Getting Tired of Amazon's Pre-Order Price Crap Shoot!

[Garyhead]

Sheesh! Doin' some shopping now that I am home from the Summer. Was looking on Amazon at the Jethro Tull Warchild boxed set.....ok....$45.00. Burning Shed has the Same thing for $25.50! Even after they add the $8.00 to get it to my door...it is Still $12.00 cheaper. Yeah, Yeah, i know......lower price guarantee, etc.

Fell for that last summer too! Suzanne Vega 5CD + 1DVD set....Preorder price $119.00. By the time it shipped, it was $63.50.....now its going for under $43.00......The prices are swinging farther than Crude Oil!

It's nice to see some new music coming down the pike.....but what a double-edged sword. I guess it's best to check the "Shed" and Ken before getting hosed by Jeff Bazos.

Yes - I canceled the JT WC Amazon order and purchased from Burning Shed.

[GuitarGeek]

I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the prices on Amazon, but I think a lot o fit has to do with the item not necessarily being sold by Amazon itself, because sometimes you'll put something in the basket, then have to wait a couple days to have the money to buy it, by which time it will be "no longer available from the seller you have chosen". And the prices do fluctuate sometimes.

I think the Anthony Braxton Black Lion box was initially listed at something like $25, but over the course of the few days I needed to wait before my next payday, it shop up to like $38. Same thing happened with the Hawkwind Levitation box, it started off at something like $25, shot up to around $30, then went back down to around $28, at which point I finally pulled the trigger, then I continued to monitor the price after my purchase and saw it drop another dollar or two before skyrocketing again.

I guess what you have to do is put something in your shopping basket, and if the price seems a little high, you kinda hold out and see if it doesn't drop a bit. Or, alternately, you could go to the "Amazon Marketplace" and see if there's not a well priced used copy.

By contrast, Wayside Music's prices stay rock steady as ever. Sure, sometimes prices have to go up, or maybe a stash of "budget priced" stuff turns up, but I know if I'm gonna by a Cuneiform title directly from Steve, it's gonna be 15 bucks, DAMMIT! Plus shipping. Unless he does another cut out sale.

[bob_32_116]

Two words: "Market Forces."

I'm sure there are times when I have paid more than I could have got away with when buying stuff online (or elsewhere, for that matter). Usually it's a matter of "Ican't see it cheaper elsewhere, maybe it is if I searched hard, but that price isn't too bad, so what the heck." A couple of times I have seen the item later advertissed for somewhat less than I paid, but in the meantime I have had the album to enjoy, and didn't have the stress of worrying whether it would still be available in a month's time.

It's a matter of how much you "need" something. If you know that something retailiing for $50 SHOULD be $25 and will probably drop to $25 but you must have it now anyway, you shouldn't complain afterwards when the price does drop.

As for the particular example above, if burning Shed are offering something I would almost always go to them first. Not only do the artists get a bigger share of what I pay, but that amount is usually less than other outlets.

[luvyesmusic]

I would rather pay more for a bricks-n-mortar store or any other place other than Shitmart for product but all you cheap bastids made them go away. ;-)

[GuitarGeek]

I would rather pay more for a bricks-n-mortar store or any other place other than Shitmart for product but all you cheap bastids made them go away. ;-)

The decent bricks-n-mortar stores "went away" in my area long ago. The last decent record store that didn't require me to ride public transportation for at least an hour was Borders, and even that was less than satisfactory the last time I was in there.

My favorite local record store was Wax Stax, which closed in 1995. After that, there was the Record Exchange chain (now known as CD/Game Exchange) which hasn't been worth much since around the same time. Record Revolution had to downsize their location.

There's a couple record stores over on Waterloo Road, couple blocks down from the Beachland Ballroom, but from what I can tell, one of the stocks mostly used vinyl (nice if you've got a good turntable, which I don't) and the other seems to mostly be so called "indie rock". Beyond that, I'd have to go over to the west side of Cleveland to find some of the music I want, and even then, I'd probably have to special order much of it.

Maybe if I lived in NYC I'd have better options, but out here in Cleveland, you're better off just buying stuff on line.

[davis]

I've been buying CDs at ImportCDs because they cost less than at Amazon. And ImportCDs only charges $3 for shipping/handling, except when I use them as an Amazon vendor, which still costs less than the Amazon price most of the time, which makes it a drag that I paid for Amazon Prime for another year.

[zombywoof]

Just wait it out. If anything like the APP box, the price will drop.

[Jerjo]

I live in a very rural area with only a WalMart that gouges everything and Amazon Prime is a godsend. The pre-order price worked well for me here:

You saved $9.01 with Amazon.com's Pre-order Price Guarantee!

The price of the item(s) decreased after you ordered them, and we gave you the lowest price.

The following title(s) decreased in price:

Penny Dreadful: Season 1 [Blu-ray]
Price on order date: $36.99
Price charged at shipping: $29.99
Lowest price before release date: $27.98
Amount to be refunded: $2.01 (+ $0.14 tax)
Quantity: 1
Total Savings: $9.01

Another boon - LaserCD's swift shipping!

[GuitarGeek]

I live in a very rural area with only a WalMart that gouges everything and Amazon Prime is a godsend.

That's certainly one the world is a better place than it was 20 years ago. WalMart doesn't quite have the stranglehold on the rural regions that it once had. I remember reading an article in Rolling Stone back then about the whole topic, with people in some rural regions complaining that the local chamber of commerce wouldn't let them open a record store because "You'll never be able to compete with WalMart". So if WalMart didn't stock it, you were largely TSOL. At least now, you can get stuff off the internet.