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."

Comments

Careful!

[2.7182]

They re use those things and don't forget what most people rent! I wouldn't seal them with a lick.

Perfection is in the pennies

[Saeul]

Imagine shipping 1 billion DVDs for one cent cheaper.

Bar Code on Envelopes

[selfabuse]

Netflix somehow always knows when I've sent a movie back before it actually gets there. I always assumed the barcode was somehow related to that.

Re:Bar Code on Envelopes

[radish]

Actually the USPS do offer a service where they scan return envelopes at your local Post Office. It's used by a number of companies including Netflix to speed up return times.

Re:Bar Code on Envelopes

[Anonymous Coward]

Close ... here's what the USPS actually does, and how that fits in with what the previous posters report.

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 .. but I do know their business area well.

Neat to see.

[MBCook]

I've been with Netflix for over two years now so I've seen a few of those.

That said, I've always wondered why Netflix didn't use more square envelopes. Some of the earlier designs looked that way. I wonder if it has to do with sorting or some such.

Re:Neat to see.

[cfulmer]

This is an easy one: square envelopes cost more.

Re:Neat to see.

[britneys 9th husband]

The post office charges more for square envelopes.

From http://postcalc.usps.gov/mailpiecedimensions.asp

First-Class Letter Nonmachinable Surcharge:

First-Class envelopes weighing 1 ounce or less require an additional $0.13 nonmachinable surcharge if any one of the following apply:

        * It is a square letter
        * It contains very rigid items such as wood or metal
        * It has clasps, string, buttons, or similar closure devices
        * It has an address parallel to the shorter dimension of the letter
        * It contains items such as pens that cause the surface to be uneven
        * The length divided by height is less than 1.3 or more than 2.5 (calculate this below)

evolution and intelligent design

[AhtirTano]

I'm at a loss. The envolopes were clearly intelligently designed. But they appear to have evolved to match the current pressures of cost and safety applied by their environment.

Only a pointless flame war can guide me through this conundrum. That's why I'm turning to you, O Wise Slashdotters.

This is how it works...

[Jerf]

For those of you who think that there hasn't been much technological progress since, say, 1980 (except perhaps computers which are special*), this is how it happens. Take this sort of incremental improvement by one company in one very small facet of our lives, and multiply it across any number of thousands of products, carefully trimmed and optimized and made more efficient. You only notice the things that the process isn't very good at; UI, for instance.

(*: And computers only seem special for two reasons: One, most fields don't get to experience exponential growth for decades at a time, and two, you know more about them. There's a lot going on under the hood of any number of other products, too. Familiarity breeds contempt; so does ignorance.)

Re:This is how it works...

[hazem]

Freud was dead, but in the '50s, his theories were all the rage in the US.

From: http://changingminds.org/analysis/betty_crockers_e gg.htm

Betty Crocker's Egg

Analysis > Betty Crocker's Egg

The story

In the early 50s Freud's psychotherapeutic approaches were sweeping America, even to the point where the CIA was trying to use it for mass-control of the population. Although these alarming mind-control experiments had limited success at best, there were some notable successes, particularly in promotion.

A place where it proved successful was in the unassuming kitchens of middle-class families. Betty Crocker Foods had produced an instant cake-mix. All you needed to do was to add water to the supplied powder. By today's standards, the result was probably quite unpalatable, but then, it was something of a miracle.

The problem was that the miracle mixture did not sell. Undaunted, Betty turned to the new science of psychoanalysis to help solve the problem.

The conclusion of the psychoanalysts that she employed was that the although the average American housewife very much appreciated the convenience of the cake mix, she felt guilty at deceiving her husband and other guests into thinking she had worked hard for them when, in fact, she had done very little work.

Their answer: add an egg.

An egg also has the connotation of life and birth, making the creation of the cake more meaningful -- the housewife thus 'gives birth' for her husband.

Changing the recipe to add an egg to the mixture (which was suitably modified to make space for one egg's worth of protein and cholesterol) offered the guilty housewife a way out. By doing more than adding water, by adding a real ingredient, she could assuage her guilt.

The result: sales soared.

Freud 1, Housewives 0
Comment

Was it all so Freudian? Were the housewives feeling guilty? Maybe -- but there are other explanations. For example:

        * Eggs are known for their nutritional value. Adding nutrition would seem to result in a better cake.
        * It may assuage guilt to add an egg, but the Freudian 'birth' stuff could be theoretical nonsense.
        * Doing work adds investment to the process, thus creating a sense of ownership.

The bottom line, however, is that it worked. In today's pre-packaged economy, there may be opportunity for purveyors of instant, one-shot goods to add a little activity into the process that actually increases sales.
See also

My Postman

[Ankou]

I love the innovation but personally my postman always seemed to find that ONE weakness in em. I was at an apartment complex with those little metal boxes. I swear the postman would fold them every time and I'd still get a envelope of broken pieces. Happened more times than I'd like to recall.

Re:My Postman

[st1d]

Ah, such an innocent assumption. Perhaps your mailman's second job was at the local movie rental shop? :)

I hate the paper ones...

[dteichman2]

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.

Re:Lies from the article

[Fhqwhgadss]

I'll go out on a limb and guess that word problems are not your forte.

Question

[NVP_Radical_Dreamer]

I've noticed that the return address on the newer netflix envelopes now reads "Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility" and then has a PO box located in my very small rural town. It makes you wonder if they dont scan the barcodes in different locations and then once that nearby local has marked it as received your next disc is sent. There has to be something to the way they get movies to me so quickly when I live so far from a major city.

Re:Does the barcode need to be in the window?

[Dare nMc]

> barcode so it's visible has made a difference in shipping / receiving times

I have the same theory. I played around with different PO drop box's on my route to work (different Postal districts) and discovered on a basis of less than 6 returns that orientation seams more important. I think it was 2 out of 6 got back the next day when oriented incorrectly. more like 3 out of 4 if correctly oriented.
If this were truly the case, since they re-use the cotton sleve, why they dont print the barcode in all 4 orientations, or at least encourage people to orient. randomly it would only be 1 in 8 dvd's to get the window correctly set. if they printed 4 on one side it would be 50/50 if it were both sides you could get 100%

since they allow you to return multiple dvd's in a single envelope, the importance of the barcode may not be so great to them.

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Evolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. Sounds more like intelligent design to me.

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

[BeoFebenna]

YES! Yes, we realize that. We do. We really do. It's okay. We all totally realize it. And we're grateful. Did we say we're grateful? We are. Okay. Now. Just put down the rifle...

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

[Kadin2048]

You do realize you subsidize the discounted postage bulk mail pays with your full rate first class postage, right?

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#Legislati on
&c., etc.

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

[ComputerSlicer23]

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?

That's silly... It's actually the other way around... Bulk mail is subsidizing first class mail, not the other way around bub. The bulk mailers get a lower rate because they come pre-sorted, and generally with bar codes on them or other machine readable notations to facilitate the delivery. They cover the costs of driving past everyone's door. The larger the number of pieces of mail, the more letters the delivery costs are amortized over. If bulk mailers stopped sending mail, there'd be a huge spike in the price of stamps. For those of us keeping score, that means they are good for us, not bad. Thanks, for playing...

Kirby