CD Wow wow wow! (cd-wow.com)

Member Name: clumsy1974

Product:	cd-wow.com
Date:	09/06/01 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Cheap, Cheap

Disadvantages: Slow delivery

When you’re a student your lifestyle differs somewhat from the one you may have once you venture into the world of work. If I think back to my student days and things get a bit fuzzy (three years is a long long time you know) I can always remind myself of how great it was by running my eyes along the CD racks. You see, when you are living on nothing and your only salvation is when your grant/loan cheque arrives the first place you hit is the record shop. I must have brought most of my CD collection in the 4 years at university (Prior to this I owned a Bon Jovi CD and a mountain of copied tapes). But once I left Uni I fell a bit behind, and now, despite receiving money every month instead of every three, find myself wincing at paying £12.99 for a chart CD. That’s where CD WOW comes to the rescue.

CD Wow, as the 90 or so other DooYoo’ers who’ve reviewed it will tell you, is an entirely web based music shop. They only sell CDs and tapes only, none of this magazines, head phones and posters malarkey (argh.I just typed MALARKEY! – Jamie Oliver has possessed my fingers) like your local HMV. The web-site itself is quite simple, just a three column list of CDs on a black background. You can follow links to the top 75, pre-releases and new releases. Each CD has a brief review and most have the album art image to help you judge the book by its cover. There is an artist search facility, which allows you to hunt a bit deeper into the stock list to look for titles outside of the charts. They have a bargain basement area where, as the name suggests, you can pick up a few bargains.

So how does CD Wow rescue your ailing music collection? Well the average price for a CD album, including a new release is just £8.99! (Doubles are just £10.99) How do they do it I hear you cry? To be honest, I don’t know. The CDs themselves are dispatched from the Far East. If you look at all the small print on the cases, CDs and labels you will
notice that they are pressed in Singapore or Hong Kong. This might start alarm bells ringing for some of you. But please, panic not. I have looked at the products very carefully and even placed them side by side with UK released CDs. If these are copies someone is producing them, in the same factories record companies use. Payment can be made using any debit card, including the ultra rare Solo. But if you are truly worried about your details being swiped they offer two “virtual” payment methods – Smart Creds and Splash Plastic (if you have these you’ll know what they are).

So are you tempted? Well, I should add a negative point. The CDs are shipped from the other side of the world, so don’t expect your order to arrive in less than 5 days (the normal delivery time is actually 5 days on the button in my experience). The plus side to this is that postage is free, so you can’t complain if it takes a few days. I have yet to need the customer service number, so I can’t comment on this. However, I was bemused when I found that the help-line is based in Beaconsfield.

If your CD collection needs bolstering then CD Wow should be your first point of call. Watch out for the special offers, such as any chart CD for a fiver! and get that student days record collection back.

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