| Author |
Message |
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 485 |
| | Posted: | | | | Reported by zdnet.nl (in dutch) and by the BBC, Play is to end business because of a taxation law change. Throughout the last decade I bought a lot there. But... It was taken over by the Rakuten group at the end of 2011 and since then prices continued to rise, making it uncompetitive with the likes of amazon.co.uk. At least, from my POV. So whether the taxation change argument is just a cheap escape from blaming bad cost control (and so their own staff or directors) remains to be seen. First Axel, now Play, who's next? | | | Eric
If it is important, say it. Otherwise, let silence speak. | | | | Last edited: by eommen |
|
| Registered: September 18, 2008 | | Reputation: |  Posts: 2,650 |
| | Posted: | | | | It's a cheap blame game by Play. Ever since Rakuten took over they become more and more awful. Good riddance to them though the job losses are obviously a shame.
HMV could be next... |
|
| Registered: March 13, 2007 |  Posts: 1,380 |
| | Posted: | | | | I left years ago because of uncompetitive prices and bad customer service. Wont miss it. | | | | Last edited: by whispering |
|
| Registered: July 16, 2010 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 527 |
| | Posted: | | | | Well that sucks. I nearly always compare prices at five sites before I buy anything and Play is one of them. I still buy about 15% of what I get from there, although that does include the Marketplace too. (No £1.26 fixed cost for postage, so you can often find the same seller there and on Amazon selling the same thing, but for less at Play). It's just Amazon slowly destroying all the competition. HMV will probably be next. Amazon would make a great baddie for Superman to fight.  | | | | Do you ever find yourself striving for perfection with an almost worthless attempt at it? Guttermouth "Lemon Water". Also, I include in my Profiler database VHS tapes, audio DVDs, audio books (digital, cassette and CD), video games (digital, DVD and CD) and 'enhanced' CDs with video tracks on them, as well as films and TV I've bought digitally. So I'm an anarchist, deal with it. Just be thankful I don't include most of my records and CDs etc in it too; don't think I haven't been tempted... | | | | Last edited: by SpikyCactus |
|
| Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Posts: 5,734 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting eommen: Quote:
Reported by zdnet.nl (in dutch) and by the BBC, Play is to end business because of a taxation law change. Thanks for the info, I bought there now and then* and never had any problem. * 41 (more than I bought at Kaufhof or Karstadt) | | | | Don't confuse while the film is playing with when the film is played. [Ken Cole, DVD Profiler Architect] |
|
| Registered: March 17, 2007 |  Posts: 853 |
| | Posted: | | | | I am glad Amazon is taking the world by storm. I get my films cheaper there than at most places. Shipping is lightning in most cases. Customer service is always nice and extremely helpful. Using the wishlist I am able to track items until they reach a price I am willing to play. I paid less for some of my DVD's then what it cost to make them |
|
| Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 1,819 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting SpikyCactus: Quote:
I still buy about 15% of what I get from there, although that does include the Marketplace too. (No £1.26 fixed cost for postage, so you can often find the same seller there and on Amazon selling the same thing, but for less at Play). I'm the same. Thankfully, according to the press statement they will continue to trade as a marketplace for their sellers; so we may see more competitive prices from sellers in future. |
|
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 2,293 |
| | Posted: | | | | Sad news but worryingly inevitable given the tax law change... which is particularly rough on them as they were *always* Jersey based, not a company who set up a trading outpost there. It also seems a bit ironic that this tax law change puts Play out of business whilst Amazon go from strength to strength without paying any UK tax... Over the years I've bought almost 50% of ALL my purchases from Play (compared with only 8% from Amazon!) and, whilst I buy less than I used to from them nowadays, I will certainly miss them and especially their exclusive steelbooks and the fantastic protective packaging they introduced for them, ahead of all their competition. RIP my introduction to online shopping  | | | | It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong |
|
| Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 1,819 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Lord Of The Sith: Quote:
I am glad Amazon is taking the world by storm. I get my films cheaper there than at most places. Shipping is lightning in most cases. Customer service is always nice and extremely helpful. Using the wishlist I am able to track items until they reach a price I am willing to play. I paid less for some of my DVD's then what it cost to make them I agree. Although, don't bother with Amazon Prime. We signed up for the free trial, and in the first month less than 30% of our orders arrived by the guaranteed delivery date. We complained so much and so often that they extended our trial period by two months. It finishes at the end of this month and by that time it's still less than 50% arriving on time. I wanted to join Prime for the Kindle library. Everyone in our household wanted to take advantage of that - but only ONE person can borrow at a time and only on ONE device. We all have different taste in books and our own Kindle so the lending library is totally useless. I love Amazon; but I really think they need to work out the kinks in their Prime service before charging £49 a year for it! |
|
| Registered: March 17, 2007 | | Posts: 853 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Pantheon: Quote:
Quoting Lord Of The Sith:
Quote:
I am glad Amazon is taking the world by storm. I get my films cheaper there than at most places. Shipping is lightning in most cases. Customer service is always nice and extremely helpful. Using the wishlist I am able to track items until they reach a price I am willing to play. I paid less for some of my DVD's then what it cost to make them
I agree. Although, don't bother with Amazon Prime.
We signed up for the free trial, and in the first month less than 30% of our orders arrived by the guaranteed delivery date. We complained so much and so often that they extended our trial period by two months.
It finishes at the end of this month and by that time it's still less than 50% arriving on time.
I wanted to join Prime for the Kindle library. Everyone in our household wanted to take advantage of that - but only ONE person can borrow at a time and only on ONE device. We all have different taste in books and our own Kindle so the lending library is totally useless.
I love Amazon; but I really think they need to work out the kinks in their Prime service before charging £49 a year for it! That is very odd. I have Prime and have experienced the opposite. I normally receive items before their due date. I had to replace an Xbox controller which was supposed to be two days out and it arrived the next morning. We got Prime just before Christmas and it saved us tons on shipping and on wait times. Plus you get the streaming content as well. My wife has the Kindle not me so it works perfectly. Plus if you have Prime you get better prices on some items. All in all I think Amazon has done very well and has done excellent by me.  |
|
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  | | Posts: 13,203 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Lord Of The Sith: Quote:
That is very odd. I have Prime and have experienced the opposite. I normally receive items before their due date. I had to replace an Xbox controller which was supposed to be two days out and it arrived the next morning. We got Prime just before Christmas and it saved us tons on shipping and on wait times. Plus you get the streaming content as well. My wife has the Kindle not me so it works perfectly. Plus if you have Prime you get better prices on some items. All in all I think Amazon has done very well and has done excellent by me. My experience as well. For me, Prime has been well worth the money. | | | No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever.
There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom.
Against this power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand.
The Centauri learned this lesson once.
We will teach it to them again.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.
- Citizen G'Kar |
|
| Registered: September 18, 2008 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 2,650 |
| | Posted: | | | | Prime is actually worse for me. Because I live in on an island in the Scottish Highlands, it takes anything sent by courier 2-3 days as it comes via the ferry. If they send it regularly using Royal Mail, I get it next day as the Royal Mail have a mail plane that lands here every day. In fact I get my regular mail quicker here (plane comes from Glasgow) than when I lived on the mainland, 15 miles from a major Royal Mail hub!  I used to use Play a lot in 2007-2010, but now almost 100% Amazon. Orders at Amazon by year (number of orders, not number of items which is probably 3-4 times as much for each year): 2010 - 16 2011 - 389 2012 - 557 2013 - 32 (so far) | | | | Last edited: by samuelrichardscott |
|
| Registered: March 10, 2009 | | Posts: 2,248 |
| | Posted: | | | | HMV is not a question of if, but when. To quote a certain film. HMV is like a timex watch, in a digital age. Let's hope Amazon get some competition though. Monopoly is never a good thing, for us consumers. |
|
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 2,293 |
| | Posted: | | | | FWIW my Prime experience has been (on the limited number of items bought) 100% on the day they tell me it will be delivered. It's free at the moment (free month automatically with the Kindle Fire HD I got for Christmas) and it's been so good I'm thinking about paying for it, especially if Amazon are going to be my 'one main choice' in future; it's not been worth it until now as I only order about 20-30% of my purchases from there. | | | | It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong |
|
| Registered: March 23, 2007 | | Posts: 317 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Pantheon: Quote:
I wanted to join Prime for the Kindle library. Everyone in our household wanted to take advantage of that - but only ONE person can borrow at a time and only on ONE device. We all have different taste in books and our own Kindle so the lending library is totally useless.
If it's not a funny question, why don't you just checkout e-books from your local library (on-line of course). I'm sure that schemes vary from authority to authority (and some probably don't have a scheme yet, though I think you can borrow books from other authorities), but I would imagine that they all work on a person-by-person basis. http://www.coventry.gov.uk/info/2000693/libraries-e-books/1349/e-booksStuart | | | This is a sig... ... ... yay...
Don't understand? Maybe DVDProfilerWiki.org does! | | | | Last edited: by DariusKyrak |
|
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 485 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting samuelrichardscott: Quote:
It's a cheap blame game by Play. Ever since Rakuten took over they become more and more awful. Good riddance to them though the job losses are obviously a shame.
HMV could be next... Quoting VirtualScot: Quote:
HMV is not a question of if, but when. To quote a certain film. HMV is like a timex watch, in a digital age. Let's hope Amazon get some competition though. Monopoly is never a good thing, for us consumers. Seems both your words are profetic: see the Guardian (14 Jan around 20:52). | | | Eric
If it is important, say it. Otherwise, let silence speak. |
|