12 Best Blu Ray Media Stores Review

The 12 Best Blu Ray Media Stores

Best Blu Ray Media Online Stores Part 15: Ranking the 12 Best Stores

How we ranked Blu Ray media stores

After screening a large number of contenders, we reviewed in depth the 12 best stores we identified in the Blu Ray blank media industry. We used the data we collected, previously defined here,  to rank these stores with the following weights: 0.5 to the total inventory, 1 to inventory percentage for our sample list of 89 Blu Ray media,  1 for the percentage of selected archival grade media in stock, 0.5 for sorting and binning, 0.5 for site speed, 2.5 for general pricing, 0.5 for archival grade media pricing, 0.5 for best price matching, 0.25 for the ability to write user reviews, 0.75 for the number of user reviews,  1 for the corrected ResellerRatings rating, and 1 for the corrected Google Shopping rating. This gives us an aggregate of 2.5 for inventory, 1 for site usability, 3.5 for price, 1 for user reviews, and 2 for customer service, for a total of 10. We did some sensitivity analysis on these coefficients as well, and found that our resulting ranking was not very sensitive to small changes in coefficients.          

The rankings

Analyzing the rankings 

The 12 best stores can be neatly arrayed in three tiers. The top tier includes traditional favorites Amazon and NewEgg, along with the very surprising MediaMegaMall, which scores extraordinarily well despite having no user reviews and a short CS track record, because of great inventory and prices. Amazon scores well because it has no weaknesses, although it does not do extraordinarily well anywhere, except in reviews. NewEgg has a great combination of low prices and great CS, but poor inventory, particularly in the archival grade media we selected. MediaMegaMall, the great surprise of our rankings, has excellent inventory and overall prices, but, by some curse of fate, provides poor pricing to the basket of archival grade media we selected.

The next tier, some 15 rating points below, gathers Meritline, TapeOnline,  Beach Audio, and SuperMediaStore, and constitutes, like the first, a comedy of contrasts. Meritline, a traditional online electronic media store, scores decently in service and well in reviews, with mediocre inventory and fair to average pricing.  TapeOnline, another well known digital media site, has outstanding customer service and very good prices, but a remarkably small inventory, and carries almost none of the archival grade media we consider best. Beach Audio, by being average in all arenas, but neither truly poor nor truly good at any criterion, avoids the last tier. SuperMediaStore excells everywhere except in pricing, where it does so badly that we cannot recommend it at this time.

Finally, the trailing tier gathers Rima, RunTechMedia, Buy.com, BHP Photo Video and Provantage. Rima has excellent customer service, fairly good prices, no user reviews and a narrow inventory. RunTechMedia has a very short track record, very good inventory, and poor to fair prices.   Buy.com has fair customer service, good inventory, and a broad spectrum of prices, but carries a good number of our selected media with excellent prices. B&H Photo has excellent support, but a narrow inventory and poor pricing. Provantage has marketing and support issues, a somewhat small inventory and on average high prices, but does provide some of our selected archival grade media at excellent prices.

Unfortunately, as much as we would want to be able to settle on a single store, at this time we cannot get all we want in one store: none of our contenders gives us a broad inventory, most of our archival grade media, good site usability, good prices, lots of user reviews, and a great customer service record. While we feel strongly that the three highest ranked stores are good enough to be primary long term suppliers for blank Blu Ray media, we also feel that  each has some specific, significant drawback. MediaMegaMall prices our favorite media a bit too high, although its average prices are very good across its whole inventory. NewEgg, with great prices and outstanding service, does not carry most of our favorite media. Amazon does not have good usability for an easy selection of the right media, and often carries higher prices as well.


The right shopping process 

In our opinion, it is best, at this time, to primarily shop for Blu Ray media on MediaMegaMall, NewEgg, Amazon and TapeOnline, but to price check for specific media on Beach Audio, Rima, Buy.com and Provantage (or use Google Shopping to find best pricing). If MediaMegaMall, NewEgg, Amazon (non-marketplace), TapeOnline, or Rima have good pricing on the media, the ordering decision is clear. If Amazon marketplace, Beach Audio, Buy.com or Provantage have best pricing, if customer service is not a critical part of the purchase decision, ordering from any of these stores would be appropriate. if, on the other hand, customer service for the purchase is critical, (for instance if delivery time is critical) , then you will have to decide if good pricing is worth some service risk.




Conclusions

• #1 recommended Blu Ray media store: MediaMegamall. Outstanding inventory, very good prices overall but high prices on our favorite archival grade media, good service, no user reviews. Price check on other stores before ordering.

• #2 recommended Blu Ray Media store: NewEgg. Outstanding customer service, excellent prices, great user reviews, narrow inventory missing high quality archival grade media. You may need to go to another store if NewEgg does not stock your favorite media.

• #3 recommended Blu Ray media store: Amazon. Outstanding inventory, great user reviews, prices are only fair, poor site ergonomics make media selection difficult. Avoid marketplace purchase if customer service is important.

• #4 recommended Blu Ray media store: TapeOnline. Outstanding service, excellent prices, very narrow inventory, no user reviews. You may need to go to another store if TapeOnline does not stock your favorite media.

• Price checks only: Beach Audio, Rima, Buy.com, Provantage

Blu Ray Media Stores: TapeOnline Review

Best Blu Ray Media Online Stores Part 14: TapeOnline Review

 TapeOnline is another specialized electronic media site with an excellent reputation on the enthusiasts' forums as a trustworthy supplier of CD and DVD media, with high quality customer service. We always enjoy reviewing sites with a long and positive track record in similar industries, and were expecting TapeOnline to do well. It did.

 Site and usability
Blu Ray media can be found on the TapeOnline site under Disc Media -> Blu Ray.  Site speed is very good, with an average of 1.7 seconds per page to display a right-clicked SKU. Of our wish list of 13 types of sorting and binning, TapeOnline offers the least amount of capabilities in the category, providing the user with only 3:  it is not possible to select the manufacturer, speed, quantity or printability, user ratings are not displayed on the category listing page, and there is no sorting whatsoever. On the other hand, there is a Blu Ray media category, and it is possible to select type (BD-R/ BD-RE), and single/ dual layer. TapeOnline has such a narrow inventory (it all fits in one page) that sorting and binning are not as useful as they could be for a site with broad media availability.

Inventory and price
TapeOnline carries a tiny inventory of 28 Blue Ray media, narrowest in the category. It stocks 13% of our 89 Blu Ray test media, also worst in the category, even with B&H Photo Video. TapeOnline prices are on average 9.4% higher than the best price across our surveyed stores for media stocked by multiple stores, an excellent score which ranks second best in the category after MediaMegaMall. TapeOnline matches best price for three SKUs, for a media stocked by more than one store, in the lower half of the category. We are very pleased with the pricing offered by TapeOnline, but are disappointed in the very small inventory. TapeOnline only stocks one of the 6 media we selected as best Blu Ray archival grade media, which it sells 14.5% more than the best price across the category, an overprice we find reasonable.

User reviews
TapeOnline offers users the opportunity to submit user reviews, but we could not find one across all Blu Ray media on the site.

Customer Service
TapeOnline has an excellent reputation for customer service when selling optical media. Its customers count a lot of professionals who are demanding when coming to customer service. TapeOnline gathers over 150 reviews on ResellerRatings, with an outstanding 100% rating. On Google Shopping it gathers another 145 reviews, again with an excellent 98% rating. We gave TapeOnline an excellent 97% ConsumerPla.net predictive CS rating.

Table: TapeOnline Blu Ray media review (see legend below)

Conclusion
TapeOnline turns out to be a small but clean site, with a narrow inventory but excellent prices and outstanding customer service. If it has the media you need, it is an excellent supplier for ongoing Blu Ray media orders. high usability, a large set of  user reviews, and a very good customer service record. Its very small inventory may not, however, give you the choice you need.

Next we compare all online stores for Blu Ray media and pick our selections... So come back soon! 

Table Legend:
Total inventory: total number of Blu ray media SKUs on the site
Inventory %: percentage of ConsumerPla.net list of 89 Blu Ray media that can be found at the store
Inventory % for selected archival media: % of SKUs that we selected in our Blu Ray Media review for archival grade
Site sorting: how many types of sorts and bins are possible on the site (out of the 13 we listed in our wish list)
Average query speed: the average speed to display a right-clicked SKU  - measures browsing speed
Average overprice: How much % over best price, for all media present in more than one store
Average overprice for selected archival media: specifically how much % over best price for the media we selected for archival grade
# lowest priced SKUs: how many SKUs in the store equal best price (if more than one store carries them)
# user reviews: how many user reviews we found on the site for Blu Ray media
Predictive CS rating: our worst case analysis of the likely Customer Support rating for this store, explained here

Blu Ray Media Stores: Meritline Review

Best Blu Ray Media Online Stores Part 8: Meritline Review

Meritline, a well known CD and DVD media provider, largely specializes in a limited set of computer accessories. It carries a very small but well chosen Blu Ray media inventory which mixes low and high end products, with a preponderance in the low end.Its reputation in the CD/DVD world is very good, and we were interested in figuring out how well it would fare in the Blu Ray world.

Site and usability
Blu Ray media can be found on the Meritline site under CD/DVD Media -> Blu Ray Media.  Site speed is good, although not blazing fast, with 2.2 seconds per page average to display a right-clicked SKU. Of our wish list of 13 types of sorting and binning, Meritline provides a 5.5 of them: there is no way to select single/dual layer, quantity or printability, and only some speeds can be selected (2x and 4x), sorting cannot use best rating, most reviews or best selling, and it is not possible to view unit price. On the other hand, there is a Blu Ray category, it is possible to select type (BD-R/ BD-RE), manufacturer, and some speeds, sorting can be done by price, and user ratings can be viewed on the listing pages. To be fair, Meritline's inventory is so small that all products can be viewed in 2 short pages, so selecting and sorting are less needed than for stores with larger inventories.

Inventory and price
Meritline's inventory is limited to 47 Blue Ray media, at the low end rage of the industry, yet it still stocks 22% of our 89 Blu Ray test media, which ranks Meritline in the middle of the pack.  Meritline prices are on average 19.6% higher than the best price across our surveyed stores for media stocked by multiple stores, again roughly in the middle of the pack. Meritline has the best price for 4 SKUs, for a media stocked by more than one store, rating in the middle of the pack again. While Meritline's original inventory is truly very narrow, its selection is clearly well chosen, and prices are reasonable overall. Of the 6 media we selected as best archival grade Blu Ray media, Meritline stocks 3, for an average 40.9% over the best price across the industry, a very high overage that we cannot endorse.

User reviews
Meritline has an excellent set of user reviews for its size, totaling 250 reviews across it Blu Ray inventory. Many of its products (although not all) can be solidly evaluated based on its own user reviews.

Customer Service
Meritline is a proven source of optical media with a very well documented track record. It gathers more than 4,000 reviews on ResellerRatings with a very good 91% rating. On Google Shopping it gathers over 13,000 reviews, again with a very good 88%, although not perfect. Meritline receives a solid but not perfect 89% ConsumerPla.net predictive CS rating, also placing it in the middle of the pack.

Table: Meritline Blu Ray media review (see legend below)

Conclusion
Meritline is a specialized computer accessories site with a good reputation for optical media, and a limited but well chosen inventory. It scored in the middle of the pack among the stores with surveyed for all criteria - this is a very good result, as our deep survey sample gathered the best media stores we found. Meritline does not have a significant weakness. While its price are not the best in the industry, they are fair - and its customer service is good. However, the actual price of our basket of Blu Ray media selected for archival grade is unacceptably high. Altogether, Meritline would constitute a solid choice as a Blu Ray media store supplier, were it not for the problem of archival grade media pricing.

Next we review for NewEgg Blu Ray media... So come back soon!

Table Legend:
Total inventory: total number of Blu ray media SKUs on the site
Inventory %: percentage of ConsumerPla.net list of 89 Blu Ray media that can be found at the store
Inventory % for selected archival media: % of SKUs that we selected in our Blu Ray Media review for archival grade
Site sorting: how many types of sorts and bins are possible on the site (out of the 13 we listed in our wish list)
Average query speed: the average speed to display a right-clicked SKU  - measures browsing speed
Average overprice: How much % over best price, for all media present in more than one store
Average overprice for selected archival media: specifically how much % over best price for the media we selected for archival grade
# lowest priced SKUs: how many SKUs in the store equal best price (if more than one store carries them)
# user reviews: how many user reviews we found on the site for Blu Ray media
Predictive CS rating: our worst case analysis of the likely Customer Support rating for this store, explained here