Arrow: Cheapest Prices/Best Places to Buy/Pre-Orders/Deals

[Adam X]

we are holding a sale at the [Film4 FrightFest] but a little birdie tells us that an online sale may be coming soon...

pre-orders won't be included

[swo17]

Releases from the past three months or so aren't usually included either.

[perkizitore]

Will pre-orders get double points though? A member here implied that if you mixed sale items with pre-order items, you would get double points on your whole order. If the sale starts before the early bird discounts end and double points are offered, that would be really unfair to their most loyal customers.

[swo17]

All sales are inherently unfair.

[EddieLarkin]

They have definitely offered double points on pre-ordered items during sale periods previously. If the sale comes before September 8th I fully intend to take advantage.

[Ribs]

And theoretically it should be upon the customer to feel bad about it if they put their money down too early as if they are so informed as to utilize such a promotion to get a lot of double points they should be expected to wait. The reason I feel it's a bit unfair is I ordered the Rivette set within minutes of it being announced given its price increase surely coming before the sale only for them to announce just hours later they are moving it two weeks later so as to likely push it after the sale.

I'm a little bit upset but ultimately it's only an additional £6.50 worth of credit to me so it's not like I'll absolutely stop shopping with Arrow how dare they wrong me as a customer.

[rapta]

I'm sure they're fully aware of people wishing to get both the early bird discount - which they extended - as well as double points. For that reason, I reckon they'll have the sale after the early bird price finishes. Otherwise they would have people cancelling their original order and asking for a refund, then placing the same pre-order during the sale period. We're not actually due one 'til late September - if last year's 'one sale every 3 months' rule still applies - but the previous June sale was a bit later than usual and lasted 2 weeks, and the one before that in March was only over a weekend.

Saying all this about them not doing a sale before the early bird discount offer finishes, and then I realise it's a Bank Holiday here in the UK, and also pay day for most people...so they'd be silly not to. Maybe they would 'suspend' the early bird price over the sale period if they did have one this weekend?

Another thing to consider - why did they pick Tuesday 8th September to finish the early bird offers? Is that when they plan to have a sale, or just when they're making their December announcement (which is only one title I seem to remember them saying)?

[Ribs]

I think it was just that the Early Bird period was three weeks from the announcement and they extended it to five weeks. I don't think they considered the sale thing when doing it.

I don't think I recall anything about the December titles being especially reduced in number. I'm not expecting a massive box and am expecting quite a few of the overdue individual releases of things but I'm sure there'll be at least one new Video and Academy title as that seems to generally be the bare minimum requirement most months (the Yoshida annoucement was made for a month with no Academy title to announce to make up for it, so this indicates they at least seem to be gunning for some kind of Academy announcement each month).

[Telstar]

I don't think I recall anything about the December titles being especially reduced in number.

They've specifically stated there will only be one new title announced for December.

[EddieLarkin]

The sale will run between August 31st and September 13th

£36 worth of points here I come!

[effigy105]

I'd be most grateful if a more savvy shopper could clarify this for me.

I've never really paid much attention the reward points and how they accrue in Arrow's shop, so I never noticed getting extra for pre-orders. Does this sale suggest I would be well-advised to cancel all my pre-orders where 'Early Bird' prices are still available or were not in effect and then re-order them again to vastly bolster my supply of rewards points? Obviously, I'd wait until the sale materialises before changing anything.

Currently I have Hellraiser, Nekromantik 2, The Rivette Collection, Battles Without Honour or Humanity, and the Two Black Cats set pre-ordered. Yoshida is ordered too but that Early Bird price is gone so I'd leave that one be.

Also, since all of the above orders were slightly discounted due to use of Rewards Points, if I were to cancel them, would those unused points come back to me too?

I'd love to get better value, since right now I'm obviously (gladly) throwing a chunk of change Arrow's way, but cancelling and re-instating all those orders would be quite a hassle unless it boasts a real financial return for me.

Although I guess I shouldn't complain too much, it would be nice if Arrow could just tack on the rewards for customers who were interested enough to just dive in and commit their money on day 1. It's not like they won't get it all back in the next few months anyway.

[EddieLarkin]

I suppose it's not impossible that Arrow, knowing they have so many expensive pre-orders up at the moment, might disable double points for this sale. But if not then I see no disadvantage in you cancelling your current orders. Though I don't know how it works regarding refunding reward points, if you get them back or not, and what happens to the reward points you already received when you first made those pre-orders, especially if you've used them!

[Paul Moran]

I used up all my unspent points on the big pre-orders, even waiting for the points to be awarded on one pre-order and then using them on the next! So all I've got left now are 611 points from the cash element of Battles Without Honour and Humanity. All told, I've had 9540 reward points from Arrow, so I'm not complaining!

[rattlebag]

I think this thread alone will be responsible for a negative change in bonus points policy!

[rapta]

I think this thread alone will be responsible for a negative change in bonus points policy!

Yeah if people are inclined to abuse a good thing, it's more likely that thing won't always stay so good. They could just end up ditching reward points and going back to early bird prices on all pre-orders like they used to do...if it starts to become a problem, that is. I know it's not flattering to compare them to Zavvi, but they used to have a rewards point system and ditched it some time ago (even if it wasn't quite as good a return as Arrow's is...think it was 1% or 2%, compared to Arrow Store's 10% standard or 20% during sales).

I think the points system is at their own discretion - I am fairly sure there's been an instance where I've cancelled a pre-order and I've already spent the points I received from that pre-order, but it's not something I'm thinking of taking advantage of (e.g. pre-ordering a bunch of box sets during a sale, redeeming all the double points on pre-orders after the sale, then asking to cancel and be refunded for the original box set pre-orders). If they are manually adjusting your rewards points if you do ask to cancel a pre-order - which has happened for me when I have cancelled an order for which I've redeemed points against - the points they do return could be single points rather than double ones if they see you've ordered any non-sale items (including pre-orders). So my advice is not to cause too much of a fuss or they'll decide it's too much of a headache to continue doing it, as they'd effectively be losing money.

If the sale does indeed start tomorrow, unless they either a) withhold the early bird prices during the sale (and possibly extend them for another week after the sale ends), or b) withhold double points for this particular sale, I can see them getting a lot of people asking to cancel their early bird pre-orders and then re-ordering the same items again to take advantage of double points. They would surely be bombarded with these requests and quickly realise what was happening, and possibly consider doing something about it - and as some have speculated, the result might end up being something less than ideal for us customers. Remember, they did a survey some time ago so they're clearly looking at changing things and may alter the store once again. Of course, they could just go with it and had anticipated this would happen (it might even convince some people who haven't pre-ordered yet to change their mind and order one early), so we'll just have to wait and see.

[EddieLarkin]

I don't really see how it's taking advantage if people are playing by Arrow's own rules. Ultimately it's their bonus points, regular sales and early bird pricing that keep people coming back regularly. Right now I'm pretty much pre-ordering every limited edition of theirs, waiting until the sales for the titles I'm less interested in, and using points from both of those types of purchases to reduce the cost of the mid tier titles. Overall I'll hand over around £700 this year to Arrow.

In comparison, I haven't yet bought any of Eureka's 2015 titles, and it's been a year since I bought a full price/first day title from them (Caligari).

[Adam X]

I'm pretty sure rapta was responding to posts like effigy105's, rather than yours Eddie, which is truly a case of 'biting the hand that feeds you'.

[EddieLarkin]

Sure, but even I'd be tempted to cancel a current order if it meant getting an additional 10% back during the sale. I figure the reason why Arrow's points system is so rewarding (plus their early bird offers and regular use of sales) is because it's important for them to have direct shoppers despite their typically higher prices. So I doubt they'd begrudge someone getting another 10% of points if it means retaining them as a direct customer, instead of them cancelling later down the line if Amazon were to offer a better price, for instance.

[tenia]

I figure the reason why Arrow's points system is so rewarding (plus their early bird offers and regular use of sales) is because it's important for them to have direct shoppers despite their typically higher prices.

Absolutely. Also, since the reduction is not done straight away, but rather as a saving account system, it also means you have to come back for more in order to spend your points. It really is a loyalty system more than anything.

[rapta]

Sure, but even I'd be tempted to cancel a current order if it meant getting an additional 10% back during the sale. I figure the reason why Arrow's points system is so rewarding (plus their early bird offers and regular use of sales) is because it's important for them to have direct shoppers despite their typically higher prices. So I doubt they'd begrudge someone getting another 10% of points if it means retaining them as a direct customer, instead of them cancelling later down the line if Amazon were to offer a better price, for instance.

Yes, and I guess if we were to put the early bird prices into perspective, during the last sale the Yoshida set was at early bird price so I guess they don't see it as a problem to keep the early bird prices over this sale. If anything it will nudge some flounderers into pre-ordering now rather than buying them longer down the line - after all, having so many box sets released in such a short time will be challenging collectors' wallets!

[EddieLarkin]

Sale is on, with a ton of new items, including:

3 Women
Coffy
Day of Anger
Island of Death
The Happiness of Katakuris
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Milano Calibro 9
Mona Lisa
Massacre Gun
Network
Retaliation
Rollerball
Sweet Smell of Success
The Long Good Friday Steelbook
The Long Good Friday/Mona Lisa Box Set
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne

[tenia]

Latest releases in the sale are from July 13th.
And I'm now wondering if I should cancel my preorder of the Battles set and re-do it to have the double points...

[Finch]

I went for their Francesco Rosi title which, with my reward points applied, worked out at £3.98.

[swo17]

Is there an advantage/disadvantage to using loyalty points during the sale?

[Ribs]

Nope, it's still 1point=1p.