OfficeMax / OfficeMax.com warning (blank media buying)

[lordsmurf]

Cliff Notes:

1. Lots of items are no longer on their website (even when the items are listed in inventory), and they're apparently "zoning" where products can be sold online (only ship to "local" state area).
2. Price matching is now limited, and they won't even match national chains that are in the next town over.

Detailed:

For many years I used OfficeMax (B&M) and OfficeMax.com as a store where I bought loads of blank media, hard drives, UPS, office supplies, other incidentals, etc. Well, probably not anymore. Not because I'm boycotting or some other silly non-sense, but due to apparent changes in how they serve customers. Or rather, how they don't seem to want to serve customers anymore.

About 2-3 weeks ago, they changed their website. Almost everything sold in stores is now gone. I define "everything" in terms of the three items I often look up: DVD media, hard drives and DVD burners, and UPS backups. Their new site was stripped. The change happened about 1 a.m. CST on that Sunday. Just before midnight, I had been putting some blank DVD media in my shopping cart, planning to buy another big load of discs online. I couldn't make up my mind how many I wanted to order, then I got hungry, went to make a midnight snack, got sidetracked watching the last half of a movie. I came back to a site that was new. My shopping cart was gone and empty, and the products I added were gone. I called the 1-800 number immediately (they were open, surprise, surprise), and asked about the items. I was told that some were suddenly "not in stock" and others were "not in stock in my shipping zone" (and not listed online at all). WTF? I order stuff from Australia, so why can't OfficeMax accommodate my order from another shipping location within the USA? I can walk into the local store and buy Verbatim DVD-R and DVD+R in various sized spindles (10-pack jewel, 25, 50, 100, DL 20-pack, DL 10-pack, etc), and I was able to order them online too, from the old site. But not anymore! I've deleted my bookmark, totally useless site now. I checked back a number of times since that day, nothing has changed.

This week Best Buy has a sale on Verbatim. My Best Buy is the next town over, 20 minutes drive down the road. I used to just take Best Buy, Circuit City and Staples ads to Office Max, because those three stores are in the next town over. This time, they refused to price match because it was "not in the same district". Price matching information is no longer on their website that I can see either. I walked out of the store, left all that crap on the counter. I drove to Best Buy instead. Maybe $5 in gas and 30 extra minutes to save about $45 on a couple of items. Ironically, Best Buy has no problem matching OfficeMax, even though OM is in the next town over.

If OfficeMax doesn't need business, fine, **** 'em.

Just thought I'd warn everybody.

[Wile_E]

I'm curious what media you find at OfficeMax that is good? Especially since you have the nomorecoasters website. I personally don't buy media in retail stores anymore. Even the local Fry's stopped carrying good media.

[budz]

LS I no longer give OFFICE MAX any business at all. Many months ago I was told they would only allow me this one time to do a price match for some HP ink. I told the salesgirl thanks a lot cuz this would be my last time buying anything from them. :P

A few months ago OFFICE MAX had a typo in their ad. They had advertised $9.99 for 50 pack of VERBATIM DVD MEDIA. My cousin told them they had to honor the ad which they did & we each got 2 spindles.

KMART is the same they don't allow any price matching at their stores. I was told this occurred after SEARS bought them out. Odd though SEARS will price match TV's such as LCD's & PLASMA's.

OFFICE DEPOT no longer brings in VERBATIM dvd media. BEST BUY is the only local store here in Hawaii that carries it. I usually buy 4 spindles at a time because I'm paranoid that one day they'll stop bringing it in.

[Krispy Kritter]

OM used to be my source for Verbatim DL media. They often had the lowest everyday price ($14.99 for a 10 pack) and would ship free for orders over $50. As pointed out above, they no longer even list the media on their site.

Oh well, their loss.

[oldandinthe way]

Our local OfficeMax stocks lots of Verbatim media along with Magnavox and a motley crew of other brands.

Deliveries on their website have been zoned for some time. In the Boston area potential online orders have been slim for some time.

I haven't had problems getting a price match but didn't try while in the store today.

Over a year ago, OM closed all of their stores north of Boston including NH and Maine. Before these stores closed inventory was thin, customer accommodations became non-existant.

It is unlikely that they are going out of business (for reasons well known to Wall Street), but they may be preparing to leave your area.

[lordsmurf]

I'm curious what media you find at OfficeMax that is good? Especially since you have the nomorecoasters website. I personally don't buy media in retail stores anymore. Even the local Fry's stopped carrying good media.

Verbatim media. That was all.
Also DVD cases and wallets, hard drives and burners.

But I'm not paying $35 for a 50-pack of blanks. That's retarded.

For the last few years, I follow the sales.
Meritline, Supermediastore, Best Buy, Staples and Officemax got my personal business.
I mostly purchased Sony, Verbatim and TY in large quantities.
I've had friends and family buy from those plus Gotmedia, Newegg and Amazon.

This excludes tests of other media and other stores.

[Marvingj]

I've learn when I see good media for a great price, I buy or tried to buy many as I can carry. Its expensive sometimes but I won't be back for months . This week at Office max they had on Sony 50 pack for 12.00. WoW! TYG01.......

[lordsmurf]

TYG01? Sony?
Sony made in Japan 4x DVD-R 50 spindles? That's old and somewhat rare..

[Wile_E]

Well if you got TYG01 for $12.00 that was a good deal. The thing I hate about buying retail, is that you don't know what you are getting. If only they would put the media code and manufacturer on every package!

I've learned the hard way about buying cheap media. Some CMC discs I had went "bad" after a year in storage. That is unacceptable and manufacturers need to start taking responsibility in providing discs that have better archival quality. If I give a DVD for Christmas to family/friends one year, I don't want them calling me 1-2 years later, saying the disc won't play!

Right now I'm converting a lot of Hi8 tapes to DVD for a friend. He wanted some good quality printed labels, so I bought the TY Watershield discs. These are TYG03, and I don't know how long they will last. But the print quality is excellent and the ink does not smear. They look professional.

What bugs me is people that have a business, say a DVD Production or Wedding photography business, and then give their clients cheap discs with ugly labels or white label with sharpie on them. The Watershield discs cost about .60c each, and I will probably need 70 discs to finish one project for my friend. I think .60c for each disc is cheap enough. I'm going to get that money plus more in return for my work. Plus my friend will be happy with the finished product, since it will look professional.

For example, I bought a tutorial package online for a major video editing program. The guy who produced the DVD's is supposedly a "professional". But he used cheap media (CMC) with an ugly printed label that smears. Although the content is good for the price I paid, I won't be buying any more tutorials from him. The end product is what the customer sees.

[lordsmurf]

What bugs me is people that have a business, say a DVD Production or Wedding photography business, and then give their clients cheap discs with ugly labels or white label with sharpie on them. The Watershield discs cost about .60c each, and I will probably need 70 discs to finish one project for my friend. I think .60c for each disc is cheap enough. I'm going to get that money plus more in return for my work. Plus my friend will be happy with the finished product, since it will look professional.

For example, I bought a tutorial package online for a major video editing program. The guy who produced the DVD's is supposedly a "professional". But he used cheap media (CMC) with an ugly printed label that smears. Although the content is good for the price I paid, I won't be buying any more tutorials from him. The end product is what the customer sees.

This is one of my pet peeves. There is no excuse for using crap in a professional setting.

My sister called me tonight, for this very thing. She bought an instructional video from a company that sells tutorials on DVD. What she got was a Memorex DVD-R that was all messed up. The burner read gibberish for the media ID, and the disc would stick when playing. Over the phone, long distance, I helped her rip the DVD (last year I bought her a good drive that reads/burns well), and luckily the data could be extracted, after a number of retries and slow reads. She has Maxell-manufactured stash of blanks, again from my advice to her some time long ago, and I helped her burn to a new disc using ImgBurn.

The guy's video is apparently well done, but he uses trash to distribute. In my opinion, that guy is a dumbshit.

[Marvingj]

I believe when I brought the Sony spindles it was stock that apparently they wanted to get rid of & they were pushing Memorex & there brand with all kinds of buy one get one free gimmick. And guess what they had only limited supplies. In there ad it was suppose to Memorex that was 12.00 a spindle. Store Manager change that for some odd reason.