Slashdot Mirror
Amazon to Enter the Online DVD Rental Business
ChrisF79 writes "Wired News is reporting that Amazon.com is hiring programmers to work with online dvd rentals. From the article: "Advertising for positions based at the company's Seattle headquarters, the listings seek engineers to help in 'building systems and algorithms that must move inventory between our fulfillment centers and our customers in a way that gives customers exactly what they want, when they want it.' The postings indicate they are specifically for an online DVD rental service." Netflix seems to have a stronghold on the market so despite numerous advantages for Amazon, especially economies of scale, can Amazon enter the market and surpass Netflix?"
Of course, if all that fails, they can follow their usual MO and file a patent for the idea of unlimited online rentals for a monthly fee and drive Netflix out of business that way.
-JMP
I was a NetFlix subscriber for about two years, because they were the best of what was around. Recently, I switched to Blockbuster's in-store unlimited rentals, because it could give me something that NetFlix couldn't: instant gratification.
I am fickle. With NetFlix, I too frequently found a DVD in my mailbox that I felt like watching 3 days ago. Being able to pick out a movie and be watching it 20 minutes later really makes a world of difference.
Perhaps NetFlix will go one better. With movie downloads just around the bend, it appears that they're taking innovation and competition in their industry very seriously. Amazon may have the inventory and distribution architecture to easily catapult themselves into the market, but if they don't have anything more interesting than DVDs-by-mail on the horizon, they may quickly find themselves left behind.
domain combinatorics
People who viewed "Anal Invaders 4" also enjoyed...
When netflix lowered their price in competition with blockbuster, netflix claimed they were in jeopardy of making pennies for profit. The opposite happened and their stock prices went higher.
I am really confused as to whether everybody is still overcharging. Considering everyone has an endless queue list that seem to be sending things out of order again and again. There is still a real supply problem.
Amazon already have a DVD rental system in the UK. I have never tried it as I use LoveFilm, but I hear its ok.
They have already entered the DVD rental market: Amazon.de Launches DVD Rental Service For Customers in Germany, Amazon.co.uk Launches New DVD Rental Service
The way that Amazon could really gain an advantage is if they could find a way to combine buying other items with DVD rental. If I could buy a book, and get it shipped free with my incoming DVD that would be something. Otherwise, I don't see how they can compete except on price or name regonition.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
With the deployment of the XBox 360 in mass quantities in '06, content producers will have the ability to content lock their movies. Microsoft will finally be able to promise that security to media execs, which will then loosen them up enough to allow the streaming to occur. When that desire is coupled with the increased availability of broadband, the on-demand downloading will finally go mainstream with Microsoft attempting to lead the way. Others in this market will be Apple with iVideo, potentially Sony on the PS3, and potentially juggernaut Google to the PC.
Unless Amazon can couple the download with the the DVD rental (both will be necessary), they will be too late to be of consequence. My guess is that Netflix, Intelliflix, and Blockbuster will all begin on demand downloads by the end of next year.
of course it depends on your taste in films, the rocky box set is £25 in one store near where i work. bought Solaris last week for £4 from Virgin Megastore. Having about 6 stores within half a mile of where i work all fighting to get rid of lots of stock at cheap prices is great. And then there's the (probably legally dubious) ex rentals from my local blockbuster and choice videos offering newish films at low low prices. in this instance i tend to buy really obscure/foreign films that are highly unlikely to have been watched that many times = bargains.
obviously i dont know how well this all translates across the pond but basically i hardly ever rent and when i do it's because it's 7pm and me and the missus are a bit bored of my japanese samurai film collection and she sends me to the video store to find something "girly". we dont go online and find something to watch in a couple of days.
but having said that i'm far too tight to fork out the cash for the stanley kubrik boxed set. now i might be tempted to rent THAT for a few quid, a whole weekend of kubrik and post it back. handy. think i just defeated my own point!
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
...at least for Comcast.
When I'm not blowing $18-21 at a time to rent a whole season of a tv show at the local video store(yes, I know I should go netflix), I give Comcast VOD a try.
So let's go watch Constantine.. Wait, it's not listed. Okay, let's go watch Hellboy..wait. No, wait, the only have bottom-of-the box office barrel movies available.
Comcast's offerings of VOD is incredibly pathetic for being such a mega-corp. You would think DVD distributors would lend them a few episodes of a TV show they just released for free viewing. Then,if you like the show so much you could buy it. Free advertising. Give 'em a taste.
Heck, let me pay a small fee to VOD the HBO/Showtime premium tv shows, without having to subscribe to said premiums.
So far, VOD to me is a dud.
I could see Amazon doing with books what Netflix does with DVDs. It is essentially the same thing with the same issues.
However, personally, I really never use Amazon for anything more than books.
Why? In addition to books (used and new) I have bought multiple things there including two GPS units and a mobile phone.
The latest GPS unit (GPSMap 76CS) was on sale, no rebates necessary, and priced $50 less than its lower end unit (76C). Six months later, the price I got (with no mail-in-rebates) is still less than you can find 99% of the time.
The mobile phone (T-mobile Sidekick 1) came with instant and mail-in-rebates that totalled enough to make the phone $0 with on year of service.
Why would you only go to Amazon for books when there are so many bargains on there that I seem to only be able to find there?
I'm not an amazon.com rep, investor, or otherwise, just a happy customer.
Hopefully Amazon will offer a competitive price and that will hopefully lead to lower prices on Netflix...
If Amazon does a good job here I would probably switch over because I have noticed that everytime I start returning a lot of movies back to Netflix there is a mysterious slow down in delivery of new movies on their part. They blame it on the Post Office but there distro facility is right down the road and checking with the Post Office there really is no delay. It looks to me like Netflix either doesn't process returned movies quick enough or delays them so you get less movies per month if you happen to be watching/returning them too fast. Anyone else have that issue?
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
A problem I see with that is postage, books are considerably larger and heavier == expensive.
Also, books get damaged far quicker than dvd's. I dont think it is a real option for them.
Well Blockbuster price is lower so your statement isn't entirely correct. I've used both services for about a year. Netflix was incredibly smooth and I received movies very fast for the area I lived in. They have a lot of movies that I couldn't find in the brick and mortar stores. So I agree their service was second to none. I decided to save a few bucks and try Blockbuster. These guy's took a week to mail me my DVDs and were ALWAYS out of the movies I wanted to see. Then they would constantly get lost in the mail and the hassle wasn't worth the $3 savings. Secondly, I wanted to use a free rental, but didn't have the coupon on me. I asked the clerk if they could just look up my account. Of course their system isn't that smart and they consider it a totaly different entity. The next time I go in (with the coupon) and they ask me to sign-up for a card and everything. I decline and he turns me down for renting the video. I explain to him I have an online account and why do I need to sign-up for yet another account. I mean really how many things do I have to sign-up for to rent Kids? Because I'm a cheap bastard I was lulled into trying Blockbuster, but 4 weeks later I was happy again with my Netflix subscription. The old adage still goes, "You get what you pay for."
I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
If the US service is as good as the UK service, this should do quite well. Neat little DVD holders, clever postage packaging and fast turn around and the price was significantly cheaper than renting from Blockbusters. My only complaint was that my girlfriend has taken it over. In the last month she has made me watch The Notebook, Million Dollar Baby and Piglet the Movie. Apparently, I'm not allowed to rent Shaolin Soccer because we can't both watch it?!?!?!
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I think one thing Amazon will have going for them is their website. Assuming they leverage a lot of their existing code, their initial US launch should be miles ahead of Netflix. While Amazon is constantly adding new features that help me find interesting things in the long tail, I don't think Netflix has made an improvement to their website in the two years I've been a customer.
Don't get me wrong, I like Netflix, but the recommendations they make for me are almost always off target. On the other hand, Amazon is always presenting me with interesting recommendations on music and books.
That's just one feature that I expect they will execute better than Netflix. They also have a slew of fetaures Netflix doesn't offer. Some of the ones I've found useful include "the page you made", "customers who bought this also bought this", "customers who viewed this also viewed this".
Then's there's "Artist Essentials". Just getting into jazz but overwhelmed by the many choices for say, Ella Fitzgerald? Then check out her "Artist Essentials". It's just a static list, so how hard could it be to implement? But if you want an opinion from Netflix about the best movies of, say, Jim Jarmusch, well, you're just SOL.
All in all, I'd say Amazon's entry into this market will introduce some good competition, and we're all going to benefit.
Meanwhile, the cable companies continue to deploy video on demand. And it looks like TiVo will soon offer content programming downloads via the web. Why would I want to rent DVDs?
http://www.phenry.org/junkdrawer/haiku/
Consider NoMoreNicksLeft,
Of humor, he was bereft,
He tried a haiku
And failed, as will you
So go back to your job of dick theft
Now in the case of Amazon.com
and whether their product will bomb.
It may work, you see
For you and for me,
But will it appeal to your Mom?
Never confuse volume with power.
Okay.
To be fair, the Netflix model sounds like a pretty good deal for people whose lives happen to circulate around watching lots and lots of movies. I've been there, and it can be a lot of fun when you're in that head-space.
But for me, it sounds like WAY too much trouble. --Like working for a company which gives you a pager and has you on-call 24/7. Knowing that I MUST watch 3 movies at some point during the month seems very stressful to me. I'd rather be able to get a movie when I feel like it and not feel that it is yet another item on my To Do list.
I can happily go for a couple of months without ever watching a DVD, and then I'll blow several nights in a row consuming something which catches my interest, (like the ill-fated Bruce Campbell TV Western series, "Brisco County Jr." --Which was unbelievably cool, but is only available from my friend who downloaded pirate copies from the web and burned them to disk for me because the series was never officially released.). --And then I'll happily watch nothing for another three months.
Perhaps Netflix could offer non-member limited rental packages with no deadlines on some of those funky single-use disks. --Subscriptions bother me. I don't like feeling 'obligated' to do anything, particularly with regard to my free time activities. Though, it seems to me that the rent-a-DVD-by-mail business model depends rather heavily on the various forms of psychological momentum subscriptions create, so I somehow doubt short term purchases will come about.
-FL
Amazon bought IMDB a while back, and luckily, hasn't screwed it up. The IMDB is the best source for movie and TV info online. When Amazon bought it, the only obvious change was making the "buy it" link in the upper left corner always point to Amazon.
If they tie it in with the IMDB, that would be pretty handy. Search for "Virginia Madsen" and you see a list of all her movies, with boxes next to the ones available for rental. Tick the ones you want and they get added to your queue.
This is also a plus since you could search with IMDB for any movie, not just the ones they stock. Want a movie that isn't out on DVD yet? Add it to a wish list.
Amazon also has the setup with used DVDs ( and books ) to ofer deals if you want to buy the movies instead of, or after, renting them. I'd expect them to let you know how long your wait will be for a rental while offering a shorted length if you want to buy one now.
Amazon also didn't pump up the IPO by paying spammers like Netflix did. Netflix will always be tainted by that.
My wife and I have recently hit on a great, free source of DVD's - the Library. For those who haven't been there in a while, check out your local branch and you might be surprised at what's available. We just picked up Donnie Darko, Kinsey, and Lost in Translation the other day. Since we take the kids there once a week to pick up kid's movies and books, we grab a couple for ourselves and when you're on a tight budget, free entertainment is a major bonus...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
i wonder if its possible to do book rental and if amazon will ever do this?
This has been said before but Amazon has a recommendation engine that's light years ahead of what Netflix has. I've been an Amazon customer for longer, have bought more product from them, and so has everyone else. Even after rating 300 movies and reviewing several Netflix makes the stupidest movie recommendations while Amazon prove insightful most of the time.
Amazon has the distribution, but also the ability to cross-sell a lot more than Netflix. It's probably a lot easier for them to sell you the movie if you rent it and like it. They have better promotional opportunities, like including free rental coupons if you buy DVDs.
The one thing Amazon doesn't have going for it is customer service. Have you ever had a problem with your order? One time someone sent me a gift from my wish list, they could not select the address it was shipped to, and it got lost. It was a complete headache trying to resolve the issue and contact their customer support. Netflix, on the other hand, has amazed me with how good their service is. One time I sent my own DVD back instead of the rental, so I emailed them, and they managed to find it and mail it back to me a couple of weeks later. I also had a real, live, human who answered the email. Unless Amazon shows improvement I'll be sticking with Netflix.