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Netflix Woes Mean a Gap In Shipments
Loopback writes "It appears that I'm not the only one waiting for my NetFlix movies. It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system. 'Netflix has been facing shipping delays and outages in its distribution centers for the last two days and is fumbling to find a fix. The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"
Dear xxxxxxxx,
Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay.
Hey, some of us aren't fat!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
RTFA.
On a related note, I think it's fantastic that a company decided to 'do the right thing' though they were not obligated to do so. Pre-emptively issuing credits to subscribers whose shipments were delayed? Awesome for the customers, and a nice CR move by Netflix. There are many companies out there who would not take the same stance.
This is in addition to Netflix not getting rid of multiple profiles per account, after a vocal minority of subscribers complained.
Is it really possible that Netflix is a company that actually understands that making their customers happy and loyal is a good business strategy? I wasn't sure there were many of those around anymore.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They've promised to credit user accounts for the interruption in service.
rj
I shipped back two DVDs on Tuesday then got the notice they were received on Wednesday. Today (Thursday) I got the notice from Netflix that shipments might be delayed, but I also received two DVDs in the mail (the correct DVDs that were next in my queue). What I did not get was the normal notice from Netflix that they had shipped me anything.
Actually this is the best time to have this problem. I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics.
Redbox is a really good service. Recently We've canceled out netflix and gone to useing redbox exclusivly...HOWEVER we did this for one main reasons. - We were'nt returning movies to netflx fast enough to make it worthwhile...we'd get the movie and delay watching it until at least the weekened...sometimes the next. If you turn over your movies fast enough netflix is still a better deal. Redbox is nice if all your looking to see is fairly new releases...but you can't beat netflix when it comes to talking with someone and reliseing they've never seen $clasiccult_movie , you log in put it on your list and soon you be edjumacating them on some fine point of movie history they have missed out on. Also the ability to rent series and have them send you the next episode disks is kinda nice. My wife had always wanted to watch the show farscape, but neither of us had really follwed it. for the next two monthes or so we had netflix send them all to us and we watched it from begining to end. -You can't do that with redbox.
I Need someone to rebuild a Digitech Digital Delay pedal for me....for me...for me...for me.
I'll admit fat slob, but not mindless.
how do you watch movies live?, aren't movies kinda, you know, taped?
Redundant?? Really? Check some timestamps, you foolish mod.
According to the moderator's guidelines, a question asked that is answered by TFA deserves to be modded redundant. So sayeth /. !!!
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Netflix has the biggest volunteer distributed backup system on the planet. If they were smart they could have planned for this outage and had their customers supply backup disks to other customers who were not getting shipments on time.
They're even cooler than just that.
I've been using them a long time with the 3 disk unlimited plan. One day my girl broke a dvd. Her response: "Let's just mark it as never arrived."
Being all into personal accountability and shit I told her "no, we'll say we broke it and pay for it. We did in fact break it."
Their response: "Do you want us to send a replacement?"
No charge for disk. Nothing. I guess if you don't abuse the shit they overlook the occasional accident.
We've also had a few disks disappear in the mail, they either never got to us or they never arrived at Netflix after we definitely posted them. It was never a problem, you just mark the disk as missing and that's it. One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them. I guess they'll cancel your account if you "lose" a disk per month, but they deal well with the occasional problem.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
I thought that netflix took your money every month and then occasionally mailed you a CD as it is able.
Well there's the problem. They're supposed to be sending DVDs!
Maybe it depends on where you live? I have a "1 disc at a time" subscription and routinely get two movies a week. I have yet to receive a disc I can't watch and my only problems (once in three years) was getting the wrong disc ( the cartoon version of a real life movie I'd asked for)
. waterwingz
I think your experience is very different from the norm. Most people seem to receive a new movie 2 business days after they send back the previous movie.
IIRC, after you've lost a few, they start charging you for each one you "lose", but refund you if you find 'em and send 'em back later.
Make a separate queue for the kids then you can put a restriction on it for G/PG -- I've got that set up for mine and it works like a champ. They can only see and rent G/PG movies (and they get to control their list themselves....of course, I can view their queue as well at any time and make edits :)
One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them.
There have been a couple instances now where postal workers were investigated and found to have stolen hundreds of random DVDs from their routes. I also heard of one instance where kids were going through the mailboxes in a neighborhood. Since these incidents are detected, I suspect NetFlix and the post office share data about who loses DVDs and what postal worker's route they are on.
If I drop a disk in the mail on Monday, it goes into "Returned" status on Tuesday, or if I use a box at the post office before about 10 AM, it goes to Returned the same day, thanks to their special handling contract with the USPS. The next disk arrives within two days of that, often the next day. Weekends are the exception: they apparently do processing only Monday-Friday.
In the last couple of years I've received no more than two unplayable disks, not counting one that arrived broken.
rj
Actually, how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network? When you return a movie, instead of shipping it back to netflix, you print out a label for the next member and slap it on the mailer.
Sure, there's a ton of problems, but it could cut their overhead by up to 60%: they spend half as much on postage and the disks are in flight for one day instead of two each transaction. The savings aren't so much in postage as in inventory reduction: for a popular movie that stays out two days at a time, you cut the postal overhead from 50% to 33%.
No, the problem is that outside of their company, no one has any idea of how the thing works. They can't bring in a consultant, and there isn't anyone to turn to for advice. Even if they hired a small team of talented professionals to help them, that team would still need plenty of time to get up to speed on the whole system.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
And how are they going to guarantee that I'm not going to send the wrong movie (intentionally or not)?
This kind of option could turn out really bad...
Can you imagine if a sick bastard rents Madagascar 2 and sends pron instead of a kid's movie?
They could implement tracking on each piece, and find out where these are getting stolen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneCode
is the newest version of the barcode to be used on all mail starting next year. It will allow for optional individual piece tracking.
Currently they can also do this with a second barcode called a PLANET code.
These extra barcodes add about 1 cent per piece. The scary part is they probably have figured it out to be cheaper to eat the loss, or let their insurance company eat the loss, than to pay an extra 1 cent per piece.
Their postage costs are actually quite high. There was also talk during the recent (may 07) rate/size changes the Post office implemented of a 17 cent surcharge:
http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2007/12/usps-considerin.html
The funny part is that anyone doing the volume netflix is can get direct discussion with the post office. Apparently they pick up at the post office. I believe blockbuster talked about having postmen scan dvd's upon pickup to save time, but I don't know if that happened.
Living in Texas, I have more than a few discs that are full of bullet holes, I assume due to the drunk-sober cycles. And also, many movies just deserve it.
It has been like that since the beginning of time.
Their inventory seems fine to me - I got Roadhouse, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, and Battlefield Earth right on time.
And I had the exact opposite experience.
My DVD arrives in one day. It returns in one day (I will grant you that I only live 50 miles from the address on the label).
I have had 2 DVDs that were scratched in the 6 months since I started. They were both replaced in a day (and with 3 disks, I had something else to watch). It was older movies that were scratched (can you believe that I finally saw Vanishing Point a couple months ago?). When dealing with DVDs and clumsy customers there is pretty much no way to avoid this. They can't play every movie after return, so yes, occasionally one can be scratched. I would accuse you of hyperbole by saying it is half unless your sample size was very small.
I have been very happy with their service so far. I canceled all my movie channels on cable and just use them. It is way better because I am the one who says what is on tonight. I'd also be curious where and when you were mailing them. I drop them off at the post office on my way to work in the morning after watching it, and up until this glitch, every time the next day they would process a new one and send it.
I first learned about this an hour ago. I read a good review of Trumbo and logged on to added it to my Saved list... I hit this great big conspicuous notice saying "IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed."
My first thought was that it was a sales pitch to upsell me to a higher-tiered plan, but no, it was a straightforward notice and apology.
I for one really appreciate this approach. Most companies' SOP would be to say nothing... wait for you to call.. make an individual apology to you without happening to mention that it was affecting thousands of others... and hope you don't read newspapers or Slashdot.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!