Page 1 of I am still here... just hiding.

Since all this Movietyme thing came up I have tried to keep my distance. I`ve been frequenting the site, but not adding any threads - cos I`ve just waiting for this to all blow over. I know some of you may`ve ordered from them because I reccomended them, but I wasn`t the first! I had only been on there and ordered from them because someone had reccomended them on DVD Reviewer.

Let`s all hope that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is actually as good as we hope it to be, and that we all get our DVD soon, but I think some people should just stop slagging Movietyme.

I`m still going to try and defend their case, though, in respect to CTHD:-
* All of the stock that are being made, I should think only a small amount are being shipped to the USA. (There are other countries as well that are probably selling CTHD)
* Hong Kong have had problems keeping up with the massive demand, and are churning out the film as fast as they possibly can, but they don`t seem to be able to keep up!
* When the stock is shipped to the USA, then all of stock has to be split between the companys who have ordered it.
* They can only ship a certain amount at a time, and that all depends when flights etc. are being made to USA.
* When Movietyme get their stock, they have to allocate it to all of those who are top of the list. (But how long is the list?)
* Not only do they then have to ship the stock to the UK, but they also probably have hundreds of thousands of Americans, and people from other countries who have also ordered the same title.
* Because they are only one of a few companys selling CTHD, then I expect the demand on their company is huge.
* Didn`t someone say they were only a seven man operation?
* When I have ordered from them before I have ALWAYS recieved the DVD, and one time it was even (somehow) next day delivery.
* Yes, order tracking would be an excellent idea, but it`s a huge task for a supposedly small business like Movietyme to uptake. Especially at the moment with the whole commotion over CTHD.

Now, any people who are still complaining that they`ve had to week 4+ weeks for their film, haven`t Movietyme said that there`d be a delay right from the beginning? Also you may be worrying that you haven`t got your film, but I should think the staff at Movietyme are wondering whether they will even have a job this time next month. And if you are so desperate to see it, go to the Cinema!

A large number of the people who have written threads on this subject have been pretty good about the whole thing, and understand exactly what is going on. But to all you others, you will get your film! I`m still waiting for mine, but when I get it, it will have been worth the wait. And I`m not complaining about them because I didn`t expect to get it in a hurry anyway.

AND - Before you ask, no I am not employed by the company, nor have I ever had any sort of correspondance with them, I just don`t want to see the company shutting down because of it. We are losing Internet retailers fast at the moment, we don`t need to lose another one.

I think thats all I`ve got to say at the minute... I`m going to go into hiding again. You ain`t seen me, right?!

This item was edited on Wednesday, 14th February 2001, 16:10

I can`t see how movietyme will go under just because they have x amount of backorders for any title. It`d be a different thing if they`d have taken the money too.
They obviously believe they can satisfy the demand as it is still possible to order CTHD. I would presume if they get really stuck, all they have to do is provide a disclaimer which states all orders for that title are cancelled. The worst that can happen is some people won`t use them again.
As long as they don`t take my cash without me getting the disc i`ll wait.
I`m more concerned that it will be harder to cancel if i decide to.

Well I think Mark Oates cancelled his pre-orders easily by e-mail. I haven`t had money withdrawn from my bank account for it yet. It`s good to see Paul, that you`ve adopted the "I`ll wait" opinion on CTHD with Movietyme, as not everyone has done.

I`d have loved to just wait and see with Movietyme, but my relationship with the company had already soured with the Amaray cases business (which I won`t go into here), which had been rumbling on long before the CTHD business started. I`d preordered Charlie`s Angels from them, and I cancelled that primarily because I found I could get a better deal with DVDBO (who I`ve dealt with successfully on a number of occasions).

I`d also hate to see Movietyme go to the wall, because in spite of its faults, I like the site and the range of products it offers. I hope in the future I can order from them (once CTHD has blown over), although having been wished well for the future, I don`t think Craig and the boys would entertain an order from me.

This whole sorry episode has been nothing to do with being a bad company or being cowboys. It`s been a PR disaster, plain and simple. They didn`t even have to put order tracking on the site - a simple regular announcement on the front page of the state of play and possible mailing dates for orders would have allayed the fears of all the skittish types that had ordered and they wouldn`t have been snowed under with thousands of extremely abusive emails (mine was not one of them, although I`m ashamed to say I sent it in quadruplicate to all of the email addresses at Movietyme.com). Ignoring emails (but posting regularly in the forums at DVDTimes) wasn`t the answer.

Yet again, Mr. Franklin totally misses the point. If a company advertises goods - they should have them in stock ready for delivery.

I hope the bastards fold and take there shoddy site with them. I can never recall ordering a product & thinking it will be well worth the wait. (Unless I am pre-ordering - which I beleive to be a totally different concept) There was not one mention of this on their site. This was obviously a large pre-order scam & hopefully everyone knows not to trust them again.

>If a company advertises goods - they should have them in stock ready for delivery.

Don`t be silly, when has this ever happened? E-tailers usually have products advertised because they sell them not neccesarily because they always have them in-stock there and then.

>I can never recall ordering a product & thinking it will be well worth the wait.

Maybe you should stick to shops, that way you can walk out with the goods, or does even the thought of queing stop you doing that. Besides I don`t think CTHD is all that anyway, certainly not for £20 and weeks of waiting.

>There was not one mention of this on their site. This was obviously a large pre-order scam & hopefully everyone knows not to trust them again.

Maybe if you stopped to read for one second you may have noticed this on the front page of their website under the CTHD section:

"Please note there is now a delay on this title due to studio shortages in Hong Kong. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon will be shipped as soon as possible! Supply of titles from Hong Kong is not as efficient as obtaining from distributers/studios here in the US."

007.

There is nothing silly about expecting an advertised good to be in stock. Maybe I should stick to shops & maybe people should stop posting messages about how good retailers are in a retailer review column, when they quite obviously are pretty sub standard.

When I made the order for CTHD there was none of this "Please note" It wasn`t until everyone realised they had been suckered into ordering a good that hadn`t even been manufactured and hassled this company for info that they came up with this lame excuse.

Anyway, what exactly are you trying to convey in your above response. It makes no sense? Are you justifying the business model of Movietyme.com? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

>>
When I made the order for CTHD there was none of this "Please note" It wasn`t until everyone realised they had been suckered into ordering a good that hadn`t even been manufactured and hassled this company for info that they came up with this lame excuse.
>
Anyway, what exactly are you trying to convey in your above response. It makes no sense? Are you justifying the business model of Movietyme.com? You seem to be contradicting yourself.
<<

What I`m trying to convey is that you seem to be a very impatient and unrealistic person! If you`ve never noticed that companies advertise products that they may not neccasarily have in stock then you`ve either been very lucky or don`t get out much! As an example off the top of my head - Argos, they have a catalog which they use to advertise their products, but it doesn`t mean that they will have that product avaliable and waiting for you as soon as you deciede to walk in their store to buy it. And why should e-tailers be any different? Sure wouldn`t it be great if everything we ever wanted was always avaliable when we wanted to buy them, but this isn`t the reality of things.

Sure Movietyme could have done things better, like having a BIG message come up when people select to order CTHD saying something like "There is a long delay on this blah, blah, blah do you still wish to order?" but still they did have a notice on their site for those not lazy enough to actually bother reading it. The fact is there is a shortage of this title everywhere - you`ll be hard pushed to find it in stock at any place selling it because the demand is outstripping the supply, so the root of the problem lies in the production of this title and this has rippled through to Movietyme and other retailers.

Maybe I`m wrong but you seem like a spoilt brat who always gets his own way and if not you`ll cry and whine until you do. If you are not happy to wait (which obviously you`re not!) then simply cancel your order with movietyme as they don`t charge you till it`s shipped and spare us all you`re whinning!

007.

Mmm, the length of your reply amazes me. You have totally missed the point. You have changed the subject matter from Movietyme`s customer service to the CTHD disk.

I am a spoilt brat. Yet again you are correct 007. Please stop your whining. It`s everywhere, on every post & is incredibly boring.

Can you name any other examples - I didn`t take you for an Argos kind of guy. How does their business model work? Indeed, where is Argos?

I`d rather see 007 whining than you James. Oh, and what is your definition of an Argos kind of guy? And who falls into this category? So what kind of guy are you James?

Movietyme have ALWAYS had an anouncement on their site about the availabilty of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. You must`ve got really excited when you landed on the site and had to order as fast as possible. That`s the only way you could`ve missed any information on the film. Oh, that is unless you are blind. In which case, why would you want to buy a film with subtitles? It`s not like you can see them. It`s obvious you`re dumb, which is why I didn`t ask.