DVD Empire Brings ""Everyday Low Prices"" To OnlineDVD Sales

DVD Empire (http://www.dvdempire.com), a leading online retailer of Digital Video Discs (DVD) and DVD-ROM, has launched a major initiative to bring everyday low prices to the online DVD customer, it was announced by DVD Empire President Jeff Rix. The move flies in the face of recent, quixotic, high profile stunts in which certain DVD retailers have sold individual titles at a steep loss in order to generate publicity.With ""Everyday Low Prices"" DVD Empire will offer a discount of 30 percent on titles from almost every major movie studio. That means that a DVD such as Starship Troopers, bearing a list price of $29.98, will now be sold for $20.95. The 30 percent discount will apply to the output of all major studios except Buena Vista, whose titles will be priced at 27 percent off list.""The DVD industry has been treating the customer in the way the credit card issuers treat their prospects - with individual titles priced below cost like teaser credit card rates,"" Rix said. ""Often, the titles sell out in a matter of hours and customers have to wait weeks for their orders to be filled. Itís time to show the customer respect. DVD Empire will sell all titles all the time at the lowest price we can while still providing the same service, including overnight delivery of more than 3,200 titles, the industryís largest inventory, from our own warehouse.""Rix says that DVD Empire is outgrowing its warehouse and is now seeking to double its floorspace in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Unlike many competitors, DVD Empire does not use outside fulfillment houses to ship orders, but ships all orders itself. In addition, DVD Empire is unique in offering its customers a DVD buyback program through which people may sell serviceable, used DVDs to DVD Empire for cash (http://www.useddvdempire.com). In a strategic alliance with Spokane, Washington electronics retailer Huppins, which operates the highly successful OneCall site (http://www.onecall.com), DVD Empire has become the source for all Huppins' online sales of DVDs. In return, all DVD Empire customers expressing interest in electronic hardware are directed to Huppins through a link at the DVD Empire site. Huppins is the nation's largest single-store retailer of DVD players, accounting for 2.3 percent of the entire U.S. market for such machines in 1998 or about 30,000 of 1,300,000 units.DVD Empire, founded almost two years ago, has enjoyed remarkable growth in sales, boasting an increase of 1000 percent in the past year alone. DVD Empire now ships more than 1,600 discs daily.For more information contact Ted Faraone at 212 489 1313 (tfaraon@ibm.net).