Mailed DVD rentals?
26
December
12/27/2007:
I’ve been meaning to ask which of you subscribe to DVD rental places (like Netflix or Blockbuster,) but never got around to it.
But I’ve been reading about some of the issues Blockbuster is having recently, and thought I’d post a tidbit about it.
Being a continuous Netflix charter member since 1999, I can say that I’m not sure I know what it feels like to even step foot in a video store anymore. As Netflix gained in popularity, it changed video rental mentality across the board as it wreaked havoc on the brick & mortar business model. Blockbuster, the big rental giant was forced to re-structure their model to compete, as well as close almost 600 stores in the past two years. Even Hollywood Video recently shut its doors in Hoboken.
While Blockbuster initially had competitive pricing with Netflix and has been reported to be the cause of Netflix’s first ever decline in subscribers in 2007, they’ve recently begun rapidly raising their rates for certain customers. Blockbuster, while offering “mail only” rental services very similar to Netflix, also offered plans that allow you to also exchange unlimited rentals at the stores as well ($17.99/3 DVD’s at a time), which caught quite a few customers eyes. In August of 2007, they modified their model to also offer a plan to put a limit on the number of in-store exchanges to (5) per calendar month. This remained at $17.99 per month, while the “unlimited” store exchanges rose $7.00 to $24.99 per month.
As of tomorrow, December 27, 2007, the “unlimited” store exchange/3 DVD’s per month plan rises another $10 to $34.99 per month. It’s apparent keeping the brick & mortar store model is costing them more than they thought, and they’re passing that cost along to you, the consumer. It’s unsure at this point whether the fixed 5-DVD per month store exchange plan can survive at the price. Maybe too many people were watching 10 & 20+ movies per month? I don’t know anyone who has that much time.
I’m a die-hard Netflix user (although 2007 I hardly had the time to watch more than 10!), and doubt I’ll switch. Who uses Blockbuster, and how do you like it? What other services do you use?
December 26th 2007 - 09:47:11 |
I have used Netflix for some time now as well. As you mentioned when Blockbuster added the in store feature it caught my eye and I switched only to be disappointed.
They took almost three times as long to ship the movies and the in store feature was only once a month.
I went into Blockbuster two months ago to pick up a last minute movie and they were selling movie posters to try to compensate for lost business. Kind of sad, I can’t believe they are raising the rates. If I were them I would just add more distribution centers and get back in the game.
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December 26th 2007 - 10:45:19 |
We’ve used Blockbuster for a while now, but are making the jump to NetFlix. Although the store-drop-off feature is handy, the selection is often incredibly limited…a lot of, “We’ll be getting that back in the next few weeks” messages, which is annoying. Add in the price bump and it’s just not an attractive option anymore.
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December 26th 2007 - 11:08:57 |
I’m generally anti-Blockbuster. We had Netflix for a while but then we stopped having any time to actually watch the movies. We liked them, though.
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December 26th 2007 - 11:35:44 |
Whay wait for the mail? If Movies on Demand or Pay-Per-View does not have it, I will walk over to Blockbuster for the latest movie. Eventually Blockbuster and Netflix will go the way of the Dinosaur as cable and the phone companies continue expanding their broadband networks capabilities and ink exclusive deals with the studios to control the content available on the market.
If you want to pay additional monthy fees for HD content you can sign up for Vudu.com, which will stream a large selection from the major sutdios in 1080p resolution.
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December 26th 2007 - 11:37:04 |
Love Netflix, I find most of my time is online and it’s much more convienent than going to a store to pick movies. It takes 2 days turn around for me to get new movies, and I have yet to want a movie so badly that I couldn’t wait 48 hours for it to arrive.
Also love the fact that you can basically keep a movie as long as you want without late fees. I had “Flags Of Our Father’s for 3 months (kept telling myself that I would watch it…never did) – and finally returned it last week.
Also the PC downloads from Netflix is really interesting. They have mostly crappy movie and TV shows available, but every once in a while they have something worth downloading to the PC.
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December 26th 2007 - 11:39:07 |
Also I wish I could just get cable with HD only. I really don’t want the 80 other non-HD channels that I don’t watch. For Cablevision I just watch the channels in the 700 range, and the only non-HD channel I watch is SciFi.
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December 26th 2007 - 11:49:59 |
YipYap wrote:
I guess you weren’t one that was able to “evolve” from the “I need it now, let’s go to the video store Honey” mentality.
The thing that was always good about Netflix is that you never really had to “wait” for anything… You always had a couple of DVD’s on hand.. And after a while, the process became “You wanna watch a movie? Lemme check what Netflix movies I have…”
Your right about one thing, Yip.. the model is “sorta” changing.. the hi-def streaming, fiber, or whatever.. but it’ll be quite a while before it’s truly competitive. Five or more years IMO
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December 26th 2007 - 12:22:15 |
Funny timing for this post. Netflix has been on the list of things for me to do/buy for a few years and just last week, I finally read couple Netflix versus Blockbuster articles and decided that Netflix is the way to go for me. Not sure yet if I’m getting my own membership or sharing my boyfriend’s 3 movies at a time deal – either way I’m confident it will be worth it and am pumped to have my queue up and running, soon to be over 100 movies and shows.
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December 26th 2007 - 12:28:07 |
411 as far as evolution you are still choosing movies only for yourself. That is very, very easy to do, after all it is easy please your own tastes right? When there is more than one opinion involved ordering from Netflix is not so easy and may actually require more time than going to the store or movies on demand.
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December 26th 2007 - 12:50:53 |
Not sure how it works at your place Yip, but here we’d order 3 movies at a time so there was always something for everyone.
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December 26th 2007 - 13:35:10 |
YipYap wrote:
At Theater411, my opinion is the only one that counts!
Tell your girlfriend to watch her movies on her own time! Or have you already given in and let her control that too?
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December 26th 2007 - 15:41:13 |
I love net flicks. I have learned to put new movies that I see previews of that way when they become available for release they are already on my list and I get them right away. The turn around is amazingly fast.
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December 26th 2007 - 18:16:50 |
I am big fan of netflix as well. I go thru stages where I am getting a couple of new movies every week. It doesn’t cost that much and in the long run it beats racking up a cable bill for on demand.
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December 26th 2007 - 21:36:33 |
YipYap wrote:
maybe you should get the 5 at once package yip if your movie tastes differ that much???
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December 27th 2007 - 09:55:53 |
I love NetFlix and am guessing that there is more of a demand for movies now due to the lack of new and interesting TV shows. Unless, of course, ‘reality’ TV tickles your fancy.
For the amount of movies I rent per month, I certainly save myself $ w/NetFlix rather than going to a video store and paying (what is the price of a rental these days?)
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December 27th 2007 - 11:02:12 |
NetFlix = waiting plain and simple. I do not want to wait for the mail to arrive in this on demand digital world we live in. I would rather download the movie, watch pay-per-view, or take a walk over to the video store, or perhaps even subscribe to a better download service like vudu.com for 1080p movies.
Just last night there was a story out about Apple and movie downloads. They will be announcing a movie rental business over iTunes next year. Since it is Steve jobs and Apple you can expect the Movie Studios to ink deals with Apple for distribution via download using Apples encrypted secure formats.
Rental companies like Netflix operate on only 4% margins and cannot afford to take much of a hit if sales decline, and Apple surely will be taking a chunk
out of Netflix’s growth plans.
Just last week Walmart dropped their movie service https://mediadownloads.walmart.com// paving the way for iTunes service and Amazon.com’s
Unbox download service. Rent your movie for only 99 cents on demand.
You can expect the little guy NetFlix which has been trying to whore itself to Amazon for about three years now to be crushed. Their exclusive deal with Tivo did nothing for them and the real players will be Amazon, Apple , Microsoft, Sony, he telcons and cable companies.
So keep on snail mailing your movies folks, while some of us “evolve” and download on demand.
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December 27th 2007 - 15:34:28 |
Yip-
Do you have a VuDu box? I didnt know they existed, and was just looking for HD content via netflix… vudu seems like such a nicer solution, and I dont need to worry about the whole blu-ray/HD-dvd mess. Besides, paying on demand as opposed to subscription based works much better for me.
I’m going to double check my bandwidth from home tonight, and order one up.
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December 27th 2007 - 15:51:06 |
Not yet, JPL but here is a recent review.
http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2007/1210/072.html
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December 27th 2007 - 22:04:31 |
YipYap wrote:
Seems like it has great reviews, I’m sure it will come down to available content. No worrying about the format is key, and a simple UI makes it even better. And at 400, it’s cheaper than just about every dual format player. Me likie.
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