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UKHotMovies.comPosted: June 1st, 2001.
UKHotMovies.comis a new film site which became fully operational on 21 May 2001. It featuresmovie news, reviews, features, galleries, competitions and more. UKHotMovies.comprides itself on being one of the few major entertainment sites which is fullyindependent. It does not have an exclusive partnership with a single e-tailerlike most rivals, which means it is free to offer the best deals from a rangeof sites. UKHotMovies.com is part of the Litmania.com Group of Companies andis based in Euston, central London.
New Film Web Site Exposes Sorry State of E-shopping Sites
A new British site has revealed some online DVD and video retailers have a longway to go before they begin to provide a level of service that will lure peopleaway from the high street.
In an undercover investigation, UKHotMovies.com ordered two DVDs from AmazonUK, BlackStar, WHSmith Online, DVD Street and Tower Records. Instead of benefitingby saving time, money and stress by shopping online, the researcher, PeterWilliams, experienced a plethora of problems which made the experience lessthan satisfying.
The shopping carts on some of the sites were awkward to use, hefty deliverycharges were added at the final stages, and DVDs were often not received ontime.
Worst of all, the investigation revealed that it was often more expensive tobuy online that from high street shops.
The DVD of the recently released ‘Billy Elliot’ DVD cost £17.09 atTowerRecords.co.uk, plus an additional £2.05 postage and packing. Says Williams,“Twenty pounds is a high price to pay for a film you might receive in a week’s time. When I checked out its price in my local Woolworth’s, it wasselling for £16.99.”
“The high price is not solely Tower Records fault, however; Hollywood distributorsperceive Britain as being a kind of ‘Treasure Island’ and wring enormous profitsfrom DVDs which are extremely cheap to produce.”
“That’s why the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ DVD was released on 21 May in the UK, butthe video won’t appear until September. They can make a killing in those threemonths, before the lower-profit-margin video is brought onto the market.”
TowerRecords.co.uk was a poor imitation of their American online presence,revealed the investigation. The site had unhelpful instructions which the webmastershad not even bothered converting for a British audience. Says the report: “you’reat TowerRecords.co.uk and you click on the link offering postal information.Up pops a page from TowerRecords.com which gives you all kinds of uselessdetails about ‘FedEx Shipping’ and delays on Veterans Day and Presidents Day!Even the final prices are totted up and charged in dollars.”
Peter Williams said that unless British e-tailers got their act together byimproving customer services and lowering prices, they would find it difficultto entice people away from the high street. “Contrary to what most onlineshopping merchants proclaim, buying products over the internet is less excitingthan going with a friend and buying from a high street store. The only way toencourage people to change their habits is by excelling in customer serviceand offering savings over ‘real world’ rivals. That is unfortunately nothappening at the current time.”
“Most webmasters are reluctant to admit the high prices and sometimes poorlevel of service on e-shopping sites. They are affiliates or partners of thesecompanies and earn commission from purchases made via the links from theirsites. It is therefore in their interest to remain hush-hush on the subject.”
Sites that did well in the investigation were BlackStar, WHSmith Onlineand DVD Street, whose prices were competitive and delivery chargesreasonable. The Web sites of these three companies were easy to navigate andqueries to their customer services departments were handled promptly andefficiently.
The full report is available atUKHotMovies.com/features
For more information, please contact:
Peter Williams
0870 870 2222 or 020 7813 5610
promotion@UKHotMovies.com
Nadeem Azam
0870 870 2223 or 07957 401 401
email@Litmania.com
News page content input by Dominic Robinson, 2001.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.