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| Saturday, October 07, 2006 |
| My rant about DVD "Clubs" |
When I was younger and not very financially savvy, I belonged to a CD "club". One of those mailings arrived at my college apartment with a deal too good to be ignored. Pay just pennies for 6 or so compact discs from some of my favorite music artists. All I had to do was then buy 6 or so more CDs at regular prices. But the club used to send me "monthly selections" and I had to remember to return a post card saying I did not want that months CD - otherwise the disc would arrive at my front door and now I had to pay for the thing.
Recently I was talking to someone who belonged to a similar type club, only this one was for DVD movies. She was a member of Columbia House and she had hundreds of DVDs. I am not kidding - hundreds! She had asked if I wanted to borrow a movie or show and when I asked what she had she showed me the collection. She had so many titles and many of them had never even been opened. I asked if she knew how much she had spent on this collection. She said she had never added it all up, but figured it couldn't be more than a "couple hundred dollars". Personally I believe she has spent thousands of dollars.
This is why I hate these club like things. You get this catalog in the mail, you find yourself ordering stuff and then never watching it. She had season after season of unopened TV shows. She had never watched the DVD because she had watched the show when it first aired on TV!
If you really to own a DVD fine, go to the store and buy a copy. But don't get in the habit of purchasing everything you think you might someday want to watch. That is why this little industry called "Movie Rentals" started.
Perhaps I am missing something - can anyone tell me why these DVD clubs are a good thing? |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 11:59 PM *
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| 4 Comments: |
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Caveat emptor (as always), but if you actually watch the movies (or listen to the CD's) you buy through these plans, you can save decent money. Maybe, at best, 10-15% vs. what you'd typically find online as a smart shopper.
Of course, as Jane points out, if you never watch or listen to what you've bought ... you need to rethink, seriously, what you're doing.
Why, after all, would you buy something and never use it?
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A former coworker subscribed when he was a kid. They would sign up for the 1 cent deals and then when it was time to buy the rest, they would file a change of address with Columbia. New address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
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If you buy CDs and DVDs as gifts (which I often do), it can be a decent deal. Once you've gotten through the membership phase, they keep sending you emails like "buy 1, get three free!" At that point, even though the nominal price per CD is higher and the shipping charges are tacked on, it's still cheaper to buy a bunch of them at once.
But I dropped the DVD club because I signed up for the automatic decline of the director's selection, but then they put me back to regular membership anyway. I shouldn't have to log in every two weeks to tell them that I don't want to pay $27 for Spider-Man 2. And I shouldn't keep getting all those catalogs if I'm doing everything online.
For someone who buys a lot more than I do, I could see keeping it.
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Like some unique marketing concepts, a little work can pay off.
If you get the starter quantity for a penny, then purchase the requires 2-3 at regular price, you effectively get something like 8 or more for the price of 3-4 at discount price.
Once you've purchased the requirement, you can switch to the "negative option," or something like that, where the default is NOT to send you a CD/DVD and then charge you.
You can either cancel and repeat the process, or stay with the club with the negative option and hold out for the occasional buy one, get one free, or other pretty generous deals.
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Caveat emptor (as always), but if you actually watch the movies (or listen to the CD's) you buy through these plans, you can save decent money. Maybe, at best, 10-15% vs. what you'd typically find online as a smart shopper.
Of course, as Jane points out, if you never watch or listen to what you've bought ... you need to rethink, seriously, what you're doing.
Why, after all, would you buy something and never use it?