twincityhacker | (no subject)

A few months ago, I strolled into my local bookstore intent on getting the Torchwood books. It was March, they'd been out for a bit, they should be there.

Then I remembered I was in the US. There was much *facepalming*

Fast forward nearly a year, and while searching for John's autobiography on Borders - I live in hope! false hope, but it's less depressing than the price - what do I find but the Torchwood books. For a little bit more than what I paid for them though Amazon. So, sadly, it's still better to order them over the internet, as long as you can wait to use Super Saver Shipping.

Speaking of Amazon:

The Torchwood DVD is priced at $60 USD, and slated for 22 January release date. Please consider waiting that two extra months, as the price for the UK release on 19 November is $83.88 USD, plus $6.26 USD shipping. Actually, depending on international shipping, it may just be cheaper period to order from the US. ( like 29.50 GBP, plus 3.92 GBP shipping ( plus VAT ) vs 41.99 GBP ) Uhm, exchange rate for the win?

...Yeah, totally did not just price everything out to figure out where it's cheaper to buy everything, as of today. Though if I have to do international shipping, it's gonna be cheaper to do UK than Canada. Because the base price of the audio books is $10 cheaper, let alone the international shipping rates from the UK is than Canada. ( $17.43 USD, plus $6.24 shipping vs $26.26 USD plus $8.98 shipping. There's the issues of taxes/customs but that's... going to be up there either way. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A lot of British DVD sets seem to be split up into halves so that might account for the price...

I have no clue why they split entire seasons, any logic you can discern from it?

I think set up so each of the volumes are the price of an average DVD, so you can spread out the series by buying three DVDs over a few trips instead of one huge set.

Plus, the volume DVDs are released a lot earlier than the set. There's also the idea that you might buy the series twice, as the set has all the shiny extras.

true but.... it seems like a tease! Or at the very least you'd think they'd think "they're going to release it as a whole set so... I'll wait on it". That or some people are easily scammed out of their money. Especially since no one needs to get a series ASAP >_>

Well, except maybe Heroes XD

*hugs his Heroes DVDs*

The messed up media prices on the Canadian side are apparently due to the Canadian dollar bottoming out in the 1990s.

Yeah. Still. Publishers claim that when the dollar bombed, they couldn't adjust their prices fast enough and sold things at a loss. So, now they're being lazy about adjusting the prices on older materials. ~~Example: I preordered volume 12 of MST3K for $42 on Amazon.ca and it's going for $44 on Amazon.com. Yet, normal volumes for for $50 on .com and $60 or more on .ca~~ Ugh, the little buggers "fixed" it, and the preorder is $55.

That alone should be proof that the system isn't really working. Most of us are really, really tired of it.

I'm not sure if it's not more of a giant scam than a system.

Trust me, we all accept it as a giant scam and it's now a game to find media for the cheapest price.

There IS a law in place that, in theory, should prevent this from getting out of control. The problem is that it effects the costs set by the publisher for the store, not the end customer. As it was explained to me, it allows a Canadian bookseller to import from an international wholesaler if the domestic wholesaler is not providing the product at a fair price. The idea being that the savings would pass along to the consumer.

::looks at book prices in Canada:: Yeah, we're still waiting on it and that doesn't even cover the product stocked when the dollar bottomed out.