I've seen folks here at GMG ordering from Arkivmusic. I've always considered them too expensive to consider - should I rethink my position?
Yes.
They do charge sales tax, and their shipping rates are comparable to Prestoclassical, which is the other vendor I use a lot of. Of course, with Presto, you need to watch out for foreign transaction fees, which some cards will charge even on dollar denominated transactions. I recently got a Capital One care, which does not those kind of charges, so I can avoid them.
Arkivmusic is in general more expensive, but they may be worth using in select cases.
--New releases: usually (but with enough exceptions that it's not a general rule) below Amazon/AmazonMP prices.
--Weekend specials: about half the time, better than AmazonMP prices
--Sales on specific labels: sometimes cheaper, sometimes not.
And to be honest, if a CD is $15 or under, I don't run around to check AmazonMP if it's one I've been thinking about. I order it from Arkiv when it's on sale, in preference to letting it remain on my Amazon wishlist until the day after forever....
The final factor is that Arkiv is usually very prompt about shipping; assuming it's in stock, they seem to ship an order I place over the weekend on Monday, although sometimes a partial shipment doesn't get sent out until Tuesday. This in contrast to some Amazon MP vendors, or Amazon itself, that seem to take three or four days to get it into the mail.
Among European retailers, I use Presto, for items they have on sale; they also (in my experience) seem to have slightly lower prices on sale items than MDT does, and of course lower shipping charges. JPC is also good, although I don't use them that often.
My suggestion is to subscribe to the weekly newsletter to keep up to date on what they have on sale, and also their new releases letter; and if you see an item you're interested in, check. It may be worth ordering from them--or not.
