stanbud

1) When are you opening the L.A. shipping location?
2) How can I purchase a movie that I'm renting? Do you send the case? How much additional is shipping?

jfoobar

RMD-

Well, Now about a month and a half in, I don't see you guys stacking up against NetFlix as favorably as I had hoped. Of the titles in my queue that are released, fully half of them are "Out of Stock." This is very NetFlix-esque behavior. Additionally, one of the "Coming Soon" titles in my queue, From Mao to Mozart, has been released for almost 2 weeks and is readily available from online retail vendors.

What is the ETA of the check-in function?

Thanks.

RMDInc

mdev-

"Tapeheads" comes out tomorrow (3/13) and will be available on the street date. "12 Angry Men" apparently got overlooked by the purchasing department but will now be ordered.
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stanbud-

L.A. was slated originally to be opened at the end of this month, but it has been pushed back a bit. The latest news I heard (unofficially) was beginning of May.
You can buy a movie you are renting- go to the "My Account" tab, click the "My Order History" selection and click the "Buy" button next to your rental title. Pop-up windows will come up and guide you through the process. We will send you the cover and inserts; but if you do it be sure and send customer service an e-mail about it. Some purchases get overlooked in the warehouses. There's no shipping charge for buying.
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JustinS-

"From Mao to Mozart" is on backorder through one of our distributors. Often (and I am not saying that this is necessarily the case with this title) distribution of smaller studios' titles is limited by production. Even with pre-ordering by retailers done prior to a title's release there can be significant difficulty securing enough duplication services to meet the demand before a title's street date.
One of the largest problems we face as a company attempting to build our library and secure more copies of movies we already have is that they are not all readily available when we need them. (Your above WWII and Visions being good examples of this problem) Distributors no longer carry the huge inventories that they did in the days of old, there are less distributors for video product, and studios (except for the truly large ones) really don't make the surpluses they used to.
Beyond that, though, is the question of your Wish List. Some of this gets back to the discussion above in this forum relating to esoteric titles, some is a simple problem of input dates. If San Francisco inputs inventory for a title that has not yet reached its street date (based on order quantity), but New York opts to make sure that the delivery of product arrives before inputing the quantity, the database will no longer say "coming soon," it will show "available" in San Francisco and "Out of stock" in New York. The bottom line on these new release titles is that they are available on their street dates regardless of what shows before that.
For the smaller or older titles you may have on your Wish List, expecting all of them to be available all the time is pretty unreasonable. It may make your Wish List look better for everything to say "available" every time you look, but it would mean that our DVDs aren't going anywhere. Smaller or older titles do not have the turn rates that big, new titles do. The higher the turn rate, the more copies we necessarily have to carry to meet demand, and vice-versa.
Just because a title now lists in your Wish List as "Out of Stock" doesn't mean it's gone and it's not coming back. It means that someone else is renting it. Just like when you have a DVD at home- that particular DVD is now out of stock. If fourteen people across the nation have "Ishtar" on their Wish Lists and we have twelve copies, two people will have their Wish List "Ishtar" listed as Out of Stock. Does it mean that those two are going to have to wait a long time to get "Ishtar?" No. They'll get it as soon as two of the twelve that originally got it send it back and it coincides with having an opening on their Lists. And then we will go back to having, after about three weeks, twelve copies of "Ishtar" gathering dust in a warehouse.
No ETA on the check-in function as yet; still in "coming soon" limbo.
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Everybody-

I just want to point out that it's not our goal to turn this forum into us talking defensively (which is how I personally feel sometimes) or making excuses. One of the reasons that this (the forum) works for us so well is because it really encourages not setting-up unreasonable expectations.
What you can see, I hope, as a recurring theme in these discussions is the plethora of individual interests we face on a daily basis. While it may not seem like much, it can occasionally be overwhelming.
This is not necessarily a bad thing and I appreciate the positive comments that keep coming up in these forums and in e-mails we receive (Thank you for the four stars above Chris Johnson)- and of course we also need the negative comments that encourage us to do a better job.
Just please keep in mind that we do pay attention to all the special requests and different types of esoterica asked for. These things really do take time and I would just like to say that we are working on all of them.
So please keep the comments coming and tell me if it starts to sound like we're shrugging anything off instead of explaining our position; the difference between the two being quite vast.

-Matt

mdev

My mistake on Tapeheads, and I'm glad to hear that you will be stocking it. Thank you very much for ordering 12 Angry Men. I've heard much praise for this movie, but I've never actually seen it. Other than a few missing titles in your catalog, I have absolutely no complaints. You've created a very happy customer in me and I've been recommending you to friends! As long as you keep up the excellent work, you can be assured a lasting customer!

dvdhabit

Matt,

I just want to say bravo for your grassroots efforts on this site. It has gone a long way in pushing me towards becoming a member. I have one suggestion that may help with the issue of small genres; a request box. This would help you get a feel for the profitability of adding a title to your library.

Further advice on this suggestion:
A) Only members (after signing in or cookie implementation) may enter a title.
B) Only allow one entry per title per user.
C) When a title is added to the library e-mail all who requested it the day it is available.

I realize there may be some problems with members mis-spelling titles, but you guys seem pretty smart and I'm sure you build a little code that checks for similar spellings, etc..

So, I said this would help with with your sub-genre problem and now I'm not so sure it would help out with entire genre's, but more with specific titles not in your library. Well, with a little human intervention I guess you could look for trends within certain genres.

Ok, that's all the free advice you get. I'm available on an hourly contracted basis for further feedback .

RMDInc

mdev-

We just watched "Tapeheads" in the office today- what a difference the DVD makes. The only copy I was ever able to get my hands on before was the original release on VHS (I am not sure if it ever had later releases on tape- I know it was on moratorium for what seemed like forever). So I finally got to see it Widescreen with decent sound and no tracking problems. Good stuff! "12 Angry Men" should be in by early next week if not at the end of this week.
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dvdaddict-

Great suggestion on the request box (and the price was right). I especially like the Members Only and e-mail on arrival aspects. If the programmers can implement it I'm sure it will save a lot of abacus work in the purchasing department.
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Everybody-

Today I am feeling saucy and will leave you with a haiku. Please feel free to share it with whomever you would like:


DVD Format
Great Audio / Video
Not Beverage Coasters

dvdhabit

...Ahem...it's [B]dvdhabit[B]

popcorn

Well after three months of 4 DVD rentals I have canceled my Netflix account and joined RMD. Being right here in the Garden State, I look forward to prompt service. I am already pleased to see the care and attention RMD is giving to we DVD Talk members.

Initial impressions to follow...

HepDude

Regarding the Wish List (queue).

Your example about 12 copies of a DVD, and 14 members with it on their Wish List, brings up an important point.

Isn't it true, that if - as in the example above - there are always more members with a DVD on their wish list, than there are copies, then that particular item will always show as "OUT" to someone who is a non-member who thereby does not have the wish list functionality?

( You might say "but if that were the case, we would order more copies" - but as you have also said, some titles cannot be obtained from distributors. In fact, there are 3 different online DVD rental stores that have promised to get a particular title for the past few weeks, and one reports back that is out of stock at the distributors. )

RMDInc

dvdhabit-

If you tried hard enough I'm sure you could make it an addiction; but I realize that you don't have a problem, I'm sure that you can stop any time you wanted to...
Bad jokes aside, I'm sorry about that. I was actually thinking about going in, editing my response, and then asking you what you were talking about. But I'm sure that that sort of behavior would make me even more likely to be struck by lightning...
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KBdaNewbie-

Welcome! Let us know what you think...
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HepDude-

My example was perhaps not the best, but I think the biggest possible misconception would be that the Wish List "reserves" a title for anyone. It's an order, to be sure, but it is definitely not a hold.
If that were the case, then each Member would effectively be renting all the items on their Wish Lists at all times. My example wasn't the best because it assumes that fourteen Members sign up on the same day and immediately put "Ishtar" on the top of their Wish Lists. The point of using "Ishtar" in the example is to show that it's really not all that desirable to the general renting public - it's rentable, it's just not something with a serious demand.
Anyway, Members can put "Ishtar" on their Lists and we will ship it when they have an open slot and it is the title on the List that is the highest priority available title. If it's Out of Stock it is Out of Stock to both Regular Users and Members alike. If it is available then it is available to everyone. If Regular Users had a Wish List (something that we are working on) it definitely would not work like the Member Wish List- it would be more like a grocery list so that desires are not forgotten between rentals. Automatic shipments would defeat the purpose of the Regular User account and we can't exactly hold priorities for Regular Users until they decide to rent. So, then, the answer to your question: is "no." If we received two copies of the original shipment of twelve "Ishtar" back before we received the returns of the Members with "Ishtar" still on their lists' returns, those two copies would remain available until either someone rented them (Regular User or New Member or Old Member with a new Wish List) or the people with "Ishtar" still on their Lists returned something and made an opening for "Ishtar." The whole point in my original argument was that small titles and old titles are going to (I hope) go into stock and go out of stock- just like all titles. People are going to rent them and return them and then other people are going to rent them and the cycle will continue. Mainly on those small titles, though, there will be lots and lots of time spent, for many of the copies, in a warehouse and "available." Which brings me to the second part of your last message: the above is why we don't necessarily need to get more copies of "Ishtar." Of course there will be times when we under-order on a certain title; just like there are times when we over-order. Speaking of which, Will somebody, anybody PLEEEEEEEAAAAAASEEE rent "The Little Vampire"!!!!!!! Where was I? Oh yes, under-ordering. There are ways to get more copies of titles that do not involve distributors- that's a given. It's nice to use distributors because of pricing and delivery but there are other ways to obtain DVDs. If demand is really high and we have very little stock we are going to pay more to get what we need for our customers. A caveat: If something is a small title and back-ordered since the street date, it's honestly not worth the time and effort trying to find a reliable retail source to purchase it. For one, the retailers are probably in the same back-order boat. For two, about 70% of street-date backorders are fulfilled within two weeks. Whatever the title you are referring to above is (and please do tell us what it is if you would like a detailed description of what is going on) was undoubtedly under-duplicated and therefore under-distributed.

And as long as we are talking shop, Purchasing has informed me that none of our current distributors carry "Mohabbatein," nor will they any time soon. So, while we are looking into Indian distributorships we're pretty much back to square one on the Indian titles. Sorry.

-Matt




[Edited by RMDInc on 03-14-01 at 05:03 PM]

RMDInc

And it looks like the new Wish List is up- check it out and let us know what you think.

-Matt

mdev

Me likes! I gotta play with it some more and test some durability. I think I'm RentMyDVD.com's resident whore about now. You could use me for your spokesperson because all I do is go around singing your praises

HepDude

Is there any chance that the reason for this is because the title's release was put back to March 31st?

Also, there are dozens - perhaps hundreds - of Mom-and-Pop Indian groceries in the USA that rent all the latest Indian DVDs. (Unfortunately, there are none within 250 miles of me - which is a big reason why online stuff is important to me - but there is probably one within 5 minutes of you if "Redwood Shores" is near "Redwood City") Given that, it can't be all that hard to find an Indian DVD distributor, although admittedly not as simple as just calling the ones you already know about.

sm8680

Better than before. Although, Instead of having a drop down box for the wish list per DVD. It should be a field were one can type in a number. When one is done typing the DVDS with the proper number sequence that they want them in. Then you click an update button which reorders them. Although the new queue is better than the one before. It requires one to pick a number in a drop down box and as soon as the number is choosen. The page is refreshed. If you have 5 changes then you'll have 5 page refreshes which takes time. The idea of typing your numbers in an open field for all the DVDs and then updating them would only require one refresh. Hopefully we will see this type of functionality in the future. However with that in mind the queue is slowly getting their. It's an improvement on the old model for sure. Have a good one.

Steve

Pectate

I agree with previous post regarding the new wish list. It would be nice if we could limit the refresh. It's better than before, however.

jfoobar

The Fox titles released this past Tuesday (Inventing the Abbotts, Smilla's Sense of Snow, The Ice Storm, etc.) are still listed as "Coming Soon" instead of "Available" or "Out of Stock."

What gives?

RMDInc

mdev-

We are proud to be your pimp.
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HepDude-

Starting a relationship with a distributorship requires, usually, agreements by both parties concerning minimum quantities, pricing arrangements, and a host of other concerns. Can we find one? Yes. Do we want to enter into a rather significant business relationship so that we can get some copies of "Mohabbatein?" No. If any of our current distributors carried the title we would get it (regardless of its street date change). But they don't.
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Pectate and sm8680 (and every other Wish List user)-

I agree on pretty much all your points. I like the Wish List a whole lot more this way (of course I have T1 speeds) but the refreshing is still obviously a problem. We will get there.
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JustinS-

Our site still says "Coming Soon" because we did not get any copies of any of those three titles. I do not know why; however, hopefully if we order them now they will still be available. Somehow purchasing missed the prebook date for them and we did not realize when they were coming out. Mistakes like this will be made. I just hope it's not that often and that everyone can bear with us while they happen.
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Everybody-

An update on the above, by the way: "12 Angry Men" is officially backordered! Woo-hoo! You gotta love an industry that won't give you an inch on ordering. In general, when we miss something it is absolutely our fault and our responsibility. It just drives me crazy that you can no longer correct such seemingly small mistakes. See, there was a time when preordering in the video industry was a nice thing. As opposed to paying $90 for a VHS cassette on the street date you could pay, say, $60 for it as long as you ordered it a month ahead of time.
It was beautiful for retailers, distributors, and studios. Everyone could plan. The distributors and studios could gauge what the market wanted on a title and duplicate accordingly. Retailers and distributors got price breaks for early ordering and studios got the much-needed forecast.
With DVD it's a wholly different story. Retailers either pre-order or get zero availability on the street date. There's no longer the price break incentive of preordering, only the fear of not being able to get product. Of course the "12 Angry Men" and the Fox titles that JustinS mentioned (and all the others) also have the problem of being "new to DVD" and it's never clear just by looking at a preorder list what is "new to DVD" and what is a re-release at a special new price.
The problems lie not only in studio advertising but in all the other aspects of the current DVD market (low availability due to a dearth of duplication services, titles constantly changing street dates with little or no notice, distributors not willing to hold overstock,
and a plethora of others). Included in this availability is the now huge number of retailers who don't rent because DVD is geared towards direct sellthrough. You don't have to compete for product with other retailers as a renter/retailer of VHS because of its price point.
I guess what I'm doing is being a whiny baby about how things aren't the way they used to be in the video industry and I don't want to make excuses because it's obvious that we are missing on ordering some fairly important titles. We will pull it together, though, and you can expect to see things looking better in terms of A) Street date corrections and obvious release date information, B) Released titles actually making it into our inventory in a timely manner, and C) Long-winded gripes about why it's not our fault becoming a thing of the past.

Happy St. Patrick's to those who celebrate. Have a safe weekend.

-Matt

ModoReese

For whatever its worth - I left the video distribution industry about a year and a half ago - and the issues mentioed above were certainly starting to take hold. The distributor I left went belly up about six months later. Pre-orders used to be a nice motivational thing to hit, now its an absolute necessity and a lot of stores had trouble coming to terms with that.

M

HepDude

I was under the impression that when you were agreeing with me, you were agreeing that it would be a good idea to carry the top Indian DVDs (say 10-20 to start, including those that I listed above that are best sellers) rather than just one popular title.

In other words, my point that I thought you agreed with, was about the convenience of being able to order both Hollywood and "Bollywood" DVDs in the same order. And that this convenience would override anyone's concerns about a less than comprehensive selection or less than encyclopedic descriptions.

Someone in the Bay Area who goes to the corner Indian grocery enjoys the convenience of getting the latest hit DVD along with the basmatic rice and toor dal. He realizes that anything more obscure than the top dozen or two titles will require a trip to the Indian DVD specialty store in Berkeley.

Similarly, for those of us who live miles from the nearest Indian grocer, it would be a convenience to be able to get the top dozen or two titles in the same rental order with "Almost Famous" - ie that one doesn't have to go to the Indian DVD web rental store and put in a separate Indian DVD rental order every time that a big hit film comes out on DVD. But there would be the understanding that to rent an obscure title would require renting from a specialist.

However, that surely requires contacting some sort of Indian distributor - but I can't imagine that the mom and pop who run the corner Indian grocery store and work 6-7 days a week have time for elaborate contract negotiations, so it can't be that complicated...

dvdhabit

One more thought: How about a refferal link for DVDTalk, I'm sure Geoff would appreciate some recipricating for the free marketing and feedback you have received through his site.

Rant

Just signed up for a Plan B membership over the weekend and have already had great customer service. After receiving my sign-up confirmation email, I added 3 titles to my Wishlist: Wonder Boys (out of stock), Meet the Parents, and The Contender. I purposely stopped at 3 with hopes that the second 2 would ship immediately and Wonder Boys would be restocked early this week. I received a shipping confirmation a few minutes later telling me that Meet the Parents and Contender had shipped. However, a few minutes later I received another confirmation email telling me the same thing. Uh oh. Quick check of my account status on the web page verified that indeed 2 copies of each had mistakenly shipped, meaning I was at my limit of 4. So I emailed customer service to tell them my dilemna. CS was closed until today, so I added a few more titles to my Wishlist. This morning I received a reply telling me that this problem happens occassionally and is caused by a software glitch in the Wishlist and that they would mark 2 of the titles as "Delayed in the Mail". A few minutes later, an email telling me that my next 2 Wishlist titles had shipped. Hats off to RMD!

sherm42

I was wondering when we can expect Alfred Hitchcock's ROPE to be available at your site for rental. It cam out over 2 weeks ago and should be available just like Rear Window.

Thanks

RMDInc

I thought the above was pretty clear, but when I saw the latest Hepdude post I got pretty frustrated. So,

Hepdude-

Please reread the provisions above and let it go for now. I realize that this issue of online obscure title rental is a high priority for you, though, and I'll go speak with one of the hard working mom or pops about the world of video rental on my next day off- which is scheduled for sometime in November.
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Rant and anyone else presently affected by the Wish List problem-

The programming department really is on the final lap of fixing this double order/double shipment thing. It has been a nightmare of minor proportion for us but an extremely valuable lesson; I am sorry for anyone and everyone that was or is frustrated by the confusion.
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Sherm42-

"Rope" and the rest of the Alfred Hitchcock collection that was just released will be here soon; but see above posts for why it won't be tomorrow.
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dvdhabit-

As you can see from the present site we really don't have any links for other sites. This is a conscious decision. But if the folks at dvdtalk would like to talk to us about any promotion ideas at all we are open. Geoff or anyone else- feel free to contact us via e-mail and we will get you in touch with the marketing department or whatever you would like.

-Matt

MPSAN

RMDInc

I do not recall seeing an answer to this...

Do you have any plans to offer something between 4 and 10 out? I want more than 4 but am afraid that the US Mail would make it unlikely that I could turn 10. $50 for 10 is a lot, and turning each (for 20 in a month) seems unlikely.

P.S. How good is mail link to Portland, Oregon, and do you expect that Seattle would help when online (without earthquakes)?

jfoobar

MPSAN-

I wrote them an email over a month ago suggesting this. They said it was a good idea and were looking into it. Nothing since then I'm afraid.

I'll reiterate. If they create a six-at-a-time membership, I will sign up immediately.