ElGranBluchadore]

Since this thread is now quite old and I'm about to hit London (and Manchester) next week - any updates?

Thanks in advance!

[fatboyslim142]

Originally Posted by ElGranBluchadore

Since this thread is now quite old and I'm about to hit London (and Manchester) next week - any updates?

Thanks in advance!

Basically there's the following in London:

1) HMV - Near Bond Street station (Original HMV shop location) & Westfield Shopping Center in Shepherd's Bush.
2) Fopp - The End of Shaftesbury Avenue, opposite McDonalds, near where the Harry Potter Play is being performed & is easiest to get to from Leicester Square station.
3) BFI - Southbank near Waterloo station.

You can occasionally find some OOP things at BFI.

[logboy]

you'd pay VAT in the UK. if you order from the UK, you won't. amazon UK removes VAT.

[ronand]

Originally Posted by logboy

you'd pay VAT in the UK. if you order from the UK, you won't. amazon UK removes VAT.

Amazon removes UK VAT and adds on local VAT depending on the country. So there wont be any real benefit for anyone in the EU

[Ste7en]

I'd go to FOPP in both locations (London and Manchester), and check first to see if there are any offers in HMV you are interested in. BFI is worth a look.

It is pretty dire these days.

I was in London a few months ago and only bought three Radiance titles in HMV. Long gone are the days when you would go home with 2 - 3 bags full of goodies

[darrellmaclaine]

Originally Posted by ElGranBluchadore

Since this thread is now quite old and I'm about to hit London (and Manchester) next week - any updates?

Thanks in advance!

Manchester you only have 3 options:

In the Arndale centre there's a pretty grotty CeX on the ground floor and an HMV on the first floor which used to be pretty decent until they did a "Shop" conversion last year and now it is fairly threadbare for discs.

The decent one left is the Fopp, which is slightly hidden down a turning near the big Tesco Extra at the end of the main high street.

Everything else is long gone - the glory days of retail therapy there, spending hours in the majestic three-storey HMV, the smaller mellower HMV under the bridge, the huge Music Zone, the great big Virgin Megastore, the really nice bottom floor Arndale unit which for a while was a Zavvi then did a spell as a lovely deep-catalogue-heavy HMV, even the Big/Bee clearance shop I used to help run. Now I don't even go there for a day out, and the exact same is true of Liverpool, it seems a waste of a rail ticket. Wish I'd taken more time to really appreciate the moment back then rather than rushing around madly. 15 years ago it didn't seem like everything would crumple so quickly.

[Pochacco]

Originally Posted by fatboyslim142

Basically there's the following in London:

1) HMV - Near Bond Street station (Original HMV shop location) & Westfield Shopping Center in Shepherd's Bush.
2) Fopp - The End of Shaftesbury Avenue, opposite McDonalds, near where the Harry Potter Play is being performed & is easiest to get to from Leicester Square station.
3) BFI - Southbank near Waterloo station.

You can occasionally find some OOP things at BFI.

Forbidden Planet just down from FOPP may be worth a look predominantly for Anime if that's your thing.

[The Hornets]

Originally Posted by Pochacco

Forbidden Planet just down from FOPP may be worth a look predominantly for Anime if that's your thing.

The bookshop Foyles on Charing Cross Road just road the corner has a small range of mostly TV rather than film discs and mostly DVDs.

[drush9999]

I suffered Oxford Street two weeks ago, I'd avoid like the plague if you don't like being bumped into by strangers