Are you sure this is a good idea?
There's a store not too far from here called F.Y.E. They buy, sell, and trade movies, CDs, and video games (they also sell books, but I don't think they buy and trade them). Every so often, we get some junk mail from them, and sometimes it includes a coupon. Twice that I've noticed, they've sent a coupon saying, "40% off any used CD or DVD," and I used both of them to work the system and get movies for far cheaper than they intended.
Judge me, dear readers; am I dishonest? A couple months ago, they sent that coupon, and I saw it but didn't pay much attention. A couple days later, I was perusing DVDs at DI and noticed that they had K-Pax in its original shrink wrap and that they were selling it for $5. I had never seen K-Pax--still haven't, as you will soon learn--but I've had it recommended to me a couple times, so I bought it.
I brought it home and asked my roommates whether they would recommend it. They all agreed that it was okay but nothing really special, nothing that any of them would go out of their way to own. So I called F.Y.E. and asked them what they'd give me for K-Pax in its original shrink wrap (they really don't give much for DVDs; I offered them a copy of Pirates 2 once but decided to just keep it when the best they'd offer me was $1). The person who answered the phone told me that, if it was in its shrink wrap and still had its stickers, I could just return it; they wouldn't be able to give me cash if I didn't have a receipt, but they would give me in-store credit for a brand-new movie. So I hurried over, returned it to F.Y.E, got, like, $20 in-store credit, picked up Jakob the Liar, used the 40%-off coupon, and had in-store credit left over (which I later used to pick up a couple of CDs--though it didn't totally cover their cost, it was still a discount).
Today, F.Y.E sent us another 40% off coupon for a used CD or DVD. So, I took this one movie I've had a while that I really don't care about, took it to F.Y.E, got $3.13 in-store credit for it, picked up a used copy of Cast Away, used the coupon, and left with a movie I love, having paid only $1.35 out of pocket.
I love this game!
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ReplyDeleteIt's not dishonest because you're following the rules they set. And they've been around a while so I'm guessing they know what they're doing. I played a similar game with several online businesses that all disappeared in the bubble. I was sad. No more free stuff. They were sad: should have played a smarter game.
I made a lot of money selling used Godfather trilogies to FYE back in the day. Now you can buy them new for less than they paid me for them used. But not back then. We all came out ahead--in fact, they sold them all the day of or day after they bought them from me. Woot.
I thought I remembered that "Ah, the games we play" was in some good poem or something else that I'd liked and seen or heard or thought, so I thought I'd be clever and post it with a source.
ReplyDeleteGoogle didn't provide me with anything I was familiar with, but it did offer me the following from
http://indigoediting.blogspot.com/2008/02/newest-ink-filled-page-released.html
"Ah, the games we play--both mental and board, sometimes involving food or big red balloons. They make for such great stories."
Not quite what I was looking for, but there ya go.
Oh yea, congrats on the free stuff. Thou and Th art business savvy.
ReplyDelete