December 26, 2005 6:43 AM PST
Netflix wins round in online DVD-rental fight
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Despite Blockbuster's costly offensive, so far Netflix is winning with more than four times the subscribers of its rival.
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Paramount could give Blockbuster online exclusive bonus discs, or better deals on bulk purchases than their chief rival, Netflix. Blockbuster is a powerful company that has slain many chains during its path to brick and mortar supremacy. I find it very hard to believe that they are having so much trouble with a company worth only $1 bn, with limited brand recognition, and Blockbuster being a much more recognized name in movies and in general. Get your act together Blockbuster.
Blockbuster is constantly out of titles. I had certain movies in my
queue for literally months, while the same movie was available now
at Netflix. I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for a service that
can't provide.
quite impressed with the service.
Before subscribing I googled Usenet for Netflix vs BB comparisons,
and BB consistantly had many more complaints. I think they're still
trying to figure out how to optimize their e-business.
So think of the comparison.
Netflix: automated wharehouse near you receives your package and ships something back to you within 48 hours. Simple concept.
Blockbuster: underpaid workers receive your dvd rentals at your local blockbuster store. Their incentive to turning around your rental? Well, to compete in an online world, your parent company is considering closing many brick and mortar locations! Woohoo! Maybe you'll lose your job!
I literally stood in line at a local BB recently as the employees joked about the pile of DVDs that had not been returned from the online service. This has they constantly badger every customer who is IN THE STORE to consider switching to online. This is some kind of business model? You try to talk the people IN THE STORE, who are already spending money there, to go online... where the service will suck...and the dvds will get sent back to the location they are standing in?
No brainer why Blockbuster is not winning this one.
For my money, Blockbuster makes alot more sense. Same price as netflix, same turnaround time, and Blockbuster gives me 2 free in-store rentals a month. Sometimes I use them on a new movie the day its released, but more often, i use my free rental for video games. At $5-6 for a game rental, they almost cover the cost of my subcription.
1. Poor Customer Service - Numerous compalints, and threats to leave the service only resulted in "we're sorry" emails ... no offers were made to try to compensate for the poor service such as offering a free month, free rental coupons, etc...
2. Its slow - 3 days before a disc showed up as returned, another 1 - 2 days before a disc shipped out... 3 - 5 days to recieve that disc
{ The variable reasons why this happend are numerous. }
3. They can't keep there discs in the right order/sleeves/what have you... I went through an incident where I was trying to wach a multi-disc series (8 discs) however 3 TIMES IN A ROW, instead of recieving disc #3 I recieved Disc #1 in disc #3 sleeve, then disc #4 and disc #5!!!
I have had occasional issues with netflix, more often than not caused by postal issues, but they ALWAYS correct the issue quickly and efficiently...
Not sure why this is happening with Netflix. Anyone else experience this problem? I'm most upset about no response to my multiple emails.