HepDude

The new cookie is an improvement.

But, it is still not implemented correctly.

If you select "Save Username & Password", then all that does is to fill the fields with those two words.

Once that is done, why make the user:

* Go to "Sign on" screen
* Click on the button that signs you on

instead of just doing those two steps for the user?

If the user has selected "Save Username & Password", then at that point there is no point in ever signing off the user.

Here is what Netflix does -

Their cookie saves the identity of the user. So, when the user goes to Netflix, there is a link for the wish list (aka "queue") and clicking on that link allows the user to do anything with the wish list.

However, if you want to do something with the account, like change credit card, address, plan level, etc. it requires you to sign in with your password.

The idea here is that if thieves break into your house and use your computer, the worst thing they can do is to change your wish list, and perhaps send you a really terrible movie.

Since the chance of even that happening is so remote, it is certainly helpful to not have to go through a sign-on procedure just to rearrange one's wish list.

An additional aid that Netflix is has, is that wish list (queue) link is generic, ie it does not have various session id information in it. So, customers can save that link as a bookmark/favorite, and open a browser directly on a page with their wisth list.

I can't imagine a more effective structure, and I doubt that there is anything in it unique to Netflix, and so there should not be a problem in simply emulating it.

J_Morrison

Ok I just signed up for the 4 at a time plan. Got my disc in time for the weekend and 2 of the discs were defective. I tried cleaning but that didn't work. One disc pixeled up and locked up around 1 chapter but I was able to manuver around it and finish the movie. The other one The Man Who Knew Too Much completely locked up halfway through and I couldn't finish it. I noticed a milky looking deformity on this disc. Very early Monday I emailed your service department about the 1 I couldn't finish and inquired about sending a replacement from my rental que. As of today I never got a response to my email. I'm not impressed.

FilmStudent

I enjoy using your service. I only wish that your suggestions for future rentals were much larger. In other words, when you go to the "thriller" category you get suggestions for 16 movies most of them a casual fan of thrillers would have already seen. And next to that is a section of "supernatural thrillers" which I think most casual fans of the genre would have seen.

By having a "deeper" selection of titles you will encourage people to rent more than just the new release catagories. You have the stock - it's just a question - of properly letting us know what you have.

Just a suggestion. Have a good day.

justwantmymovies

Well, when I first signed up with RentMyDVD I could get my DVD's in two days after it was shipped. And when I sent DVD's back it was 2 days. Now I see that slipping to 3 days....

I see the NetFlix mentality setting in....
It's very sad because I am very impressed with th customer service response time vs. NetFlix. Is that going to slip also??

Please don't go into the NetFlix mode, customers will leave and get upset.

RMDInc

Greetings Everybody. Here's a funny story:
At home I have an iMac with a 56K modem and I only run Netscape navigator on it. On Friday night I logged-on to this here forum, posted a lengthy reply to all interested parties, pressed the "Preview Reply" link which showed me that I had lost my connection; when I re-connected all my typing was gone. And then, lo and behold, the same thing happened on Saturday morning except I lost all my typing when I resized the browser window. The bottom line to all of this is that this will now be the third (and hopefully last) time that I am responding to Roo, HepDude, J_Morrison, FilmStudent, and justwantmymovies. Sorry it took so long to post.

Roo and HepDude-

The cookies are indeed better and working. I printed out HepDude's suggestions and just handed it to our head programmer- they'll take it under advisement. I hope that everyone out there understands, regarding HepDude's post above, that there are still other ways- strange and mysterious ways- that "Ishtar" may end-up on the top of your Wish List. Watch your backs.
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J_Morrison,

When I originally saw your post last Tuesday I checked with Customer Service- they assured me that your problem had been handled and that everything was worked-out. I am sorry there was a delay but please- and this is for everyone- realize that right now our Monday backlog of customer service requests and questions is pretty sizable. As a result, Saturday through Monday are the longest turn around days for customer requests. We are working on changing the hours of operation for the department in an effort to better serve all customers; the delay should be negligible in the upcoming weeks.
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FilmStudent-

One of the reasons that we created the new Advanced Search is so that anyone can explore genres and subgenres more extensively. The link for the Advanced Search is in the top bar of the site and you can search using numerous criteria- rating, language, rentability, etc... Give it a try and you'll certainly see what you're looking for.
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Justwantmymovies-

I am sorry that you are noticing and increase in your mail times. All I can tell you; and I have verified this with both New York and San Francisco warehouse staffs; is that returns and outgoing mail are still performed on the same day. That is to say that as long as the USPS gives them to us we get your next item out that day. Nothing is slipping regarding shipments and incoming mail on our end. I don't know what to tell you other than that.
____________________________________________________________

'Til next time everybody

-Matt

efran

Just wanted to ask who the hell has rented out "From The Earth To The Moon" disc one for so frikkin long! FTETTM has been in my queue since I signed up 3 months ago, but I keep on moving the series down because disc 1 isn't available yet.

Also, you need more "unrated" titles. Please get "Femalien", "Price Of Desire" and "Bare Wench Project"!

KyleB

Maybe I'm the only one this bothers... when I go looking for something I often find a whole slew of stuff that is not available, and has AFAIK not even been RUMORED for release on DVD. Why not get rid of everything unless you have it, or are planning to buy it shortly, or it's an upcoming release that you plan to buy?

I will add myself to those who would like a larger anime selection.

How are plans for the Philadelphia shipping location? Still on the drawing board?

Dave654

Firstly, thanks for accepting questions here....

How is it that you determine who gets priority on high demand movies?
Lets say that (hypothetically) the movie Castaway is all rented out. When somebody finally returns one of the copies, who will it be sent to next? Is it essentially a "first come, first served" basis ( meaning -- whoever puts Castaway on their wishlist first gets the highest priority)? Or do the "Hooked On Dvd" members receive any higher priority than the "regular users" in this regard? And...if so...do the Plan B "Hooked On Dvd" members receive priority over the Plan A members, and so on....? How does the wishlist function, with respect to all of this?

I noticed that the following question was posed a while back in this Forum, but I am wondering if you might have an update of any kind. Obviously, this is very relevant to me since I live in a suburb of Dallas, and live quite far from your present 2 distribution centers. I suspect (based on prior experience) that it would now take at least 3 -- or more likely 4 days for movies to be delivered to me. Presently, your customers who live much closer to your distribution centers have an obvious advantage over people like myself, who live further away. I am wondering if you are willing to now provide (at least) an indication as to when your Dallas Distribution Center will open? Are there other soon-to-be distribution centers that are of a higher priority than the Dallas one -- and thus will be opened earlier? Please elaborate as much as possible...

Speaking of which, It doesn't appear that your web site's graphic for FAQ "5: How long will it take to get my DVDs?" has sufficient supporting info.

TIA for your responses.

Dave

jee

Hi.. I've been using RMD for about 2 months now but don't come here to the forum that often anymore. Just thought I would post a little..

About the comment above, I know where you're coming from yet at the same time I've had Begotten in my queue since it was first released and its been out of stock the entire time. I believe thats the only thing left in the queue and I just keep hoping I get an email one of these days that its shipped. So to me it does feel like its gone and not coming back. Usually in these situations if I have enough interest in the DVD I either buy it unseen or put it on a list to view in the future.

I love RMD. I came from Netflix and will never go back there (I'll buy all my DVDs unseen before I go back there) and would really love to spend more money at your site but unfortunately everything I want to see at this point is out or unavailable. This isn't really a complaint. I understand that alot of people want newer stuff more than classic horror and the things that I like. I'm just hoping one day I can find what I want at your site.

I also think its great that you're here on this forum. Even before I knew you were here I had nothing but good experiences with emailing your customer support.

sm8680

I do believe that the out of stock issues will continue grow as more and more renters come onboard. I've purposely reduced my wish list for movies that are released. Currently 3 of the 6 DVD's in my wish list are out of stock. At which the 3 available that I do have in my list I could care less if they are ever mailed to me for they are filler movies. The Legend of the Drunken Master still is out of stock even after RMD reordered more a few weeks ago.

Seeing another feature from another competitor: Another online site ships out DVDs twice in a day once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Why hasn't RMD tried this approach. For it may cut down the renting cycle by a day. For I'm somewhat finding it hard to believe that it takes 3 days for a DVD from PA to NJ to appear checked in. Especially if its dropped prior to 11 am in the mail on a given day. For people in states further away I feel for you. For I once rented from netflick.com and their lifecycle was 8 days or worse.

Personally if a DVD arrives in the morning the next one it should go out in the morning before 11am. Anything after 11am usually arrives a day later.

Jeraden

Well I had my first bad experience with RMD today. I'm on the plan with 2 dvds out at any one time and always return both movies in the same envelope. Well, they received my returns today but only recorded that I returned one of the 2 movies, so it looks like they think I still have one of them. I wrote them an email but didn't hear anything back today and they already missed the mail to get my other dvd out today. So now I won't receive it till Monday... I had been having good success with always having both movies for the weekend and returning them on Monday since I don't really have much time to watch them during the week. Will let you know how long it takes them to resolve it.

RMDInc

efran-

I checked it out in the database and one of our copies actually has been checked-out by the same person since March. This, of course, puts the other FTETTMs in higher circulation, etc. Just to be safe I've told purchasing to add one more copy to New York's inventory.
Regarding "unrated" titles- especially two of the three you mention- it's not a matter of not wanting to get and keep many of these in stock; a lot has to do with the physical quality of the DVDs. There are studios and vendors out there that truly make an under-par DVD. We can ship them once, for instance, before the substandard paint flakes off the front of the DVD or before the entire thing actually delaminates and we're left with both a plastic ring and an exposed DVD as a return. Not that I can blame the studios or vendors- these discs are ridiculously cheap for us to buy; unfortunately they are also of such cheap quality that buying them does not pay off. We will continue doing what we can to stock as much as we can; however, as time goes by and we learn what does and does not last, we may be forced to not buy some studios' DVDs until the quality improves.
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KyleB-

More Anime is in the works, Philadelphia is pretty low on the list of new offices (just mileage-wise it has to be far down on the list), and the database is actually in need of a cleaning as well, but not necessarily as you state it.
One of our goals is to have a vastly extensive database of movies that will be able to inform our customers whether or not what they are looking for is even on DVD; what we need then is simply more descriptive designations for titles; whether "Rumored" or "Coming Soon" or "In Theaters," what we need is a different kind of cleaning. What you may want to do for your personal searches is use the "View Rentable Titles Only" from our Advanced Search page.
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Dave654-

The Wish List works in strange and mysterious ways.......
That is all ye need know.
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Dave654-

Actually, it's not all that mysterious. Priority is not given to Members over Regular Users or vice-versa; however, Regular Users do not have Wish Lists, so unless they are renting the title at a time when it is in stock and available they are out of luck. Members do not get priority over other Members based on how much they pay or anything like that, the priority lies only in the actuality of what happens during processing of the Wish Lists. You must 1) have an available rental opening and 2) have the high demand item as the first available title on your Wish List. And that's it.
As far as Dallas is concerned I think that it is fair at this point to assume that it will be the next branch opened. Geographically it makes the most sense and our longest shipping times at this point are to the Lone Star State. We are looking at opening some branches simultaneously, but I'm just not sure where these negotiations stand or where the other branches are going to be. "Before the End of the Year" is the firmest time frame I can get from any of the decision makers in this matter.
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jee-

The "Begotten" situation sort of relates to what I was telling efran above, but "Begotten" was a somewhat decent disc released by a small studio. I cannot even say at this point if the breakage was due to cheap discs or simple mishandling, but basically our New York inventory has been obliterated and our San Francisco stock is very low. Purchasing has more on order but it doesn't look like any distributors have any copies themselves. So here's what to do: send customer service an e-mail, tell them Matt on the forum wants you to have "Begotten" and I'll take care of it. Forum users get special treatment because I say so.
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sm8680-

I'm not sure where we are giving the impression that we only do once-a-day deliveries but the fact is that we do perform drop-offs twice-a-day as per your description above. I can't say why your returns are taking so long, but the simple fact is that they are processed on the same day that we receive them. If you notice that it takes three days, that is three days shipping time. No return remains in our warehouse unchecked-in for any appreciable length of time.
The only problem with saying "if a DVD arrives in the morning the next one it should go out in the morning before 11am" is that the bulk of all returns are received in the morning. To process all returns and outgoing shipments before 11am would give our shipping staff far too much free time in the afternoon. Same day turnaround of returns and new orders going out is about the best anyone can do: it can never always be before 11am but it can definitely sometimes be, and is, before 11.

____________________________________________________________

Jeraden,

I noticed that your post was from yesterday and I'm assuming without having talked to anyone in customer service that your needs were met about this matter. Please let me know how long it took to get a response, if you were satisfied, etc...
____________________________________________________________

Have a good weekend everybody. And don't forget to play our latest game- The Independence Day Challenge. It is absolutely hilarious if you ask me and I should know....


'Til Next Time,

Matt

Jeraden

In regards to my problem... I never heard back from anyone on Thursday - I had mailed the '[email protected]' address then. First thing this morning I emailed '[email protected]' instead, thinking that might be more appropriate. As of right now I still haven't heard back from either email attempt and it still shows that I have the disc checked out.

sm8680

From a renters perspective I've never seen in my emails that a DVD shipped in the morning or afternoon. Usually the emails come in the afternoon. There would be a difference in shipping time. Usually everything takes 3 days to get to me.

You can count on me wasn't received today and if its received on Monday thats a 4 day wait from NJ to Pittsburgh. So yes I'm seeing the same as another member were orders being shipped are taking an extra day or two now.

Currently 4 out of 7 DVDs in my wish list are out of stock, 2 are new releases for tuesday, and one item which I hope never ships for if it does then that will be my last month of renting (Rugrats in Paris) and another item was shipped from the bottom of my queue again today. Legend of the drunken master is still out of stock. I'd appreciate if you'd address these issues instead of bypassing them. Otherwise I'm gone. This is very disheartening to me.

Jeraden

I live in Pittsburgh also and it usually only takes 2 day turnaround. On one occasion it took 3 days for them to check a movie in (Monday mailed, Thursday checked in), but all other times its been 2-day in each direction. They shipped 1 disc to me on Thursday and I received it today. (should have been 2 discs... grr... reference above complaint

HepDude

RMD wrote: The question is still not answered.

Assume 20 people have an available rental opening and have the item as the first available title on their Wish List.

And one copy comes in.

Since it is a computer, there has to be some ordering.

Preferrable is that when you add an item to your Wish List, a date is assigned. And then the person amongst the 20 who has the earliest date gets it. But, I doubt that your software is that sophisticated.

So, what undoubtedly happens is that Wish Lists are processed at Wish List Processing Time (the afternoon one is usually around 3:15pm or 3:30pm). From amongst the 20 in our example, whoever has their Wish List processed first gets the item.

Now, what is the order of Wish List processing? It could simply be whatever the programmer found to be easiest, back when RMD was started. It could be alphabetically (do those whose last names start with A or B have the most customer satisfaction at RMD? ). But probably, the first customer to sign up is 001, the second customer is 002, and so forth - simply because that is the easiest to program. Unfortunately, if true, this is bad for the bottom line, as your original customers are loyal, but the newcomers who try your service can't get anything, and your customer base grows more slowly.

Somewhat more fair, and easier to program than the optimum method of date-entered-into-wish-list, is at Wish List Processing Time, generate a random number, process the Wish List of the customer whose customer number equals that random number, generate another random number, etc. However, while more fair, this still sometimes gives the item to someone who just placed it on their list an hour ago, while someone who has been waiting 3 months doesn't get it.

One source of these problems is that the total size of RMD is still way less than Netflix. For many of the more obscure titles, like foreign, cult or indie titles, RMD has one copy per location. For the same sort of obscure titles, I often receive "Copy 39" from Netflix. In actuality, the supply proportional to the demand may be similar, but there are severe problems that occur when the total supply for a title is only 1 or 2.

We can see the obvious problem in RMD's reply above, where it is stated that Disk 1 of the series has not been available for 3 months, because one person has kept the disk checked out for the whole time! I received an e-mail from Netflix encouraging me to sign up for 8 out (or whatever the big program is) so that I can keep one or two of my favorite titles on a semi-permanent basis. This is great for the company - no postage costs - but only for a company where the loss of one disk is not 50% or 100% of the inventory.

Also, if your total supply for a title is 1 disk, then when it is lost in the mail, or defective, the supply drops to zero.

In my own use, I've certainly found that it's no problem getting titles like "Traffic" at RMD, because availability of those titles are manually monitored, and they can easily be obtained from distributors within 24 hours.

However, there doesn't seem to any software monitoring of demand vs. supply, so titles like "Legend of Drunken Master" can have more demand than "Traffic", but go unnoticed until someone e-mails or posts here.

Again, RMD seems to be putting all their funds into building regional locations. None of my title suggestions over the past 5 months have been obtained (whether posted here or sent by email), and it seems clear from the snail's pace of advance, that there is only one software person to write what an entire software department should be writing.

And, over those 5 months, as the number of members has increased, there are that many more people chasing that one copy of obscure titles...

[Edited by HepDude on 07-01-01 at 03:14 PM]

Themllnium

I have read the rave reviews here and I am very in impressed with the responsiveness of Matthew so I went and signed up. I wanted the 2 DVD membership so I attempted
to sign up for it but I missed moving the little dot from 4 DVD to 2 DVD. SOOOOOOO I inadvertently signed up for your 4 DVD membership instead of the 2. This peeved me a little.
Ive emailed your customer service in hopes of reversing this ASAP and am waiting for their response. My suggestion is leave the dot empty so people can make a conscious effort in picking their decided plan. Being irritated at the beginning of a relationship is not a good thing. Maybe its me and Im half asleep...or maybe its a change you should consider.


Thanks

RMDInc

Jeraden-

It's finally taken care of. I am still trying to figure out why the problem wasn't taken care of upon your initial request- no one in Customer Service seems to have either e-mail that you sent; this doesn't quite do it for me as far as explanations go. I'll let you know. In the meantime your next one will be on the way. And I'm sorry it took so long.
I really would have just done it myself sooner but it's such a no-brainer that I figured that it would be done in no time as is standard. ____________________________________________________________

sm8680-

Just as happened last week you are telling me that unreleased titles are "Out of Stock" and it is upsetting to you. Last Saturday (when you wrote your most recent post) the titles that are being released tomorrow were, indeed, "Out of Stock"- not because we had rented out of them but because we cannot rent Tuesday releases to you on Saturday. It is plain and it is simple. The database is changed a few days before a title's release to reflect the fact that is now an actual database entity as opposed to a "Coming Soon"- a change that is necessary before our warehouses can input actual inventory.
So, on Saturday, 2 of your 7 titles were coming soon, 2 titles were unavailable and you had 2 titles either en-route to you or in your house that were released on the 26th (last Tuesday). You apparently have an item on your Wish List that you do not wish to receive and you maintain a short Wish List for some reason that still remains unknown to me.
At any given time you only have two titles that are allowed to be checked-out to you so it would do very little good if all of your items were always available- an idea that has been discussed elsewhere in this forum. The simple fact is that you have maintained this short Wish List for some time with the same "Rugrats in Paris" at the bottom and you have not received "Rugrats in Paris." I do apologize for the "Legend of the Drunken Master" availability; however, I do not appreciate you saying that "I'd appreciate if you'd address these issues instead of bypassing them" when I have addressed your problems every time you bring them up. Here are the facts that address your problems:

You get same-day turnaround of your returns and outgoing DVDs. This has happened for each and every one of your transactions. To expect such turnaround before 11am for every transaction is to expect too much.

You average 11 DVDs per month on the 2-out plan which means that you turn each DVD 5.5 times. This further means that a round-trip average for each DVD is 5.45 days which is 2.73 days each way. If you are experiencing mail delays I strongly urge you to talk to your local Postmaster. Often we find that internal Post Office politics or problems can cause local delays.

As far as I know we have never sent you "Rugrats In Paris" and hopefully we never will.
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Themllnium-

Definitely not a trivial matter this whole Plan B-as-default thing on sign-up. I've talked to the Programmers a couple of times and have gotten no real answer as to whether or not this will change. We were having a bigger problem when the "Update My Membership" page had a "B" default. We got rid of that one, but obviously we still have a little ways to go. I spoke with customer service and they told me they had handled one of these problems today. So... Either it was you or the problem is bigger than the both of us. Just let me know. And thanks for saying I impressed you; that's truly a great compliment.
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HepDude, HepDude, HepDude-

Obviously I've saved the best for last today. I'll try and take your items one at a time this afternoon, but please, please, just one favor for the future:
Stop drawing these bizarre conclusions about our decision making processes. Regardless of your own personal powers of persuasion in making yourself believe that it must be the case that Rentmydvd operates this way because you can see no other possibility, the fact remains that you have no idea. So......................

Regarding Wish Lists and their processing: The process for now is random. I shant say how or why or anything like that for it would be imprudent (mainly regarding competition). Rest assured, though, that neither the beginning of the alphabet, nor the oldest customers, nor the New Yorkers, nor any other ordering system you can think of are any better-off than anyone else. The programmers are in the depths of creating the HepDude-dubbed "sophisticated" processing of time-placed Wish List priority. In this way no one is favored for arbitrary reasons but is favored based on the interdependent qualities of seniority and desire.

You are correct in stating that the proportionality of supply to demand is adequate for most older titles. And while it would be easy to start our inventory numbers at 39 or some such other artificial number, to throw the hounds off our inventory quantities as it were, we do not choose to do so. You are further correct in your statements of one dropping to zero causing a significant problem, but please keep in mind that one or two per branch is two or four, respectively, nation-wide. As we add more branches with matching stock those numbers necessarily raise with each branch. OHMIGOSH- adding branches adds inventory; it's not just a chain of moneypits after all. Now, granted, we need to add the programming (actually just alter the programming in place) in order to make use of the exception file reports that sm8680 talks about in his post of June 11. We are working on that too and when it's done we can eliminate much of the obscure title demand that we were unable to foresee.
____________________________________________________________

And I'd like to end on a note of positivism today: Yes, we are getting bigger and with bigger hopefully comes better. There may be "Out of Stock" listings in your Wish Lists, there may be occasional "Legend of Drunken Master" problems, and there may be other problems, too. But please don't think that we must necessarily then begin failing our long-time customers and letting our service slip. We are in this for the long haul and, as such, the only way we can keep on keeping-on is with continued business. And that means we can't do it without you, so thank you all for using our service and special thanks to our forum users for keeping us on our toes.

-Matt

Jeraden

Thanks Matt! You rock!

Themllnium

I fully agree. Customer service fixed my problem and now Im in the right plan.

Thanks again!

HepDude

I think you are being disingenuous here, because you well know that you do not allow customers to rent from your other branches - even if they request it be done manually by your staff.

As a result, if the one copy of the aforementioned DVD that is part one of the series, is being held by one customer for 3 months, then no one in that region can rent it, even if you have 100 copies in the other region.

Also, you implied that perhaps copy numbers of other stores don't start at 1, when you stated: Well, here is the number of customer ratings for a typical disk that RMD only has one copy of: and, of course, plenty of people ignore the "now that you've watched this, please rate it" e-mails.

And, BTW, your participation continues to be appreciated, and I'm sure has a positive effect on the bottom line for RMD.

[Edited by HepDude on 07-02-01 at 08:28 PM]

kino eye

Hey, I'm also from NY and also have Begotten in my queue. I hope I can get it after jee.

RMDInc,
I wanted to know if you were going to order the rest of The Twilight Zone collection in the near future.
And last, but not least - another vote for getting more foreign films.

Thank you.

Dave654

Hi Matt,

Thanks for being so attentive here.

I just signed on with you guys on Sunday. FYI: 5 out of my top 10 initial DVD requests are currently "out of stock".

I'm gonna pass on some suggestions here. I don't mean to sound demanding. These are my personal opinions and observations. Take 'em, or leave 'em. I also have some questions for you.

With respect to my initial comment above: Are you tallying data from wish lists and using this to [attempt to] maintain quantities?

What is the status on FAQ: 18. Making reservations?
I also have some comments along these lines, below:

I think that you should give priority on access to movies based upon a combo of seniority, subscription level, and first come - first served. There should be more flexibility on the wishlist as well in that we shouldn't have to have a given movie listed as the "first available title on our Wish List" (as you implied would be necessary) in order to receive a given high demand movie ahead of other customers. This is especially relevant since people like me have the top 5 movies on our wishlist unavailable to us due to them being "out of stock".

The following is a seperate issue (though somewhat related) from what your company represents in FAQ question 18:
Hooked on DVD members (especially Plan B and higher) should be able to (if done so early enough) "lock in" a request for an upcoming new movie release well in advance of its release date. Once you determine an "appropriate" number of dvds of that title to order/purchase for yourselves, based (at least partially) on the info related to wish lists, then send an (automated) email to the relative customers who requested that movie the earliest, to inform them that that movie title WILL be shipped to their home within 2,3,4 days of its release date. Since you receive your new releases ahead of time, it seems that you could even place them in the mail system a day or two ahead of the release date to be shipped to the "first round" of your customers.

You should somehow give people a financial incentive for the "Hooked on DVD" customers to return movies early. If they commit to going along with that incentive, and then they don't live up to that commitment to return the movie within X number of days (several days after having recieved it) then they should be penalized (maybe with a small late fee). This way, you can (for example) consequently send a relative email to the "2nd round" of subscribers who have pre-ordered a new release flick(and so on...) well in advance of a new release movie's original release date, informing them that they will receive that movie 12 or 14 days after the release date, or whatever. In a similar sense, basically the same thing can apply to all of your available movies that are currently "out of stock".... Your customers would GREATLY appreciate an email at least giving a close "estimation" as to when they will receive such movies. And you would prosper more as a result.

Once you open your Dallas distribution center, you could of course "tighten" all of the due dates, etc. by a day, or two -- where applicable, thus providing faster over-all service to your customers. Hopefully opening your Dallas store is of a high priority for you. Us Texans won't stand for the extended shipping times for long But seriously, your company would be very foolish not to seriously prioritize the delivery time issue, in such a manner. I am frankly very surprised that you guys don't at least have a concrete set date for your Dallas distribution center's construction and/or opening. However, knowing when I will receive the presently unavailale movies on my wishlist is more important to me than receiving my movies a few days earlier than I expect to presently. The ability for me to receive movies in a more efficient time frame won't do me any good, if those movies aren't available to be shipped to me in the first place (when you open your Dallas center, you will undoubtedly "guess low" on what quantities to stock it with initially, your advertising will increase, thus increasing demand, etc......). So now you know where my priorities would lie....

If you do indeed have a problem with people sitting on movies for extensive periods of time, you should highly consider (in addition to incentives mentioned above) requiring all members to return each dvd within a reasonable specified period of time from the date in which they ordered that dvd. Or, as an alternative, they may of course purchase the movie within that time length -- and they should be able to pay a bit less if purchased sooner, for an additional incentive to them to be timely.

The bottom line is that if you cover the bases well, you can -- in an essentially automated fashion (with the proper system implemented) inform all of your customers well in advance as to when they will recieve virtually every one of their desired movies to within a couple of days. You will then be able to do another thing that blockbuster can't: Commit to presenting specific movies to your customer on (basically) a given day -- even the ones that you don't have in stock when they first request them. So.....your customers will be wowed by how awesome your service is, they will be happy, they won't bother you and the rest of your Customer Service reps nearly as much, you're business will flourish, your online competition will shake in their boots, and blockbuster will have the competition that they deserve.

Another personal note:
It is great that one can redeem the coupon from Samsung products as a "hooked on dvd" member(contrary to what the coupon itself actually states). However, I figured this out somewhat by chance. You guys need to make this opportunity more clear to your potential customers out there. You'll get more "steady" business out of it.



Here are some responses to some of your comments:


"The database is changed a few days before a title's release to reflect the fact that is now an actual database entity as opposed to a "Coming Soon"- a change that is necessary before our warehouses can input actual inventory."

You guys really need to start indicating the release dates of upcoming movies in your search results, etc. Most of the public would consider this to be a "given" necessity of your service.


"The programmers are in the depths of creating the HepDude-dubbed "sophisticated" processing of time-placed Wish List priority. In this way no one is favored for arbitrary reasons but is favored based on the interdependent qualities of seniority and desire."

I personally think (and I'm quite sure that most others would agree) that it's fair for rentmydvd to prioritize the more "loyal" customers (higher paying/longer tenure) above others -- and I say this even though I am a new member -- using Plan B. And certainly the idea of "first come - first served" needs to come into play, as well. < Is this what you mean by the last word in the above quote -- being "desire"? I strongly believe that we have a right to know (at least basically) what such policies are -- or will soon be. And its not as if your competition will benefit from it...... It's simply a matter of "doing the right thing" for your customers, and further explaining to us customers essentially where we stand in your relative decision making process.
Furthermore: Please let us know here when you have an idea as to when this change in your system will take place.


on 3-7-01 you mentioned:
"Not Available" means one of two things: either the title is not available on DVD or the title is on DVD but not available on our site."
Do you have any update on the status of this issue?
This also brings the following to mind: You should have a way of tracking the movies that are available to you -- but you have not purchased -- yet your customers desire sufficiently enough for you to decide to consequently add them to your stock. Maybe you can simply track the present searches/queries by your customers on your web site that turn up "dry", and sum up that data. I suppose that y'all could then quite easily manually adjust the related database records accordingly, if necessary -- thus identifying availability dates, etc. It seems that you could do so without too much trouble, since you evidently already have a very large selection of DVDs on hand, anyway.

What's the deal with the original "Terminator" dvd not being available? Did everybody buy them all up from you?

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Jeraden

To respond to the post above with my opinions... I don't think you should base priorities on how long a person has been a member, thats just not fair. You could have a new member waiting 3 months for something while older members keep snatching up all the copies. If anything that is just going to piss the new members off and make them quit the program. I think it should be solely first come first serve, but you'd need to do something to prevent someone from adding 1000 different titles to their wish list just so by the time they actually get to renting some of the stuff, it would have been in their list so long they'd be first in line. Like maybe only capture the date when its put in the top 10 rental spots or something (or have the top X rental spots, where X is based on your membership level).

sm8680

I dealt with Customer service via the phone today concerning a crack DVD the guy was very courteous and professional in taking care of the situation concerning this cracked DVD and shipped out another Dude where's my car. My hotmail account was down at work and I called back in later and he said it was taken care of and of course I was followed up with an email that I just read now.

Concerning my wish list. I tend to rent the latest greatest that come out. I try to view the top twenty from Entertainment weekly within reason plus a few rare others. Netflick would ship out Tuesdays new releases in Saturdays mail I believe. That's if I recall correctly my mind could be fading. On average as of late my queue has 2 soon to be releases for Tuesday. I pulled Rugrats out of my queue as of today. 4 of the 6 titles in my queue are out of stock. Legend of the drunken master has been out of stock since day 1. For me a 3 out plan would be sufficient. A 4 out plan was just to much for me. But if my wishlist grows with items that I want to rent I'll bump up to the 4 plan again.

Matt I believe you have my wish list wrong for Saturday. My wish list for last Saturday was 7 DVDs of which 1 was in stock (Rugrats). 2 were to be released that tuesday (Snatch & The Wedding Planner) and the other 4 were out of stock (The Legend of the Drunken Master, Unbreakable, The Pledge, and Shadow of a Vampire) those are still in my queue out of stock. Also 2 were enroute to me which once enroute they are no longer considered a part of the wish list. Those were Dude Where's my car and You can count on me. These 2 sent to me were all at the bottom of my list above The Rugrats.

Prior to your previous post on 06-29-01 05:27 PM you bypassed out of stock items issue. Your post to me mainly talked about shipping twice a day. I did a run over of your stock and it appears that quite a bit of items are available in stock which is good. My 4 out of stock items are in high demand. Is their a way that a high profiled user/griper like me can edit other peoples wish lists. I could load them up with Ishtars. Just kidding.

I hit you guys with a semi/pretty hard post prior to today. For the main movies I wanted to see within the past week were unbreakable and the pledge and when I saw that I was queued up to ship with almost at the bottom of my wish list this ate at me. Plus the fact that it took an extra day for you can count on me to arrive. Of which we can't control the post office. But the post office rocks I trust them more so than some family members.

Overall I'm pleased I'm just hoping to avoid a netflick diseaster where items sat in your queue forever and my last 2 months at netflick I was lucky if I got 2 out of 4 dvds per week in my 4 out plan there. There was a week were I got just 1 dvd and another time were I got none in a week. Call it the battered renter synodrome I've seen it before happen not saying it will happen with you guys but once you see a pattern you tend to react. That's the quality assurance mindset in me. Realistically I shouldn't let one and a half crappy weeks worth or rents cloud the previous months. You guys are experiencing growth and with growth comes challenges of which you appear to wanna grapple them. I've also decided not to load up my queue with the occasional filler DVD.

I do hope the exception reports work. For you can use that for understocked items as well as overstocked items. Overstocked items could be sold, Fleabayed, or become part of the new national frisbee DVD tossing holiday or given away to outstanding members. Heck you could write that off. I always said we should build a city with our old VHS tapes.

Thanks guys for taking care of my queue and for taking care of dude you cracked my car.