With the biannual Deep Discount sale coming up, I wanted to put information about it and answers to some questions.  I will make another post once the sale is underway.

What is the sale?
For the past couple years Deep Discount has held a biannual sale, in June and November.  In all previous sales before this past November, the discount was 20% off.   In the fall 2008 sale, the discount is 25% off. It’s currently unknown if this is a one-time change or permanent.

Are any titles excluded?
Yes. Sometimes a company might request that their movies not be included in the sale. In the fall of 2005 ADV Films requested to not be involved in the sale, and in the June 2006 sale Media Blasters made a similar request and had their products were completely removed from the Deep Discount site for the duration of the sale.

Are Pre-Orders eligible for the discount?
No.  Pre-orders do not qualify for the discount. If the item you want is released during the sale, however, you can order it once it’s officially released and get the discount.

What about items that are out of stock?
Out of stock items are included in the sale. As a matter of fact many popular items will go out of stock within the first 3 or 4 days of the sale, and will go on backorder. Even if the item doesn’t ship until after the sale ends, you will still be charged the sale price.

Are Blu-Ray titles included in the sale?
Yes, those are included in the sale.

Are other items besides DVD’s and Blu-Ray’s eligible for the discount?
Media storage racks and cases, UMD’s and posters have traditionally been part of the sale. Toys and video games have never been a part of the sale. Books and CD’s are not part of the sale either, but in the Summer 2007 sale DD lowered the prices on thousands of selected books and CD’s by 20%.

Are there any limitations?
Yes, you can’t order more than 5 of any one title in one order.  Deep Discount reserves the right to further limit quantities at their discretion.

When does the sale start?
The sale usually starts the second Thursday of the month.  But it is not set and could start at anytime.

How long does the sale go on for?
At least 10 days. In some past sales, Deep Discount has extended the sale to last almost the entire month.

How do I get the discount?
In your cart there is a place for you to enter a coupon code. Enter your code and the discount will be applied to all eligible items.

What is the coupon code?
There are many different codes, a list of them will be put in the post announcing the sale. You can use each code one time during the sale. Most of the codes are the same from sale to sale, sometimes a few will change as different groups sponsor the event. Here’s some of the codes that have been used:

DVDTALK
USATODAY
NYTIMES
SUPERSALE
PRICESEARCH
SUMMERSALE
YAHOO
ESPN
LATIMES
XM
SOUTHSIDE
WGN
JIM
DEALNEWS
WLS
PRICEGRABBER
DD1109
DD1108

Are these the best prices I’ll get all year?
No. You can always count on great Black Friday deals, pre-Christmas sales from Amazon.com, etc. The difference is that the Deep Discount sale is on practically everything, whereas other sales are more specific (BBC shows, TV shows on DVD from a certain studio, etc).

Another important detail is to make a wish list at Deep Discount’s web site. Actually you can make it anywhere, but it makes the most sense to have it on DD’s site as you can just pull it up and buy titles off of it instead of having to look each one up individually.

Thanks to MovieExchange at DVD Talk for compiling information about the sale.

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Previously I profiled CamelCamelCamel.com, a website that tracks price changes at Amazon.com.  Well, they have launched a similar site, but this site tracks price changes at Best Buy’s online store.

On the homepage, there is a summary of the biggest price drops at Bestbuy.com, both over the past 24 hours, and the past week.

If you want to look for a specific product, look to the search box on the right:

Simply type in the DVD title, or paste the Bestbuy.com URL and hit ‘Go!’.

On the results page click on the title you’re looking for and you’re brought to the product page.  For example, I’m looking at The Soprano’s: Complete Series Set:

 
        (Click image for full size)

As you can see the product page has a variety of information.  There is a history of price changes, along with the lowest price the item has ever been, the highest price it has ever been, and the average price.  There is also a graph that charts the price changes.

At the top of each product page there is a button to track a product:

On this page you can specify a target price you want the item to be, and put in your email and you’ll be alerted when the price drops to that amount.  So if I wanted to be alerted when the Sopranos set was under $250.00, I could type that in and if it drops that low I’ll get an email.

Along with that there is also a button to go to the product on Best Buy’s website:

As well as a button to track all price changes for an item through RSS feeds:

This is my favorite feature at Camelbuy, because I just put the feeds in Google Reader and if there’s a price change I know about it soon after.

There are also lists of price drops by category as well, so if I wanted to see the Blu-Ray titles have dropped most recently I would go this page.  This works for all categories, simply select the category you want in the dropdown menu and hit Update.

DVD’s are just a small part of the service, Camelbuy tracks everything Best Buy sells, including TV’s, Computer’s, Appliances, and Home Theater Equipment.  The full list of categories is here, and you can also look at items by the manufacturer.

Check it out: Camelbuy.com

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This post is about Amazon Prime, the shipping service offered by Amazon.com, I hope to explain what the service is to people who are curious about it, or have never heard of it before.

So what is the $79 yearly service, and what you do you get for it?  Below I’ve put what I think are the main pros and cons, having been a Member for the past couple years.

Here are the main benefits:

Free Unlimited 2-Day Shipping

Anything Amazon sells is eligible for free 2-Day shipping, and with Prime, order processing is a lot quicker than without.  With Free Super Saver Shipping, orders can sit for days before they’re even processed, and then after they ship take more time to get to you.  With Amazon Prime, all orders process immediately after they are placed, and in my experience, for anything in-stock all orders have shipped out within 24 hours.  After they are shipped, they are guaranteed to arrive in 2 business days or less.  I am lucky and live not too far from an Amazon warehouse, so items shipped from there always come the next day.  This is a great feature for people who like to have items quickly and don’t want to wait a while for them to arrive.

No Minimum Order Requirements

To me, this is the best part of the program, there is no order requirement to reach, like the $25 minimum with Super Saver Shipping.  If all you wanted was a $5 book, you could get that, shipped free, and have it within 2 days.  No more having to find filler to get free shipping, no matter what it is, as long as Amazon sells it, it can be ordered by itself and arrive in 2 days shipped free.

Sharing Your Membership with Family

Also, with Amazon Prime, the person who signs up can share the membership with up to 4 family members, with no extra charge, and they get all the same benefits for the entire length of the Membership.

$3.99 Overnight Shipping

Overnight shipping can get very expensive, and a benefit of Prime, is if you need or want something to arrive in 1 day, you can upgrade the shipping to Next Day for $3.99 per item.  Depending on the item, this can be a lot cheaper than the regular overnight rate, especially for big and heavy items.

30 Day Trial

A great thing about Amazon Prime is they offer a full 30 Day Trial.  On this page, just hit Continue to Free Trial Sign-up.  Try the Membership free for 30 days, no restrictions, with full benefits.  See if its something you like, or something you wouldn’t really use.

Note after signing up for the trial, your account will be set to renew the membership in 30 days, simply go the Prime Membership management page, and hit the    Button.  Then you don’t have to worry about the membership being automatically renewed.

Now here are the cons:

Applies only to items sold by Amazon

Not just Amazon sells things on Amazon.com, there is a large marketplace with millions of sellers listing items for sale as well.  Amazon Prime does not cover shipping from these sellers.  It only applies to items sold by Amazon.com.  Amazon sells a lot of items, but there are quite a few things that, are either out of print, or just not for sale for one reason or another, and they are sold my other people.  If you order something from them, you have to pay the normal shipping charges.

2-Day Items aren’t always sent 2nd Day Shipping

Depending on the location of the warehouse shipping the item(s) to you, they may not be sent 2nd Day Air, if it’s close enough they will be sent Ground.  Most packages I receive are Ground, but they come in 1 day so I can’t really complain.  It’s not a big problem, since delivery time is the most important thing, but it should be noted.

Overall for me the service is worth the price, however it is different for everybody.  I’ve laid out what I think are the main pros/cons, but the best way to see is to try it free with the 30 day trial.  Just make sure to follow the instructions above and set it to not renew.

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This list can be a good way to find deals because if there’s an item with a great sale price, and a lot of people purchase it, it’s going to go near the top of this list and even if its not advertised on Amazon as being on sale, you can still find it.

For example, today in the Movies/TV Movers and Shakers List, the top listing is today’s Deal of the Day, the Curb Your Enthusiasm 6 season bundle:

As you can see the bundle was the 16,036th best selling DVD before today, now it’s #4, and has shot up an incredible 400,800%.

Amazon also keeps lists for other categories, such as Video Games and Electronics.  The full list of categories is on the left side on the page:

(Click picture to enlarge)

The most common items you see on this list are items that are on sale, though sometimes there will be listings for new releases, which a lot of people might order right when they are released, as well as products coming out in the future, that have just been listed, and have no previous sales history.

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CamelCamelCamel.com is a price-tracking service for Amazon.com, with a lot of helpful features.  It’s tracks different products prices over time, and gives statistics on them, and can also send an alert when the price drops on a product you’re tracking.

For Example, today’s HBO deal on Amazon, Deadwood: The Complete Series.  Let’s say I want to see if the $64.99 price is the lowest is has ever been.  I open up the product page, and then go to CamelCamelCamel.com.  In the search box on the right I type in Deadwood Complete Series:

You can also put in Amazon’s identifier for a product, Deadwood for example is B001FA1OTU.  You can find that in the address when you open up a product.

Search for that, and than on the results page, click on Deadwood: The Complete Series, and it leads to the camelcamelcamel page.  Down the page it shows this:

     (Click picture to see full-size version)

On this page you can see the Highest Price an item has ever been, the lowest, and the average, as well as a graph showing what the price has been recently.  As you can see today’s price on Amazon is the lowest is has ever been.

CamelCamelCamel.com doesn’t track every product Amazon sells, but you can add a product for it to track if you don’t see the item you’re looking for.  Camelcamelcamel also tracks a large variety of products, not only DVD’s. 

It’s a very helpful tool to see if you’re getting the best deal. 

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Today’s tip is a little different, it’s not about a store, it’s about a great website I found a few months ago, Boxoh.com.

Boxoh.com is a website for tracking packages, and I’ve tried a few websites that organize all your packages, and keep track of everything, but didn’t like them very much.  Boxoh,  however is great.

On the main page, there’s a box for a tracking number, simple enough.  Boxoh tracks USPS, UPS, Fedex, and DHL packages.  No need to select which company your tracking number is for, just paste it in the box and hit Track.

After submitting the tracking number the tracking page opens up, and gives you depending on the service, step-by-step tracking information of where your package and been, where it’s going, and when it will be delivered.  The tracking page also works as a bookmark and you can directly track your package again without having to enter the number.

The tracking page also offers a Google Maps image that shows the trip your package has taken, as well as offers an RSS feed to keep track of updates in a news reader.

Very easy to use and helpful website.

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