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Wal-Mart Turns Over DVD Rentals to Netflix
prostoalex writes "US retail giant Wal-Mart is turning its DVD rental business to Netflix. No word on how much money the deal is worth but Netflix will feature promotional Wal-Mart links for the 100K customers it gets from the retail chain."
Anyone know if Wal-mart censors their DVD rentals like they do with their retail CDs/DVDs? I know I won't shop there for this reason.
New Blockbuster campign "No late fees! And this time its for real!!"
You can kiss your ass goodbye...Always.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
I am a Netflix die hard but I figured Wal Mart with all it's capital and brand recognition would crush Netflix.
Good turn of events.
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Wal mart is actually giving up a market instead of pricing them out of business?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/24/14582
Usually it's the other way around with Wal-Mart.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Hooray for a rare win for the little guys! I've been a Netflix customer since the beginning so I'm happy to see a deal that promises to keep Netflix around a little longer. That just leaves Amazon and Blockbuster. Personally, I'd like to see Amazon do a similar deal with Netflix rather than try to crush them. Why? Because Netflix has become a good brand in the DVD mail rental space, so Amazon may have more to gain teaming up with them than fighting.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It seems to me that the there is really only room for one DVD rental-by-mail service. It is one of those commodity items that becomes cheaper to run on a per-customer basis the more customers you have. Netflix got rid of a potential competitor and gained an influential ally in the process. Now, they have to deal with Blockbuster.
In five years, only one will remain. Who will win? My money is still on Blockbuster, but the odds have definitely shifted.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Wow, hooray for Netflix, I guess.
Netflix should figure out a way to use Wal-Mart as a local cache. For the hottest releases, you don't have to wait for the thing to be delivered (or even downloaded and burned >-). You hand the Wal-Mart electronics guru your Netflix card, and they put your name in the computer.
There's got to be a way to make that work more cheaply than mailing each one.
sigs, as if you care.
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Especially considering Wal-Mart doesn't sell most of the DVD's that Netflix rents. This could pose a serious problem for the big W. As someone who works at a Wal-Mart I can attest to the problems they're having with the website and stores not carrying the same thing. This will only exacerbate the problem.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
This is as good a time as any to cancel my subscription. I really wasn't getting my money's worth anyway. Before it was choice between convenience and how much their sight design sucked but wal-mart is just evil.
I know I'm replying to flamebait, but don't you get it? YOU WON! WE WON! Wal-Mart didn't buy out the little guy. Instead, Wal-Mart decided they couldn't beat Netflix, and decided to cut their losses and make a deal while they could still pretend they didn't get their hind end handed to them.
Potential downsides abound -- Wal-Mart is notorious for its bullying of its suppliers. But Netflix has shown the determination to survive, so I think they'll make it. But I'll be keeping an eye on Hacking Netflix to see what happens next.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
What are you talking about? There are R rated movies on Netflix.
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Walmart bought Netflix, not t'other way round.
From what I read no one bought anyone. Netflix is going to get the old Wal-Mart customer base but NetFlix is going to offer a sales link to Wal-Mart. I don't see it as a buy and sell but rather allowing each company to focus on either rental or retail. If anything both sides stand to profit from this; NetFlix gets the customer base on rentals and Wal-Mart can focus on the retail DVD market while dumping what was probably a less than profitable side venture along with what is basically free advertising from NetFlix.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
In other news, it appears that Wal-Mart used to rent out DVD's.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Wal-Mart had no chance in succeding in this market to begin with. The reason they are so huge in retail and goods trade is because they buy in such huge volume that they can virtualy control the companies who supply their stores.
m l
Vlasic Pickles was an unfortunate tragedy of the Wal-Mart Empire.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.ht
It's good to see them lose some ground either way.
There is a little close box on the ads, top right corner. Click it. No more ads!
So far the ads haven't returned, even after closing the browser window and opening a new window.
I logged out, and logged back in, still no ads.
So those of us who are morally opposed to WalMart's business practices don't have to deal with their banner ads. One click makes it go away.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
don't you get it? YOU WON! WE WON! Wal-Mart didn't buy out the little guy.
We won? Who's this we in "we won"? Do you own netflix or shares there of? Are you an employee?
Don't fool yourself. Netflix is only seen as small because they don't have the customer base yet. Given time and bad luck on the part of Blockbuster you'll see that Netflix is another corporation. Netflix isn't on a crusade, it's trying to make money and grow. That's the nature of all profitable business.
Not trying to be an ass about it but a small company getting a bit of advantage from a large company doesn't mean the small company isn't just as greedy or just as left-handed about their business practices. Not that I feel that Netflix is bad in any way, at least no more so than any other corporation.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Probably not:
"We're studying our options about what to do about the patent, but our primary strategy doesn't rely on patents. Our primary strategy is to have a service that works better than any other service -- that consumers not only like but rave about to their friends -- and that's what's propelling our growth"
From this link to an interview with Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings.
Here a link to radio interview with him as well.
Didn't work that way. Got transferred to Netflix's new account page with the wrong service option selected and everything else blank. Had the software worked properly, I would now be a Netflix customer but it didn't so I checked out Blockbuster's offer. So if anyone at Netflix is reading this, especially if you're the developer, your bug cost you a customer. Blockbuster looks to have a better deal than Netflix - something I probably wouldn't have noticed had your code worked properly.
It's a shame Walmart quit. When they entered the market, Netflix raised their monthly service fee, realized that wasn't the brightest thing to way to compete with the world's largest retailer and subsequently lowered their fees to match Walmart's. Both companies then proceeded to add a whole lot more titles to their mix - or at least claim they did. The overall effect of Walmart's entry into this field was to increase competition and improve the offerings. I frequently saw a 2 day turnaround from mailing a DVD to receiving its replacement. With Walmart's exit, I wouldn't be surprised to see a concurrent dimunition of service from the remaining players.
Wait... are you telling me that Wal-mart entered a market and wasn't able to successfully drive everyone else out by lowering prices below cost then gouge once there were no competitors left?
Someone tell Bill Quinn, author of How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It
I live in north Alabama (stop laughing). and yes, Wal-mart is big in my neck of the woods. But if you think Microsoft is evil, you should look at Wal-mart a bit more closely. A town near me at one time had 3 grocery stores. now, they have A wal-mart. 3, count em...3 locally owned buisnesses have been shoulderd out of the picture by a large multi-national company. 3 economy helping buisnesses have closed thier doors. so, now.. you have to shop at wal-mart, or drive 20+ mins to the closest grocery store. I figure that each store had at least 40 employees. that's 120 people now out of a job, and wally world hasn't got that many employees. so... we've increased the unemployment, decreased the number of locally owned buisnesses, and made one hell of a traffic jam. now they want to take out the movie rental places. Somehow i don't think Sam Walton would appreciate this
WalMart shipped from Arkansas, so you can imagine how long it took for disks to travel back and forth to the rest of the country. It was usually a 2-3 day trip each way here to Dallas, Texas, for example. And the selection was even worse than Blockbuster's online service, if you can believe it.
:)
I've belonged to 4 rental services, and this is the order I rank them:
customer service:
1) Greencine (usually a few hours for email reply during the day, some of the staff seem to remember you by name, and they also often show up in the discussion boards),
2) Netflix (known for throttling service sometimes (less often these days), and takes a couple days to answer emails)
3) WalMart
4) Blockbuster far behind. 3-4 days to answer emails, empty slots when I had a queue of hundreds for a couple days at a time and each of them was supposedly "available now" - and I live within 30 miles of the national headquarters and the main distribution center.
selection:
1&2) Netflix, Greencine. GC has a better anime selection for now, as well as more hard to find foreign titles. Netflix has much better availability on almost every title it actually stocks, and is edging up on the anime. But it's still not there with foreign titles, either. Best selection for most people, however.
3) Blockbuster had mostly the same titles you'd see in its stores. But as I said earlier, a lot of them weren't really available when they claimed they were.
4) WalMart basically had a subset of what Blockbuster did. They did keep the slots full, however.
speed:
1) Netflix! They win by a landslide, having dozens of distribution centers, so there's probably one near you. However, they have been known to throttle customers after the grace period, and some of those "shipping tomorrow" or "shipping in [two days]" messages look suspicious. They don't do shipping or receiving on Saturdays, unfortunately.
2) Blockbuster. They have a number of distribution centers, but they are slower to process returns and mailing out. Not to mention that I had empty slots for days, several times. I think I may have seen them ship/receive on Saturdays, though.
3) Greencine. Unfortunately, their one center in California is their Achille's heel, as it takes days for anyone outside the region to get DVDs or send them back. It usually takes 2-3 days for a disc to get to Dallas, and 4-5 days to get back to California. The postal service seems spotty in this regard. Note, they DEFINITELY work on Saturdays as well, which is very important in their case.
4) Walmart's center is in Arkansas. They're about as slow as Greencine. No, I don't think they work on Saturdays. Sometimes I wondered if they worked on Mondays and/or Fridays, either...
overall value:
Netflix is the best overall value for most people; I usually get 15 discs a month on the standard 3-out plan. I get 9 discs from Greencine on average with their 3-out plan, but I'm a foreign film fan who sometimes watches anime, so I'm keeping them around. I will say that last fall I dropped NF and kept GC, but GC had some customer service and shipping problems in January and February, so I restarted NF to supplement. Blockbuster shipped somewhere between Netflix's average and Greencine's, but their selection and customer service makes them not worth the trouble. Seriously. I canceled at the end of last year. And WalMart shipped about as many as GC, so they'd have been a nonstarter even if they weren't shutting down, now. I cancelled within 2 or 3 months, I think
No kidding. I rented "Y Tu Mama Tambien" from Blockbuster and a "steamy" scene was edited that totally blew the plot out of the water. From then on I was like, "what the hell happened". Luckily, my girlfriend at the time had seen it previously and could tell me what had happened.
Without her telling me what happened I would have just thought he movie was inconsistent. Maybe there is some info about the content chops in the DVD that I missed?
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Because most of their directors are Republican radicals? The Waltons give millions to Republican causes, and are gun-loving Chistian conservatives (as are the people that they put atop the company, such as Soderquist, who Sam personally sought out). Wal-Mart itself was the #2 corporate campaign contributorin 2004 according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and gave the vast majority of its money to Republicans. Essentially everything about the company is "conservative" - gun-loving mysogynistic anti-union pro-censorship jingoistic anti-competitive sweatshop-loving et al.
If you think I'm being reactionary and exaggerating the case, please take the time to read The Wal-Mart Way by Soderquist himself, who credits the "the core values based on Judeo-Christian principles and maintained by leaders" for its success.
Freeze Ray. Tell your friends.
My friend saw the movie "The Sweet Hereafter" on an airplane and they cut out the whole father/daughter incest storyline, understandable but kind of ruins a couple plot-points.
Who knows what other cuts are made on other films.