Since Rick said there is a warehouse in Denver, I decided to try them again. I notice they say a title can sit is "released" status for up to five days. How often does this happen?
I've never had one take that long. Usually it ships the same day. I've had a few ship the day after (I assumed their offices closed before they were able to get it out since they're not 24/7). They probably don't have every warehouse stocked with every movie. They probably still ship some from CA until the inventory is up in the new locations.
That's good to hear, Andy. I used them up to about two years or so ago, but it got to the point that absolutely nothing I ever wanted was in stock. This was not new releases, but catalog stuff. Virtually everything in my queue right now says it is available.
I just got an email that my first disc is shipped. It says I should receive it by Tuesday, but if it does come from Denver (60 miles away) it should be tomorrow or Saturday at the latest, assuming it actually makes it into the mail today. I hope this works out. Another reason I dumped them before is because it was taking a week for titles to be checked back in.
Do they still have a way to declare a title late after a certain number of days, and if so , how many days? I plan to keep them moving.
Not anymore. Basically you can claim them lost and that's about it now. No more "I already mailed it in" button which is part of the reason why it's easier to get new releases now. People used to check in movies on Monday nights and by Tuesday all of the new releases would be gone. Since you're so close to a distribution center, I can't imagine that you'll miss that button much anyway.
I'm curious if everyone has had faster delivery on every movie. Of my first three DVDs, it seems only one came from Denver. It was shipped Thursday, arrived Friday, I watched it that night, sent it back Saturday and it has already been checked back in at NetFlix. Neither if the other two has arrived here yet, even though they were all shipped the same day. So the first one will have been returned and the next one shipped out before I even get the other two.
Interesting thing. The first two movies I received that obviously came from San Jose have a Denver return address. I guess they are using actual rentals to distribute some titles.
Recently, twice I have put a movie in the mailbox on Saturday AM and got an email on Monday saying they had received it. They nearly always get the movie in 2 days and I get them in 2 days. My turnaround has definitely improved by a couple of days at least. I am in Raleigh, NC and the Gaithersburg, MD Dist center is where 95% of my titles come from now.
I also think they are using rentals to move DVD's around. I guess it would make sense as they had all the DVD's they needed at one site and they suddenly have 7 or 8 sites, they would have to spread them around for maximum coverage. That way they do not have to take the employee's time away from regular duties to catalog hundreds of DVD's at a time and there are no additional shipping charges and less of a chance of multiple DVD dmamge in shipping.
I wonder if they get special packages of DVD's from the manufacturers without boxes or is there a mountain of cases in a warehouse somewere?
That definitely seems to be what they are doing. I think I rent less popular titles, because most of mine still come from California. I expect this will become less common as time goes by. The good thing is, virtually every DVD is checked in the day after I return it, which used to average about 5 days, so my turnaround has improved significantly. I've only been back with them for about 7 weeks, but so far so good.
I just read in my local paper that they opened a Lansing distribution facility because Michigan is a "growth area" for them. So I finally took the plunge and signed up with Netflix.
I had been wanting to for some time, but I have put it off due to the always huge stack of unwatched DVDs I have. But if I finally join, I can start renting the more marginal titles and save money. I have a tendency to pick up discs I want to see on release week, but end up not necessarily own them. Hopefully I can save at least $20 a month to pay for the Netflix membership.
I'm looking forward to finally seeing some more marginal titles that I pass on owning, but would still make good fodder for weeknight viewing. We are always looking for something "light" to watch on weeknights and it seems like most of unwatched stack are heavy dramas and foreign films. (We only tear into those on weekends.)