"Only 1 left in stock - order soon." according to Amazon...true/false?

Ok, so I just finished watching a series I absolutely enjoyed. I was really pumped to see that the series is available on dvd on Amazon. Amazon says there is only 1 left in stock of that dvd. Now, I love collecting dvds of my favorite movies and shows. Its still a fairly new hobby so the collection isnt large and I dont have tons of disposable money to spend...thing is, its got me thinking... How real is it when amazon says an item, especially dvds in my case, has "only 1 left in stock"??

Truthfully, my number one priority when deciding when, if and which dvds to purchase is to take care of dvds that are scarce (the ones with messages that say "only 1 left in stock"). Is this a scam/business trick?

I've had the experience before of buying a dvd with this message and then a month or two later I check and the dvd is back available again with the same message! I've also been the sucker who saw a dvd with that message, held off on purchasing, only to later see that item disappeared from Amazon. What do you guys think?

I don't buy much on Amazon, so I can't tell you how accurate the message is, but when I see a message like that, I just ask myself how upset I'll be if I wait to buy it and it goes out of stock and I can't get it. The answer to that question determines whether or not I rush to buy it.

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The answer for me is always very upset lol.

Youre not a big dvd collector guy? Or do you get your dvds elsewhere?

I have over a thousand DVDs, but I buy most of them at garage sales and flea markets. I usually only buy DVDs from stores or online, (Amazon, eBay, etc.), when it's a DVD that's hard to find, or it's a really good sale, like on Black Friday.

I rarely pay more than $1 for a single movie DVD, or $3 to $5 for a box set.

If you're going to be upset if you miss it, and it's a price that you're willing to pay, then you might not want to wait. (That's usually my rule when I buy collectibles, (like Funko Pops), on sites like eBay and Mercari.)

Damn. I usually pay maybe on average $60 per dvd if I had to estimate. That estimate might be a bit conservative actually I dunno. I honestly dont even know how I would find garage sales and flea markets to buy dvds from. Am I dumb? Or is that my gen z ignorance showing (still dumb)? I have a feeling most of the dvds Im looking for arent the type you'd find in those places. I have been to a flea market with dvds before just like on accident but I dont know when or where that was nor how I would go about finding it again. I would say I buy 90% on Amazon 8% on ebay and 2% on like the movie's website.

There's also a small handful of dvds in my collection that I think cost around $150 if I had to use a parcel forwarding service.

1 left in stock may only be from that seller. There may be other sellers on Amazon with the same product, too. That is not always the case but it is often enough. Even if there is only one seller, it is possible that the count is only current stock and could restock at some time later.


If it's a movie you want to have and the price is reasonable, why not order it and be done.


Off topic, but you can also add items to your cart and check every so often. If the price changes, you get a popup whenever you next open your cart list. Prices can fluctuate drastically. Not every item will and it may take days to weeks to see a change but if the ticket price is high and you're in no hurry, you might as well sit and watch. Years back, i found a drum kit that dropped about a grand below retail. I did not order it and within a few hours, the price was back to normal. Soon after, it was no longer available.

Also, what's the chance that dvds at a flea market are bootlegs?

And a separate thought Ive always had is how do you even know if something is the real deal or not...I have researched it but I dunno...

I don't know where you live, but I live in an area where there are a lot of garage sales. On a good weekend, I can go to as many as 50 garage sales, and a lot of them have DVDs.

I've found everything from common blockbuster movies to old classics, TV series in individual seasons and complete series, and even hard to find old TV shows.

And when I buy a lot of DVDs at one garage sale, they usually discount the price so I pay less than $1 each, even for Blu-rays and box sets.

Most bootlegs look very different from the legit DVDs. The bootleg cases have very poor artwork, the discs are usually white with writing on them, and very often, they have very thin plastic cases, or no hard case at all.

Yeah I've spent many hours experimenting with this. There will be different sellers and you have to notice the one that will get added to your cart if you just press the big yellow "Add to cart" button is not the only option. Under new you can click the price and it shows you all the other new options for that item. The same goes with the used price. But you do have to basically add all the options if you want to compare the shipping prices and see how the site groups the different dvds together in groups.

You also have to realise that the options it will give you for a dvd will change depending on what country you have set for the shipping address- generally have to make sure you check with an address from that amazon site's country.

The other thing is amazon obviously has dozens of alternate country websites. I generally check only the English and european sites- so Canada, US, Australia, UK, Italy, etc. An item may be unavailable or at a certain price on one country's site but different on another. This includes shipping prices and considerations for parcel forwarding prices. Which means sometimes comparing the price of having it shipped directly to your country from lets say the US on the US amazon site, or having it shipped to Canada from the Canadian amazon site and then having it forwarded to you in New Zealand.

And yeah I recently this year started like using stuff to monitor the changes in dvds prices. But really, so far the changes are negligible. A few cents or maybe a dollar or two up and down for the most part.

Yeah but how do you go around finding garage sales? Is that a dumb question lol.

We use Craiglist and Garage Sale Finder to find some of them, and then we watch for signs while we are driving around on the weekend.

$60 really? What kind of DVDS are you buying? I don't buy DVDS but aren't they usually more like $10-15 dollars new?

NZD. Not usd. So about 40 USD was my estimate. But I did just spend an hour just for fun actually trying to calculate this shit. I think its actually at least from the records of purchases I can find (which is about 2/3s of my collection) the average (mean) price was actually about $90 (60USD). This does sound too high though...Im gonna double check my calculations...

You have to know I live in NZ too so that adds to the shipping a lot. Not to mention that sometimes means dvds cant even be shipped directly to NZ and would require parcel forwarding. Which means paying for shipping twice except even more expensive than double the shipping.

Yeah dvds are usually 10-15 USD dollars new in general (not including shipping) for all dvds when I browse dvds on Amazon. But remember I tend to purchase items that are scarce- so the price is often higher than this maybe on average 20-25 USD? - and if there is no new available, only used, that actually makes the price even higher (I know that sounds counterintuitive but yeah used equals more expensive).

The most expensive dvd purchase (dvd price + shipping, etc.) I found in my records was 225 NZD (150 USD) - this dvd required forwarding.

To be fair half of the dvds I buy are TV which I think do tend to be pricier than a dvd for a movie for obvious reasons.

Same. If I want something I just buy it & don’t over-analyze it.

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I was an Amazon marketplace seller about 10 years ago, selling off all the old DVDs, music CDs and books I had accumulated. When I sold a DVD the ad on Amazon always said "only 1 in stock", which was true. Other "power" Amazon marketplace sellers may have 10 of the same DVD but only place an ad for the one. When that one sells they re-post the ad, each time the ad states "only 1 in stock".

Now if Amazon itself (Amazon LLC) is selling the DVD and the ad states "only 1 in stock", then that is probably true.

GBGoodies is the person who frequents these, but I'm pretty sure they're used/second hand. Especially with a garage sale.


I live in a city so you periodically run across people doing sidewalk sales/garage sales just walking around. Sometimes you get a box left on the sidewalk with DVDs in it and a sign saying, "Free. Please Take."


I've never found myself buying or taking movies in these scenarios. But mileage does vary.