I have not been having too many problems here. I have the three disc plan and usually at least one of the discs is part of a series. Before this, I was averaging about three movies per week, and the throttling did start. I noticed a definite lag in turn around time, and a lack of availability of my top choices. That has stop for the most part.
It helps that our distribution center is relatively close too. If possible, I ship two discs in an envelope also.
Not to quote myself, but I sure hope no one took me too literally and, um, altered **Czarcasm ** (mod) to get my duplicate post removed. :smack:
If they did, well, um, sorry. :o I’m sure you didn’t want kids, anyway.
I’m having trouble breathing, here, I’m laughing so hard.
alert, alert, alert.
No No. I have the best missing disc story.
My very first disc, didnt arrive. (I live in a dorm, and the address I was told to give netflix didn’t work).
So, Netflix told me that I had a disc. In actuallity I didn’t.
The irony comes in, with the name of the movie:
“To have and to have not”
Yes. It was for my film class.
It’s the film with the following quote:
“Don’t you know how to whistle? Put your lips together and blow”
Quote is in spoil box as not to spoil the first spoiler.
I noticed that mine was significantly slower around the holidays last year - I wrote a good part of this off to lots of people gettting gift subscriptions along with the post office being busier - but in my case, I’d gotten the e-mail that they were coming, but it just took a day or two longer for me to actually get them. Plus, receiving them at the Netflix facility took an extra day or two.
Same thing has been going on this year, but I’ve also been slower about watching the disks I get because of other business in my life.
I’ve used netflix on and off for a couple years now. Last week I had to report a disc missing. I hate that you have to wait 6 days from the estimated date of arrival before you can report it. I tried reporting it on day 4, since we usually get our discs 2-3 days after mailing in the last one.
We took a hiatus after we moved, kept some discs out for a couple months before returning them and changed our address, etc. After we finally sent them back, we were getting and returning discs really quickly. Within the past few weeks though, I’ve really noticed the throttling. We have one account split between two people, and discs from my queue have been taking twice as long to get here as discs from the other queue. I’m getting really frustrated with Netflix.
I canceled my netflix subscription when a good number of the movies i was getting were so scratched they couldn’t be finished. Settleing down to watch a movie then having to stop halfway through without finishing it is a lot more annoying than not getting it at all. Did anyone else have this problem?
I have about a year’s experience with Netlflix. Their concept, with optimal use of the Internet for setting up queues, ability to search titles and actors, the email notification of shipping & receiving and other features is really great.
But the shipping department is operating in the 60’s, before Fedex, computers, and companies that hussle. Whether it is deliberate or just bad management, I have no proof, but it is revealing to note that the worse their shipping procedures are, the greater their profit per customer, so you make your own conclusions.
Here’s how it works, at least in my personal experience. I send a disc back to the “nearest Netflix facility” in the proper envelope. Now the USPO absolutely assures me that mail from my town to the facility is well within the radius of overnight delivery, so I’m sure Netflix receives it the next day. But they never report it as delivered until the second day.
Having written software for inventory management, and pick list generation, I have a good idea how the process should work if maximum turnaround speed is desired. The instant one disk has been logged in, the software should arrange to ship the next one the the user’s queue. A complete inventory of all Netflix locations must be in a database, and the time that elapses between receipt and internal order for a new disk should be in the fractions of a second at most. [e]Even if the desired disk is at another location.*
Now I don’t know if Netflix uses runners on roller skates to grap the disks for shipping or it’s done by a 100% automated retrieval system, but it doesn’t matter. The new disk should be in the outgoing queue very quickly. But it appears to take hours, sometimes overnight, before the confirmation email is sent.
Now assume you are a shipping manager, and your goal is to get things shipped as soon as possible. Wouldn’t you schedule trips to the Post Office, or pickups by them, frequently throughout the day, or at least before the deadline for “today’s” outgoing mail? But Netflix doesn’t. If they say it was shipped on Monday, that means Monday after the Post Office’s deadline has passed, which goes out in Tuesday’s mail.
How do I know that? Because of the time of day the email is sent is usually late in the day, the disc doesn’t arrive for 2 days when the Post Office says it should take only one, and Netflix itself posts a 2 day delivery time on the email, so it doesn’t look like an accident.
So, in the absolutely best case, what should be a 2 day turnaround (counting my mail as day zero and my new disc receipt as day 2) is, instead, a 4-day turnaround (I ship Monday, I get a new disc Thursday). This is often longer because the new disc may be shipped from a non-nearby location, and 5% of all shipments appear to be damaged or lost.
And to add insult to injury, if I don’t receive a replacement disk within 4 days, I can’t complain about it until 6 days have passed!
Netflix’ shipping crews don’t work at night, Saturdays, Sundays or holidays. This extends the turnaround time from the ideal 2 to a more typical 6.
Let’s compare this shipping procedure with other companies who also use the Internet for ordering, like Staples or Office Max. I have ordered from them on Friday afternoon and received my merchandise on Monday or Tuesday of the following week! So it’s obvious that their crews are active on evenings and weekends.
I’m pretty sure that those progressive companies fill up trucks or containers with stuff to ship, then arrange to have the entire container picked up or delivered to the shipper’s sorting station either when it is full or just in time for a deadline.
So why can’t Netflix do this? Do they think we won’t notice how much we are really paying?
Here’s a trick I have tried, and I want to pass it along to everyone. I don’t know if it helps, but it can’t hurt. I noticed that every return envelope is addressed to the actual facility it came from, which might be the other side of the continent. Yet Netflix says they don’t care where you ship the disc, or how many are in an envelope, or even if you lost the inner sleeve. So I scan & print up a pile of Netflix return addresses for the real nearest location, complete with the barcode, and glue them on any envelope with another address. My theory is that it will get to them the fastest possible. So far, I haven’t had any complaints.
I would cancel their service, but I haven’t found any better yet (and I still have 60 movies in my queue!). I expect that in about 5 years, video on demand will become available thru cable, and the Netflix business plan will start to show its age and decline in popularity. I can hardy wait.
It seems clear to me that despite what the post office told you, if it always takes two days for Netflix to receive movies you’re sending them, you’re not close enough for overnight delivery.
The Post Office bends over backwards to claim that first class mail within a 300 mile radius gets delivered overnight. The Netflix station is in a major city only 150 miles away.
Private mail to & from locations 300 miles or less reliably gets delivered overnight. I mail letters everyday and I can count on it. I receive mail sent yesterday all the time. UPS ground typically delivers packages the same distance in one day, although sometimes it takes 2.
Even “special” mail gets delivered THE SAME DAY if the company really wants to do it. The Wall Street Journal, for example, which sends their data electronically to printing plants all over the country. They print and deliver the papers to the Post Office in such a timely manner that the paper is included with the same day’s delivery even in remote, rural areas.
So Netflix stands out as the only exception. Not only are they not trying very hard to improve service, they seem to take steps to be backwards.