Play.com to Cease Retail Trading

Play was terrible after Rakuten. For all the tax loopholes the prices were way too high street. And it got even worse when they started doing Amazon "show only one strict result followed by two pages of randomly related by keyword that we need to offload" search thing. But it worked in reverse. You would search for specific movie or memory card and end up with 1000 results of anything, but not what you were looking for. They were also highly allergic to search engines, not once do I recall typing something in google and finding link to product on Play.

That said however. Play entering ebay market is a good thing. Ebay has no competition since yahoo auctions folded. We all thought google would jump into it, but they never did. eBid is their only competitor in western world, and eBid is a joke - they couldn't even keep their own domains, and you can't run a serious service when ebid.com belongs to "any moment now could be a porn or scam site" third party. So if arranged well, Play might actually do a serious damage there. My worry is, that it won't be an auction site, but a market site instead, like the amazon market - just a bunch of tat traders - you know the type - folding table stands in a rented corner of mall somewhere in Greater Luton, Barkingshire selling dodgy looking copies of Norton and Photoshop Essentials, "Dr.Dred" lookalike headphones and hair straighteners with misspelled brand names.
 
grumpysculler said:
Luxembourg
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Used to be partly in Jersey but the removal of Low Value Consignment Relief killed off that which is what has happened to Play.

HMV, based in Guernsey has all but gone (or is going) due to LVCR.

Some people called it unfair competition but at the end of the day it just makes Amazon that much more the go-to place for everything (apart from computer kit of course!)
 
I buy a lot of tat off them around xmas time cos of free delivery.

Shame, i considered them fairly decent.

Guess ill use amazon form now on then
 
Theophany said:
Gross oversimplification of the issue tbh.
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Oh the irony given what you go on to say :p

High Street retailers are going down the pan because they either sell rubbish few people want (Woolworths) or because they sell stuff people want at an inflated price (Comet).
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It's really not that simple at all - price is only one part of the problem. There are all sorts of complex reasons behind the end of a company like Comet. If it was price alone then Currys would have gone too, they have not. It was as much about company structure and debt as it was about pure price.

Secondly, the price is inflated in comparison to online retailers. Who, it seems, are also beginning to vanish because you can only spend so long selling stuff at barely any profit margin before it becomes pointless to continue.


Why pay over the odds for a CD, DVD or game when digital distribution (iTunes, Steam, Google Play, Audible, etc) is often cheaper and means you don't have the hassle of ripping or installing from a CD/DVD?
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a) Steam is not 'often cheaper' unless we are talking back cataloug products. Infact for new releases Steam is almost always the most expensive source.
b) Phsyical media accounted for 75% of the market in 2012. Digital distribution is growing - and fast - but it will remain a minority for at least the next few years.

If you have something somebody wants and can sell it for a price they're willing to pay, it's irrelevant whether you're on the high street or the intarwebz. That's basic economics. Most of those who have gone under have failed to meet this simple criteria and that is why they go into liquidation.
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Willingness to pay is difficult to quantify. Many people have a higher willingness to pay than the price they actually pay for a product. I might be willing to pay £20 for a product, but if ShopB has it for £10 then £10 is what I'll spend. If ShopB then vanished and no longer had it for £10 then I'd be stuck and have to pay £20.

I do love the fact that operating costs appear to have played nil part in your post.

And to think you accused ME of oversimplification :D
 
Theophany said:
Does it really matter? Taking this thread as a sample (hugely inaccurate, I know) nobody has used Play.com for years as Amazon is often cheaper.
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Of course it matters. If the competitors vanish one by one what incentive is left with Amazon to continue to charge low prices? Less competition in the market is good for market participants and bad for consumers. This is simple economics!

If we get to a situation where only Amazon is left then they can, within reason, charge what they want. Even if you don't shop at a particular store, its presence in the market benefits you because others compete with them, resulting in lower price and increased choice for all.
 
As many others have said, it's been going downhill rapidly and as such I've not used it for a good long while.

Many many moons ago it was a brilliant site and I remember buying Pitch Black on R1 dvd with a DTS sound track before it had even made it to the cinema over here, great stuff.

Then Europe got in the way and decided that selling dvds out of their region was not a good thing and stopped companies like Play from being able to so easily sell region 1 dvds over here, hence that side of the business sort of dropped away...which in truth was half the reason a lot of people used them, as there were longer delays between regional releases than there are now.

Then the prices; which at one time were always cheaper even before the free postage was taken into account, started creeping up and soon it just became the same as everywhere else.

When the Play Trade section opened up and you were no longer necessarily buying from Play.com but instead could be from anybody really, it became less and less simple.

Then they started selling a bit of everything and hence became like any other site...

So all in all they were a slippery slope for a long time, even before they were bought out, since then they have just gotten worse and worse!
 
I bought almost all my DVDs from them, but with the advent of blu-ray I stopped buying all physically distributed movies/music

DVDs are second rate, you have to rebuy movies you bought already if you want to experience them in full quality which to me is just not on and I refuse to purchase blu-ray on the basis that in a lot of cases they cost 2x-3x the price and its only some of these movies that it actually makes a significant difference for

I still pay to goto the cinema but most of the time I just feel fleeced

And I absolutely refuse to purchase music unless its an artist that has found some way that you can pay them directly rather than going via these big 4 recording companies that are doing their best to make sure the 'artists' get sidelined in favour of whatever manufactured crap they want to push and then get the smallest slice of the cut for what they do sell, I'm quite happy to be killing this music industry, kill it so that something fairer can take its place, I'm not up for putting more money into the pockets of the simon cowells of this world

Even when I was buying, play.com stopped being all that cheap a long time ago
 
I used to use Play a lot about a year or two ago but I slowly started to go off them. After Rakuten bought them out they've seriously dropped their ball I think, Either way I just buy everything from Amazon now pretty much.

- Dan
 
Shame really, used to use them a lot. At the risk of echoing everyone else though post-Rakuten they really weren't the same.

What I will miss is the MP3 album purchases from Play were really great. You just get a zip with everything in. I wouldn't even buy from Amazon because they force a downloader on you; hate unnecessary software.
 
[TW]Fox;23524212 said:
Of course it matters. If the competitors vanish one by one what incentive is left with Amazon to continue to charge low prices? Less competition in the market is good for market participants and bad for consumers. This is simple economics!

If we get to a situation where only Amazon is left then they can, within reason, charge what they want. Even if you don't shop at a particular store, its presence in the market benefits you because others compete with them, resulting in lower price and increased choice for all.
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This is a free market, mate. If there was a scenario where Amazon is the only competitor and decides to charge an extra 20-50% more (a figure pulled out of my arse) then there would be another company to rise to the challenge. It's simple economics.. provide a service and price and people will flock to it.
 
[TW]Fox;23524212 said:
Of course it matters. If the competitors vanish one by one what incentive is left with Amazon to continue to charge low prices? Less competition in the market is good for market participants and bad for consumers. This is simple economics!

If we get to a situation where only Amazon is left then they can, within reason, charge what they want. Even if you don't shop at a particular store, its presence in the market benefits you because others compete with them, resulting in lower price and increased choice for all.
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If a company wasn't competitive in the first place, what difference does it make when they disappear? :confused:
 
n3vrmind said:
DVDs are second rate, you have to rebuy movies you bought already if you want to experience them in full quality which to me is just not on and I refuse to purchase blu-ray on the basis that in a lot of cases they cost 2x-3x the price and its only some of these movies that it actually makes a significant difference for
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Have you even looked at blueray prices? :confused: Most of the ones I get are £8 or below, resident evil box set I got for £10.99 for 4 movies, you only have to wait a month or 2 and they drop below £10 if they started over that :)
 
Play really went to poo when they became the Rakouten Group, it seems like 90% of the stuff they sell comes from 3rd party sellers now, who as I have found out can be woefully unreliable. I used to always buy from Play for DVDs or games, as they were usually the cheapest and had free delivery, now I dont even bother to check their prices as Amazon are usually just as competitive, and 90% of their stuff is free delivery too. Also the fact that I can pay more for quicker postage is a real bonus, something that always annoyed me with Play having a flat rate 3-5 days postage.
 
Bennie-Mac said:
Play really went to poo when they became the Rakouten Group, it seems like 90% of the stuff they sell comes from 3rd party sellers now, who as I have found out can be woefully unreliable. I used to always buy from Play for DVDs or games, as they were usually the cheapest and had free delivery, now I dont even bother to check their prices as Amazon are usually just as competitive, and 90% of their stuff is free delivery too. Also the fact that I can pay more for quicker postage is a real bonus, something that always annoyed me with Play having a flat rate 3-5 days postage.
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They offered that service when I last ordered with them like earlier this year, express delivery that is and it was decently priced.
 
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