A European Union investigation into online retailers that sell electronic goods has found that over half of the 369 websites checked were breaking European laws and regulations that exist to protect consumers. The sites sell mobile phones, DVD players and games consoles in 28 European countries (all EU member states except Slovakia - and also included Norway and Iceland).
“We know from the level of complaints coming into European Consumer Centres that this is a real problem area for consumers,” said EU consumer commissioner Meglena Kuneva. “We discovered that more than half of the retailers selling online electronic goods are letting consumers down.”
200 of the sites were chosen because of their size (largest 200), and the extras were chosen because they were subjects of past complaints. 203 of the 369 are now facing further investigation. Two-thirds (66 percent) failed to explain that consumers had the right to return a product within 7 days of receiving it without having to provide a reason, or that a faulty product must be repaired or replaced for at least two years after purchase - regardless of manufacturer warranty.
Other problems included difficulties in calculating total shipping before ordering a product, which was a problem in 45 percent of cases, and about 33 percent of the stores didn’t fully outline the trader’s name, address or e-mail details so that the can be contacted easily by a customer. The retailers will be contacted by authorities and asked to explain their position, and to correct the problems identified.
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Result for: dvd players
The results of a new survey by Harris Interactive show that despite winning the hi-def format war Blu-ray isn’t showing any real signs it will become a mainstream success. In fact they indicate more people own standalone HD DVD players (11%) than Blu-ray players (7%).
When you factor in PS3 game consoles and the Xbox 360 add on HD DVD drive the numbers shift to favor Blu-ray, but it’s not as big a margin as you might expect. Even including these numbers, Blu-ray only holds a 2% lead (16% vs 14%).
Clearly those numbers don’t look right if you assume people are buying these players for their compatibility with the high definition format of their choice.
Unless the format of their choice is upscaled DVD. And in fact that’s what most people who responded to the survey seem to be indicating.
Even though respondents said they would buy fewer standard definition discs this year than last, they aren’t planning to convert those purchases to Blu-ray titles.
Barely more than a fifth of Blu-ray owners surveyed are replacing the titles in their DVD collection with Blu-ray versions. More than 40% are waiting for disc prices to drop before they expand their collection of high definition discs.
The picture gets worse when you look at people who don’t own Blu-ray players yet. More than 90% don’t plan to be buying one this year either.
This doesn’t mean manufacturers can’t change their minds with the right pricing strategy. But simply selling a player also won’t guarantee disc sales.
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Result for: dvd players
Lately most advances in DVD player technology seems to center around Blu-ray. While that makes some sense in terms of manufacturer goals, reality is that standard DVD players still account for the majority of consumer spending. Pioneer is looking to take advantage of that market with their new DV-420V DVD player.
In addition to playing standard DVDs the DV-420V can also play MPEG-4 AVI and WMV (Windows Media Video) files and includes upconversion capabilities.
But what makes the new player really interesting is its audio features. Like most DVD players it supports MP3 playback, but also adds support for both AAC and WMA (Windows Media Audio).
It also includes its own audio encoder which can be used to make MP3 files from CDs. Put a CD in the DV-420V and you can create MP3 files which can be put on a USB flash drive plugged into the built-in USB port.
This new DVD player should be available this summer for $90. A pretty good price for so much innovation.
