Save 50% On DVDs!

We will buy millions of DVDs in the run-up to Christmas. Here's how to get them for half the usual price.

As Christmas Day is less than six weeks away, many of us have started to put together our annual list of Christmas gifts.

DVDs are likely to be a popular item, given that there is a vast range of titles and they are a suitable gift for anyone with a DVD player, from toddlers to pensioners. However, you'd be mad to go shopping for DVDs on the high street, because most stores (with the notable exception of the big supermarkets) only offer modest discounts off the Recommended Retail Price (RRP). In short, the best way to find the biggest reductions on RRPs is to shop around online.

For example, I'm a huge fan of the American animated comedy Family Guy; the DVD of Season 5 was released last month and is sure to be a big-seller. In fact, I'm so keen on Family Guy that I'd love to be given all five Seasons on DVD for Christmas. Alas, the boxset of Seasons 1-5 has an RRP of £99.99, which is more than I'm willing to pay for this treat!

Hence, I turned to the wonderful World Wide Web to see how cheaply I could buy Family Guy DVDs online. Here's what I found, plus the price-comparison websites and etailers (online retailers) that I used to conduct my search (all prices include delivery, which many etailers provide free of charge):

So, these two well-known bargain etailers came up with substantial savings on the RRP. Note that these retailers both offer DVDs with Region 2 coding, which means that these discs should work on any UK-bought DVD player. If you have a multi-region DVD, you should have no problems playing DVDs from other regions, such as Region 1 (North America) and Region 4 (Australia and New Zealand). However, foreign imports may have slightly different contents, so please check before importing DVDs from abroad.

Anyway, I wanted to go even further in my pursuit of bargain DVDs, so I checked the following price-comparison websites:

General price-comparison websites:Froogle, Kelkoo, Pricerunner and Shopping

Specialist shopbots (shopping robots):Best DVD Price, DVDPriceCheck and Find-DVD

Again, the cheapest online store came out to be Amazon, plus SendIt (formerly Blackstar), both at £69.89. After this, I decided to conduct an international search, so I turned back to DVDPriceCheck, which also searches for DVDs from other Regions and overseas websites.

This search revealed that I could buy a Region 4 DVD from New Zealand-based website DVD Crave for £45.78 plus Air Mail delivery of £5.67. Adding on the 2.75% charge that my credit card makes for foreign-currency conversion (boo!) takes the total to £52.86.

Then again, I've never used this website before and, given that it's on the other side of the world, I decided to play it safe by sticking to websites which I know and trust. Then I had a brainwave: why buy this new boxset, when I'd surely save money by buying each Family Guy Season separately? After all, the first Season was released in 2001, so it's bound to be selling at knock-down prices now.

Ultimately, this proved to be the right trick, as I found Seasons 1 to 4 at SendIt for £9.89 each, and Season 5 (which came out on 30 October) for £15.89 at SendIt. Thus, buying each Season separately came to £55.45, which is a markdown of almost 45%.

I then finished off with a little finesse, signing up with brilliant co-operative website Quidco, which pays cashback of 6% on your first order from SendIt, which put £3.33 in my pocket. In addition, I paid with my cashback credit card, which brought in another 1%, or 55p. Hence, the net cost to me was just £51.57, which is almost half price. Eureka -- my order is now ready for delivery, so it's all back to my place for beer, pizza and non-stop Family Guy!

Finally, a word of warning: don't assume that websites always offer the best value. For example, 101CD had the above boxset on sale for £103.99, which is £4 more than the RRP. What a swizz!

More: Have an interest-free Christmas (and 2007) with a 0% credit card, and check out these cashback cards!