Buy.com DOTD is RIP...

[peeps]

I am shocked and saddened to report that when I went to check out the Buy.com Deal of the Day this morning, it was gone. No DOTD box, no link, no nothing. Not even a little blurb about its passing.

I think a moment of silence is in order. We all lost a good friend today.

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[Bob61]

With many other vendors now belly-up, my guess it you'll be saying RIP to BUY.COM soon, not just the DOTD. It's stock is trading at about 75 cents per share (down from high of over $35), $1.31 loss for it's EPS and profitability isn't really improving.

 

[guyver01]

I'm saddend.. but not shocked. This "friend" has been on life support for the last few weeks.. its health, ever declining, so it comes as no surprise of its passing. But it will be mourned.

 

[SST]

Cheer up man. It may not be a total loss, as their deals lately are suck, instead of free S/H, they charged you twice the amount.

The good news, Amazon.com has its own DOTD now, although today's deal Trivial Pursuit Classic Trilogy at $9.99 (72% off) is sold out.

 

[smartt]

Buy.com had a DOTD? hrrmmm... hadn't noticed

 

[WT]

Which brings up a good point ... how can a company stay in biz or make $$ offering such good deals when their profit margains are sometimes under a buck ? This isn't the case on ALL deals, mind you, as I say "some" deals. Still, with this many online vendors dropping off, does anyone see a future in online purchasing as it currently stands ?

Its good points:
prices
ease of purchase

Its bad points:
lack of proper security
poor all-around business model (due to low prices, they can't afford to staff good tech support or provide advertisement)

I'd hope that some of the "Big Guys" stay in business simply to provide a way to purchase items that are not locally available. In my case, the only store close by is a Staples and OM. No BB, no OD, no CompUSA. I would have paid $180 for the Maxtor 45 gig HD I just got locally but managed to get it for $110 online. We can all appreciate the good deals but we must also beware the pitfalls for ourselves and the vendors in this case.

 

[Mamoth100]

I have also heard that buy.com will not be focusing on the lowest price anymore (and probably the reason this is gone). They want to step up customer service or something.

 

[Dynamix3D]

If buy.com has high prices, you definately won't catch me buying from them. I never had problems with them, their products were always high in quality so I never had a need to call customer service.

 

[Dynamix3D]

I am strictly a bargain buyer, I search for the hottest deals around.

 

[z0ner]

Amen, brother!

 

[Jamey]

Ditto, I used to buy a bunch of DVD's, but now that the prices have inched up closer to retail, I stopped. When I find DVD's that I like for under $10, I will buy them. I'm not paying $15-$20 for a DVD that is not a "must have". The same will go for computer equipment. If I couldn't have gotten a 40 gig HD for $80, I wouldn't have bought it. If I couldn't have gotten the 12x Zip drives for $130, I wouldn't have bought those either. It's first year economics...with all other things being equal, lower prices sell more.

The business models are failing to succeed, not by prices being to low, but by not being able to make a profit at current pricing levels. When an online store raises prices, they loose customers. That is the final nail in the coffin to most of them. The online companies are going to have to do the nearly impossible to prosper; keep pricing much lower than retail, while still managing to keep the numbers black. If pricing is going to be higher (which is almost a certainty), I actually see more online companies merging or being created by B&M stores (i.e. Amazon and Staples). Having a presence in some localities will allow customers to shop locally, and get the product delivered to them if it's out of stock or too heavy/cumbersome to carry home.

 

[Unclemo]

I am just waiting for buy.com to die. We are going to see less and less deals as companies go belly-up. And that means we will see less and less of a reason to come to this forum every day looking for hot deals. I have noticed that I have clicked less on this forum over the last couple of months.

 

[BlueHeelers]

For what is worth, they have a "Deals of the Week" that can be accessed by clicking the "At Work" tab or going to Buy.Com Business. I didn't look over the deals though but it may be where they are refocussing to.

REL

 

[RossMAN]

I hope Buy.com can stay afloat and not go belly up anytime soon. I continue to buy my DVDs from Buy.com because if you wait for a $30 off $150 returning customer coupon and order through shoppin.net to get 10% back you can still save more than retail.

Or you can order DVDs for $9.94 each from Columbia House.