Netflix getting better? (1 Viewer)

[StephenT]

From reading the different threads concerning Netflix that have been in this forum from time to time it seems the major complaints about the service have been waiting times on many titles and the fact that you can no longer have them send you the next title the day you ship the title you're returning.
The latter complaint I have never had a problem with as I get five at a time, and even with the slow turnaround I always have at least one to watch.
The former is really what I want to discuss. I currently have 416 DVDs in my queue. Only two of them do not say available now! And those two are only marked short wait and not long wait. In the heyday of the complaining about the wait times my queue was of similar size and many, many titles had waits. Over time that has seemed to disappear. I'm wondering if they have increased their inventory or if they've lost so many customers that most films now stay in stock. If that's the case I want to thank all of you that left the service.
Now even when long waits seemed to be on every other title there were plenty of titles available in my queue. I'm curious about the mentality of only having say 5, 10, or 20 DVDs in your queue, and then when most of them are not available dropping the service. Are there really that small a number of movies people want to see? It seems like every other day I hear good things about a movie I've never seen, and I add it to my queue. That's why it's at such an absurd length. There are so many good films out there I feel like I'll never see them all. My queue never seems to shrink.
I guess the response I'm looking for is do current subscribers see the availability improvement I've noticed? And if you are or were someone who had a small number of DVDs in your queue can you explain the thinking behind that. I guess there's the thought of I want this movie and I want it now, but there are just so many to see that I still don't understand caring if half your DVDs have a wait. There's still plenty to see it's really overwhelming. Sorry to ramble on so much.

 

[SteveK]

Stephen - That's an amazingly small percentage of unavailable titles! Apparently, Netflix has improved significantly since I last tried them over a year ago. At the time, I had quite a few titles in my queue (although nowhere near as many as you indicate), but had 90% or more out of stock. Combine that with the long turnaround time (average of two weeks) to receive a replacement disk, and it just wasn't worth the money. However, I'm ready to try them again, as it seems I've read a number of comments lately that their availability of titles has improved significantly. I've tried several other services, but they just don't have the huge variety of titles that Netflix has. Hopefully my next experience with Netflix will be much better than my previous one. Based on your comment and others I've read lately, I'm confident that it will be.

Steve K.

 

[Ian Jordan]

I have 102 in my Queue and only 2 are "wait's."

They are much better from a year ago when almost all of my top 30 titles were "long wait."

 

[BrianKM]

To quote myself ...

In the last three months, the percentage of titles in my queue having a "short wait" or "long wait" went from 50% to less than 2% (3 titles out of 170). I don't know if they dramatically increased their inventory or got a new warehouse online, but whatever it is, it seems to be working.

I don't know if turnaround time has improved however, because I'm only twenty minutes from their distribution center.

I'm with you Stephen, I always have a long queue so I am never without something to watch and upgraded to the 5 out as well, which also helps a lot because you never know what kind of mood you'll be in when you want to watch a dvd.

 

[Ian Jordan]

Netflix just got a *LOT* better for me. They just opened another warehouse in Tacoma, WA, which is mere miles from Seattle, WA. My turnaround times are now three days. One day to get there, one day to recieve and ship, and I get it the next day. Used to be more like 8-9 days.

I was totally amazed the first time beacuse I got a notice of shipment on Friday afternoon at 4:30pm. Next morning at 10:00am, the DVD was there. Couldn't figure it out until I opened it up and saw the different return address.

Any ideas where else they have opened new warehouses? I looked all over the site but didn't find a list anywhere. Almost like they don't want anyone to know that they opened more warehouses.

 

[rbirk]

My queue have 119 movies, 4 not released yet and 52 on wait!! I would not exactly call that a huge improvement. The shipment times have improved though.

Ron Birk

 

[Chris Lock]

Probably 1/3 of my queue says "wait" at any given time, but I'm not real concerned since I'm not real picky about the order in which I get the discs. I just make sure the top 4 or 5 say "available now".

What confuses me is how the status sometimes changes. I saw one title go from "long wait" to "available", so I moved it up in the queue. A couple days later it was downgraded to "very long wait", where it still sits. And what's the point of titles that can't be added to the queue at all? (They say unavailable now, but check back later.)

 

[Brian G]

I havn't noticed any improvment, nearly 2/3 of my 70 movies where "not available just recently. It's difficult to get new releases or more importantly , to me at least ,criterion and or noir film titles.

Also I've noticed the last couple of months that when they recieve a title my next available title gets held up in a bullshit "released to ship" statues for two days. They're ripping me off, so now I rip them back by hitting " Not recieved yet" and or "damaged dvd" to make up for the down time they are creating.