Good value but need to work out some kinks
Written: Mar 31 '05 (Updated Apr 01 '05)
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First of all, things are constantly changing with these online services. If the vendor is serious about staying in business, it will work out the problems soon enough. So, below are my personal likes and dislikes after 2 months of BB Online Rental Services:
Personal Likes
Monthly in store coupons: Every month, you will get 2 free rental coupons for in store rentals. This is a nice service that is hard to beat by competitors. However, I would've ditched Blockbuster for Netflix if it wasn't for these coupons. You will understand later after reading the dislikes section.
Excellent selection: I found many hard to find DVDs in the catalog. If you know exactly what you are looking for (i.e. you know the titles), you will likely find it in the catalog. Besides awesome selection for the main stream movies, great selection in foreign, family, children, Japanese animation, etc. Also, many movies are offered in multiple editions (widescreen/fullscreen), I even found a "Superbit" version of Bad Boys 2.
Delivery speed: I live in the Chicago area. When I first signed up 2 months ago, movies were coming from Ohio. Looks like Blockbuster realized Chicago is a large enough market to warrant a closer distribution center. I am now receiving DVDs from a Chicago address. This really improves the turnaround time. If I drop off a movie in the mailbox at the end of my driveway Monday morning, I will likely receive a new one by Friday.
Personal Dislikes
Order accuracy: In the last few months, Blockbuster has gone on a marketing blitz for their online rental services. I guess it really works since most of the movies in my que went from "available" to "short wait" in the last few weeks. I am not talking about new releases, "Heartbreakers", "Old Schools", "Ocean's Eleven", and even that not so good movie named "Timeline". C'mon!
Because of all these "short" and "long waits", my que is all out of whack! For the last 2 shipments, BB sent me something that was between 15-20 position.
Website availability: The site was fairly stable when I signed up 2 months ago. But the availability has been slowly deteriorating lately. Forcing me to login while I am managing the que, and it is not due to inactivity expiration because I was using it few minutes before the forced login. This could happen several times within a 15 min session.
Usability: The biggest feature in my wish list is the multiple ques like Netflix. I have kids so I put several children movies in my que. However, because I cannot manage them separately in a different que, and because the order accuracy problems mentioned earlier, I ended up with 2-3 kid movies sometime.
Catalog browsing/Recommendation: The recommendation is useless. Unlike Netflix, where the recommendation seems to be based on your rating for movies. BB's recommendation seems like movies that they want to get rid of. I have not heard of most of the movies in the recommended section (not exactly a 50-60's B rated movie buff).
I am not trying to accuse BB of hiding the new releases, but I can't find them. The new releases section does not show some of the latest releases. For example, at the time of this review, instead of "Ladder 49", "Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason", "Finding Neverland", the new releases section is showing releases from 3 or 4 months ago ("Elf", "Bourne Supremecy", "Sky Captain"). The newest one is "Exorcist: The beginning". Though you could always find them through the search function.
Conclusion
Overall, I am satisfy with the service. However, I probably will jump ship if the supply & order accuracy issues are not worked out in a month. Blockbuster seems to be serious about competing in this market. They resolved the delivery speed issue since I signed up. I hope they will do the same for the other issues. The in store coupons are a nice touch, certainly comes in handy when I didn't get the movie I want to watch, or when I ended up with 3 kid movies.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? 3 DVDs online rental
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Epinions.com ID:
sam618
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Reviews written: 8
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