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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ChiWax @ Dec 20th 2008 1:12PM
Blaming NetFlix for this problem is more ridiculous than getting movies via the mail. Blu Rays are 29.99 for a reason!! It's not the fault of NetFlix that people are having a problem getting to rent them for a monthly fee. Where is reality in these discussions? Q.
minimalist @ Dec 20th 2008 4:29PM
You actually think Netflix actually pays MSRP for BD's? Yes Blu-ray are more expensive we all know that. But 500,000 extra dollars a month can cover a heck of a lot of those Blu-ray premiums.
If Netflix is charging people extra to receive Blu-ray discs then the expectation is that the process of shipping of those blu-rays should run just as smoothly as it does for DVD's. If a dollar isn't enough then make it five. But make it reliable or don't bother doing it at all.
Charging a premium for a service and then trying to cover your ass with excuses like "but these things are expensive!" is an example of poor management and and a an attempt to avoid responsibility for your decisions. If the fee you charge isn't enough to do the service right then the mistake is yours, not your customers. They have every right to expect the same standards of service from you as they get from your other plans.
Mr_Fizzlepop @ Dec 21st 2008 3:38PM
minimalist Said: "You actually think Netflix actually pays MSRP for BD's?"
Well, I don't know how it works now, but my ex-brother in law owned a video rental store about 15 years ago, and back then you had to buy the movies WAY beyond purchase price if you were a rental store. They had there own prices based on that they were renting and I'm talking like a hundred dollars for a movie you could buy for 15 bucks.
Likely Blu-rays cost a mighty hefty sum, so when you consider they know an exact percentage of their subs that will POSSIBLY rent that title, as opposed to all subs possibly renting a title, it's not hard to see that it might take a few months of tracking data before they start to have a good idea for how many copies they should buy for each given rental area.
I have had movies(DVD) ship from Florida and Cali and a few other places since I'm a big movie fan and order a wide range of titles, some of which are not the most popular. Netflix doesn't have a central shipping office for the whole country, they have to buy copies for each area and gauge the interest in each.
I know most people think that rental stores just pay the street price, and that if a title is really renting, they can run over to Bestbuy and pick up 15 more copies at 20 bucks a pop so they can rent more, but that's just not how it works.(unless it has changed since I got a peek at how it was working.)
minimalist @ Dec 21st 2008 6:14PM
Regardless of whether they pay street price, MSRP, or more doesn't make a lot of difference. The relative cost of DVD's to Blu-rays will still remain proportional whatever the markup. One would think that studios would be more interested in getting a cut of each rental than just making money on the purchase of the movie.
But this is sort of besides the point. The fact remains Netflix is making 500,000 dollars extra a month off of blu-ray customers and now they are tossing out lame excuses for why that extra money is buying us worse service than those that pay less than us. If they can't provide the same standard of service that DVD renters have come to expect then why the heck bother? All you'll end up doing is ticking off your higher paying customers who make a lot of noise all over the web.
Like I said before if a dollar isn't enough to stock up on these discs then make it more. But don't point fingers when you foul your pricing plan. Just do it right or don't do it at all. Bad BD service will just hurt your reputation and give you PR headaches.
Mr_Fizzlepop @ Dec 22nd 2008 5:38PM
The netflix subscriber base as of September was 8.41 million. Assuming that they get an average of 10 dollars per customer that's 80 million dollars. At 12 dollars per it's over a hundred million.
That would mean the Blu-ray surcharge represents about .5% of their monthly revenue.
It's tough to know whether that's a good amount or not, but it sure doesn't seem like a huge percentage to me.
Don't get me wrong, we are both kind of speculating here without know the internal costs related to this, but keep in mind these are Discs that the vast majority of Netflix users will never rent since they either don't have a blu-ray player or don't want to pay the surcharge.
Any DVD that netflix purchases or leases the rights to rent have a chance to be rented by every sub, including those paying the surcharge, whereas blu-rays will only be rented to those paying the surcharge.
If I had a product I knew that over 94% of my customers wasn't even going to consider, it probably wouldn't even be available.
For me that surcharge is not over priced.
Mr_Fizzlepop @ Dec 22nd 2008 6:03PM
Also, keep in mind that almost all the posts here say that there IS NOT a greatly noticeable longer wait on Blu-rays VS DVDs.
So before you go talking about raising the price of the surcharge to cover the supposedly bad wait times, consider that if the wait times are comparable to DVDs that you are also asking for the DVD prices to be raised to lower the wait times that people have on DVDs as well.
Netflix is not for people that have such a short attention span that they can't wait a day or two and still be in the mood to watch the movie they wanted to watch just days before.
Someone like that needs to drop Netflix and sign up at Hollywood, Blockbuster, and their local grocery stores so they can run to all those local places and find the movie they want within hours of when they want it.
minimalist @ Dec 22nd 2008 11:33PM
"That would mean the Blu-ray surcharge represents about .5% of their monthly revenue."
And whose fault would this be? 500,000 blu-ray customers out of 8.5 million means that 6% of their customers are paying extra for Blu-ray rentals. If Netflix can't make this work its certainly not because they don't have enough paying customers. It's just bad business planning on their part.
"If I had a product I knew that over 94% of my customers wasn't even going to consider, it probably wouldn't even be available."
And you wouldn't be a long-tail business like Netflix either. 6% of 8.5 million people is nothing to scoff at anymore.
"Also, keep in mind that almost all the posts here say that there IS NOT a greatly noticeable longer wait on Blu-rays VS DVDs."
Obviously its enough to cause a pretty big stink. 28% of the respondents on this site alone claim they are having problems.
And the point still stands. if you pay more for somehting you expect at least get the same level of service as those that pay less than you. I love Netflix but I won't sweep their bad habits under the rug.
Why would anyone be willing to apologize for bad service?
Mr_Fizzlepop @ Dec 23rd 2008 4:32PM
Your problem is perception, and your whole argument hinges on what you, in your opinion, think is bad service.
There is no "Get your new release in 5 days or it's Free!" Guarantee at Netflix. It never promoted itself as a replacement to getting a movie in the same time window that you would from a video store.
Your view that these wait times are Bad service is your opinion.
I, and obviously many customers of Netflix, never expected to get EVERY new release the day after it came out(Based on these posts, many DO get it right away.).
We expected to never pay a late fee, rent as many movies as we wanted for one flat fee, and have access to a library of titles far larger than any one video store could ever hope to offer.
There are different services for different customer needs, as I mentioned in the last post I made. If you are someone that can't handle not getting your product at the speeds Netflix offers than maybe it's not for you.
As you Stated, over 70% of the people here posting that use Netflix don't feel like there is a problem, because to them there isn't one. Their expectation of what service Netflix should offer for the price they charge is not the same as the 28% that seem to think Netflix should burn 8.4 Million DVDs when they first release so everyone can get the new release in the first few days it's out.
Just so you know, with those numbers the service isn't going to change, and for that 70+% that will be just fine, because for most customers, the other bonuses Netflix offers that I mentioned outweigh the bonus of having a new release Always available the first few days it releases.