samkane
Reviewed on: 07/Apr/2008
80%
Purchased From:
play.com
Price Paid:
N/A
Introduction
Play.com's website is remarkably easy to navigate, at the top of the screen there is a simple menu bar that will let you browse through the category of goods that you are interested in. The tabs are labeled, Home, DVD, Music, Games, Books, Electronics, Gadgets and Ringtones, each leading to a wide selection of goods that are available to you.
The site is easy on the eyes, it has a plain white background, which makes reading easier, and main titles and banners in red, which does match the white background, making the site eye pleasing.
If they are selling an item that is not out yet, then there is a little counter next to the item and there is one of these counters next to every item that is currently not out. This counter will tell you exactly how long is left until it is out, it is always counting in days, so you can plan ahead and see when you need the money for it or when you need to purchase it, or whatever you want to do with it. There is a search button on the left of the page on every tab, that allows you to search through the entire site, or just the sections your interested in.
Good Points
Cheap competitve prices, good customer service, fast delivery,Excellent layout, fast and simple ordering,Free delivery,No more outrages Highstreet prices,quite good choice,
Bad Points
Only offer one type of delivery, nice if you had the option for other methods,picky with credit/debit card details,takes a long time to deliver,stock in mainly mainstream, not as vast as amazonsearch engine not great,all of the puns that can be made with the title,returns policy needs polishing
The Verdict
Play.com is a great site for convenience. It sells compact discs, DVD videos and computer games with easy-to understand comparisons between the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) and site offer price. What’s better is that there is no separate postage or delivery charge for orders inside the UK.
The layout is very user-friendly with easy-to-use menus splitting the site into its four principal sections of Home, DVD, Music and Games. The colour scheme looks great featuring white, orange and blue and a main column is in between two side bars containing further menus, with the very useful search tool at the top left. The site has been designed with the customer in mind, and searches can be made by actor, director, title (of course!), language or subtitles, for the DVD range. This can be further pondered over between region 1 and region 2 format. Games can be searched for by platform (e.g. PC, PlayStation2, X-Box), whilst audio CDs can be searched by either title or artist. The same is true of Super Audio CDs (SACDs) and DVD Audio format (DVDA).
Once you have found what you want, which is very likely considering the variety of items available, a further range of options are available. In the DVD section you can view information about the film such as extras, cast, a short review and a list by actor of other films they appear in. Popular DVDs seem to cost just under the £15 mark for region 2, whilst region 1 tend to be a couple of GBP more expensive, around about £17.
Pre-ordering is possible, for example Terminator 3, in general UK cinema release on August 1, 2003 can be ordered in advance of its December 2003 release date on DVD, so you can make sure of a copy for Christmas. This is handy if you don’t want to miss out on the release of your favourite film.
