SuperD (ImportCDs/Oddbanana) buys Infinity (DeepDiscount/CollectorsChoice)

SuperD, one of the largest music distributors in the US (and I believe THE largest import distributor), who many of you have dealt with through the retail arms of ImportCDs and Oddbanana, just bought Infinity Resources.

Infinity Resources owns DeepDiscount, Collector's Choice, Heartland Music, and a few others. (I am guessing a lot of you weren't aware that DeepDiscount and Collectors Choice were part of the same company).

This could go in any of a few directions. I'm guessing you'll see a phaseout of ImportCDs and OddBanana as shingles, with an emphasis on the more established Infinity brands...

 

ImportCDs would then lose me as a customer, as I refuse to deal with DeepDiscount at this point. The entire operation at DeepDiscount has been sinking for years.

 

I've been placing orders in recent months through ImportCDs, Collector's Choice, or DeepDiscount.com. Depending on which one has an active promo code going, discounted shipping, or major sale going on, I've used each of the sites. See I got out of buying silver discs other than used product or a rare one-off on Amazon now and again. But once Audio Fidelity started issuing the 4.0 quad mixes and more recent 5.1 mixes as well on their SACD product - I have to have them all.

The cost of these SACDs generally runs $30 plus shipping each. By ordering five of them at a time, and waiting for the sales and shipping discounts I can end up paying about $20.60 per SACD disc delivered. This is a great deal for high-res and the surround layer included.

So far, I am getting my orders delivered in 10 days. That is longer than I would of liked, but it's ok since I am getting nicer prices than I would of by ordering any other places. I can't afford to buy five discs at a time unless I am getting these lower "sale" prices.

I have read that the trick to using these three sites (all the same warehouse, same parent companies), is that you never ever want to order an item not currently in stock. And it's best to not use paypal because they bill paypal right away, where a credit card is not billed until ship day. I've found that if I order only in stock items, then ship day is next day anyway.

 

This is really bizarre: I found a classical box set considerably under-priced on E-bay, via Import Cd's. The same set was on sale for approximately the same price from Odd Banana, also on e-bay, and from Deep Discount on the Sears site. I decided to order all three copies. The Import Cd copy arrived, with the rest of my order, the other two were charged but eventually re-funded, as not available. Is it possible that the three labels a) are listing the same items so if one sells it is no longer available through the others, or b) is it more likely that the low price was a fluke and the other two did not want to honor it?

 

I think that the first guess is correct. One copy in stock all stores marketing same stock.

You'll know soon enough when it is listed again soon and if price it high, then that would mean they caught their pricing mistake.

But I think it was not a mistake.

 

ImportCDs/Oddbanana/CollectorsChoice/DeepDiscount, as well as a large number of other retailers who drop ship, list inventory based on a computerized list that SuperD makes available. As a result, you will very frequently find that a title appears to be readily available from multiple sellers, but in reality, there's only a few copies (or only one) and everyone is trying to sell those same copies. As you discovered, once you buy the stock, the SuperD inventory is decremented and faceplates drawing from the same inventory go out of stock.

As a recent example, I bought a copy of a bargain box set from ImportCDs that was, at the time I bought it, also available from about 20 other sellers. The next day, it was available from no one.