[quote name='fairyland']Hi, I agree, it's a friendly discussion indeed, but you did misunderstood me a little on a few things. Basically, I'm just telling things the way I see it from my point of view and I'm not telling anyone that my way is right and their's is wrong. I tend to be very cautious about everything as I feel the world is out to get me/screw me over unless I'm always on guard.
The main thing is that I never gave FYE a chance. Why? I'm going off of word of mouth and most of it has been horrendous. So, I do have to ask you, in your opinion, was they always this good over the years or is this a fairly new development? You see, I remember when they had Record Giants (or whatever the name was) way back in the late 70s and everyone knew to stay away from them because they was just too high. I think a lot of my paranoia stems from that, that they (transworld) has the astigmatism for far too long as a place that you simply do not shop at because of too high prices. You simply do not shop there.
If anyone else speaks their mind openly about this, I'd bet that you'll find that a lot of people here are going to have irrational ideas about FYE for various and most likely really stupid reasons. Sure the rebates are probably fine, but I don't trust them as it's too much money to take that gamble. Yet, I did not say my really stupid reasons for hating them. I DETEST that voice-over guy on the monthly product CD that they play over and over in the store. It so urks me when I hear him. Or how they jump on you when you enter the store for asking you if you need help. I also detest their blue theme that they make the employees wear and the gaudy silvery future look that the store has. These are really stupid things to hate a store for, but they exist. People tend to hate things for lame reasons. FYE gets dumped on mostly because of too high prices, the high priced club card, and those too good to be true rebates in my opinion.
Anyway, I got my 4 Star Trek sets during Black Friday and on though Christmas during various sales that made those prices steals. Total spent about $120.00. Yes CDs $60 in credit two weeks ago and I'll also go out to admit an anime BOGO box set sale I think in October where I plucked down $150.00. I thought about buying a card at $150, but I did not expect I'd ever buy from them again, as I never bought this much from them in the past. Then I was kicking myself during the Star Trek sets sales, but then again, I had never expected to find them at such a great price at FYE online. The Yes CDs was another surprise find (but I was mostly unloading old cd inventory that I could not sell on ebay which is why I bought that). These things was all spurs of luck (on sale no less), not at all what I perceive to be consistent buying. I don't see myself being a consistent FYE buyer unless they ran 40% off sales every month and other types of amazing bargains are to be had. Without the 40% off sale, I would not be going in there as often. The items I like are so rare and obscure, it's not likely I'd find them at an FYE, so buying a card would seem foolish at the moment. I honestly don't know what to think. If I had modern and common tastes, I would go for a card, but I'm too eccentric to make a card a smart buy like you are proving it to be for yourself.
Other side comments -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_program#Criticism This says a little about the criticism about discount cards and I fully believe in it. I'm sure there are other websites out there that can more efficiently explain the matter with proof on how bad these cards really are. Personally, I had my dealings some 20 years ago when I was a teen applying for my first CC. Harassment with junk mail and sales calls, so I'm a bit wiser about my privacy now. Heh, I still get junk mail from some of those places even today. They never give up!
I do wonder, with the visa rebate card, don't you HAVE to give the correct address to get that rebate back to you? This was part of what I was thinking last time. They get your proper name and address with the rebates and they'll sell it off. The DS comment I made was in reference to the 2 or 3 week ago DS rebate sale. Buy a game for $29.99 and get a $20.00 rebate. I was really tempted to do that one.
About loosing a rebate, personally I'm waiting to find and try a $5.00 rebate on a $10.00 item to see how that goes. I won't take a chance on anything higher than that. The items that I am somewhat interested in is always around the $25.00 range and it's too high for me to gamble as I just don't trust them yet. What has me worried was that 2 weeks ago was someone else's post commenting that FYE could be the next Circuit City and thus any rebates would be forever gone...Reading how FYE had performed under expectations last quarter this could very likely happen...
But overall, FYE has to slowly grow their trust with me. It won't be easy to do considering the recent pattern of their $7.88 liquidated cds where the first two weeks it was 75% off, then 50% off, then buy one get one, then 25% off, then buy one get one free again. Inconsistently changing the discounts around like really gets my goat. Also, I had trouble with the buy "3 get the 4th free sale" or buy "2 get the 3rd half off" or sometimes no bogo sale at all. I could never find more than 2 items I wanted to cash in on the sale, which is why I rarely bought much with them over the years.
So, I'm glad for these coupons and if they continue, I should be a consistent buyer indeed. But definitely not at those constantly switching oddball sales they have where it's anyone's guess if you'd be saving the most that week or should you wait another week for a proper sale. Yes, there is a lot one can find wrong with FYE if you're a fussy nick-picker like myself. LOL[/quote]
You know, I'll start off saying I realized one big thing both of us may be forgetting: as much as we're judging FYE on actual experiences - those experiences differ (I would say) mainly because the specific employees you're dealing with - that can make a monstrous difference.
Same thing with area - I've never heard the voice-over-guy you're talking about in my life, and I'm in an FYE at the very least once a week (the one I frequent, I know the manager - he plays the music he wants to, he actually edits out the swears at his house to play what he wants at work).
Also - areas are different. FYE is "new" to me - let's say about three or four years old. I'm 24 so since I was 12 I remember wanting my mom to have taken me to Strawberries or Sam Goody's for CDs. When I was around 20/21 they all changed to FYE, so my dealings with them began then.
I also think that today's music/video climate is so different than around 2002 or before then. Stores are not only competing more and more, but alot of the control has been switched to the consumer. Maybe in the 70's, Transworld could say "
the buyer, we'll charge what we want" - the consumer had no control of how to get that music.
Now I feel the power has shifted at least slightly. These corporations can only push you so far AND they need tactics to get you to either trust them or make them worth your time, so it would stand to reason that they've made alot of changes in the company for the current deal with media.
I also see what you mean about having deals consistently, but I think that has to do with the effort you put in to finding those deals or MAKING them! I'm really strict with myself about DVD spending limits, and I do find those constant deals, but it's also because I look for them. I bought $2,400 in DVD's from Gamestop when they were liquidating them - for less than $400!! Through trades at FYE I made tons and tons. I also bought a bunch of new very discounted titles at Best Buy around Christmas and returned them at FYE after Christmas (when they return anything shrink-wrapped even with no receipt) and made a huge profit there.
Combine that with then ten seasons of Friends/Seinfeld rebates, the 14 Oliver Stone movie pack rebate, the Hogan Knows Best rebate, and the 60+ days that this 40% off coupon is active (yes, 60+ days) - that is quite a lot of deals from November - March.
But yeah - that is with modern/common tastes. I'm a film graduate and I'm a journalist who reviews mainly movies, so I own 1,500+ DVDs and I'd like to own all that I'm interested in. I definitely have a very wide range of tastes so that certainly helps (although 40% off all used means all used).
Also read the Criticisms of the Rebate card - interesting. I mean, the FYE specific card requires no adress, email or phone number for activation, so they have no way of tracking you, but in general that could be a valid criticism of cards that have less loose policies.
With rebates - yes, valid address is neccessary, but not with the discount card.
To be honest - this CC thing is definitely true? If you bought a Circuit City item that had a rebate before they went under - your rebate was no longer valid? I'd have to question this. I know that all Circuit City protection plan owners (for like PCs or laptops) will have their protection plans honored, so I would guess that either this is the same with rebates, or that they would offer you a complete refund on the item. A rebate is part of the contract that you and the company are agreeing to when you buy the item, so it is part of what you paid for. I've never heard of a loophole in which they argued they didn't have to pay you, even if the company is closing down.
Also - I think people knew CC was closing something like 4 months beforehand, and they confirmed it at least two months before it happened - it's not going to happen overnight. FYE is also opening new stores so I think any possibilities of closing will be in the not-so-near future.
I will say that yes, the fact that their sales keep changing can be frustrating. But I think I'd rather have constant sales than almost no sales (like Newbury Comics).
So I understand what you're saying. But I defintiely stand by the fact that if you're looking for 50 random used titles at any given time, 40 of them will be the cheapest at FYE, and the ones that aren't will be extremely close.
) are stupidly priced, usually double the price of new titles..
