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Evolution of the Netflix Envelope
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an article over on CNN Money. They go into some detail on what seven years of tinkering has done for the simple red Netflix envelope. From the article: "Years of experimentation went into creating the perfect DVD envelope. In 1999, Netflix started out with a heavy cardboard mailer. With only 100,000 subscribers, costs weren't a concern yet. Then the company experimented with plastic envelopes, which proved not to be recyclable, and padding, which added too much to postage costs. Both top-loading and side-loading envelopes made an appearance."
It's a pain when you get your movie and you have to be careful to avoid damanging the return envelope while you open it.
Plus, I can't send it back with a different movie because we only get one at a time.
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
As a long-time netflix user I think the paper envelope they have now is damn near perfect. It's dirt cheap, but keeps the DVD safe. It's recycleable too. It takes 5 seconds to put the DVD in securely and be ready to mail it.
I don't think their so perfect. I work for the post office and have to handle the damn things. I'm not the guy that stuffs your mailbox, I run the sorting machines. (about 95% of your letters are sorted by machine). Problem is, the DVDs jam the machine because they don't flex (enough). They need to be run on a special machine used to sort magazines. I regularly see their ripped envelopes and occasionally broken DVDs from the letter sorters, where they are mixed in with normal letters and difficult to see and remove. The envelope is too flimsy, and the adhesive sticker to "seal" it is a bit of a problem. It sometimes sticks to the adjacent mailpiece. You are seeing the result of "engineering" something to just barely meet requirements, to save a penny or two.
The Blockbuster mailer is great from my point of view. Envelope is sturdy, and fits and protects it's contents well. The NetFlix mailer has the floppy empty "tail" because it is rectangular rather than square. Difficult to handle to load into the machines. This deficiency requires more time to handle the NetFlix, so it costs more to process. But that's OK, 'cause you're paying for it by subsidizing it with your first class postage on other mail. You do realize you subsidize the discounted postage bulk mail pays with your full rate first class postage, right?
You do realize you subsidize the discounted postage bulk mail pays with your full rate first class postage, right?
i on
Funny, I was always told the exact opposite. Namely, that the discounts given to presorted bulk mail were actually less than the labor saved by the Post Office as a result of the presorting, thus most "junk mail" and stuff shipped at the bulk rate is more profitable, on a piece-by-piece basis, than individual First Class letters. So that really it's all those catalogs and crap that are subsidizing the Post Office's ability to deliver your letter to Grandma for 39 cents.
If what you're saying is true, and it's the other way around, then what I've basically been told my entire life about the Post Office is wrong.
I just ran some quick Google searches and I'm not the only person under this impression:
"Most people are unaware that bulk mailing is highly profitable for the U.S. Postal Service and it subsidizes first class mail." http://www.lawmall.com/abuse/abe-mail.html
"Bulk mail thereby subsidizes low cost stamps for letter, magazine, and book mailing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_mail#Legislat
&c., etc.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Close ... here's what the USPS actually does, and how that fits in with what the previous posters report.
.. but I do know their business area well.
There are two possible barcodes on the mailer that are of interest to the USPS.
The first, and most common, is the barcode immediately below the address area. This barcode is a routing code derived from the address, and is used only by USPS.
The second, and optional (you pay USPS for it) barcode will appear immediately above the address area. This barcode is used to do 'package tracking' of a crude sort. It contains a code identifying the USPS customer (netflix, for example), as well as some arbitrary data supplied by netflix - probably including a customer id and 'movie id' of some sort. This barcode is scanned when the envelope arrives at the USPS, and the scanned data is transmitted to the USPS customer who printed the labels. The customer then knows that 'the check is in the mail'. The most common users of this are credit card companies and utilities (gas, electric, cable).
Beyond the barcodes, there is another USPS mechanism at work, which your 'netflix delivery guys' allude to. That is, for a fee, the USPS will 'aggregate' mail for a customer in a largely internal way. For example, the USPS allows you to set up 'virtual' addresses almost anywhere. Any number of 'virtual' addresses can be linked to one or more 'real' addresses. So, in the netflix case, they might have one regional processing center, and several dozen 'return addresses' for the surrounding area. The USPS then internally aggregates the mail at each 'virtual' address, and delivers it to the linked 'real' address. This can both significantly reduce the amount of time that it takes USPS to process a piece of mail, but also reduces the number of actual processing centers that Netflix has to operate in order to maintain the desired level of service.
And no, I don't and never have worked for Netflix