Michael Arrington of TechCrunch writes about finally canceling his 5-year-old Netflix subscription and switching to Blockbuster Total Access. His complains mainly involve Inability to get new releases quickly. Netflix deliberately buys a low supply of new releases, since the price points for new DVDs differ at the day of their release and two weeks later. After the initial two weeks passed, the fans of the movie have all bought in, responding to ads and other marketing hype, driving them to “own it today”. The price points change by roughly 25-30% and stay at that level till a 12-month drop, when the movie usually ends up in a bargain bin.
Meanwhile, Blockbuster provides the same plans, with a few twists that position it radically better than current Netflix offering.
- You can return movies in store. And therefore have the clerks record the fact in Blockbuster database, meaning that a new movie is on its way the same or next day.
- You can exchange movies in store. If you bring in a return from Blockbuster Online, you can also choose to exchange it for an in-store rental. Subject to the same rules as regular in-store rentals, this provides immediate gratification, especially in the case of a new release.
- You get a coupon valid for a free in-store rental of a movie or a game. This is not related to the above offering, just a little freebie they provide with subscription to Total Access.
So what are the issues with Blockbuster? By now seems good to be true, right?
- Blockbuster’s selection of foreign or specialty DVDs is occasionally worse. – Might matter a lot or might not matter at all. Mostly it concerns hard-to-find foreign titles, such as Russian The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers is available on Netflix, but not at Blockbuster.
- Majority of Blockbuster DVDs are widescreen, which is great, if you’re an owner of a widescreen HDTV, and which means losing 30% of screen real estate to nice black stripes, if you own a full-screen HDTV.
That’s it. If you’re not too much into foreign or weird movies that are hard to find, and own a widescreen TV, Blockbuster Total Access has exactly 0 disadvantages.
for anyone who wants to try Blockbuster Total Access
one month free trial (3 DVD out at a time plan)
go to http://www.blockbuster.com/bbfamily
use promo code: 1842ta
Widescreen is a drawback? That seems like a big plus to me. But in my experience NetFlix is mostly WS versions as well.
Blockbuster has given each Corporate employee a code to pass to friends/family for a free trial! PASS THIS ON even if you don’t sign up!
Blockbuster has recently debuted an integrated in-store/online service: Blockbuster Total Access (TM)
1) Sign up for Blockbuster Online
2) Choose movies for your Queue
3) Receive movies in the mail
4) Return via mail and receive next movies from your Queue
or
4) Return movies to your local store in exchange for free in-store rentals (any movie), and your next online Queue movies will be on the way as well!!
5) Try this for free for ONE MONTH via Blockbuster Friends and Family program (the general public only gets two weeks free)
GO TO:
http://www.blockbuster.com/bbfamily
Enter this code: 1516ta
Enjoy!!
Note: The program you will receive one month free is the “3 – Out” program (three movies from online out at a time + unlimited exchanges @ the store). This is regularly priced @ a low $17.99/month. If you don’t cancel the free trial within the trial period, this is the program you will be automatically renewed at. Believe me, it’s worth it!!
You can pass this benefit on to other friends or family. Just include the details above. Offer is valid for new subscribers only. If you have had the service before but the account is no longer active, just use a different email address and take advantage of this free trial for one month.
Offer Expires January 7, 2007
If you already have the service, I want to thank you for choosing Blockbuster Online! YOU ROCK!!
It’s good to know a Blockbuster Employee!
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO ASK!
Unfortunately, Blockbuster does not require individual franchise owners to honor the Total Access program. All Blockbuster stores within 120 miles of me are franchises that are not participating in the program. As I cannot participate in the Total Access program and there is a Netflix facility closer than a Blockbuster On-Line mailer, this constitutes a huge drawback for Blockbuster vs. Netflix in this area of the country.
This is what I wrote to Blockbuster Online cust svc. when I was cancelling my Total Access online plan today 1-Feb-07, gives you some insight/warning on the program:
WEBSITE FUNCTIONALITY…
When looking at new releases releasing this week, I would much prefer having a pop-up mini window appear when I hover over a movie title that says what the movie is about etc. You have this on other parts of the website, but not there. It should be available anywhere I see a movie title. Netflix has this.
ON WHICH MOVIE YOU SEND THAT’S AT/NEAR TOP OF QUEUE…
Netflix also seems to have more of eachmovie, or at closer distribution centers, so with them there are less movies that I have a “wait” for than on the Blockbuster site. Also, I believe that for Blockbuster, if you have a movie available, but it is located at a distant-from-me distribution center, you will not send it to me, but will send the next one in my queue instead. I would rather make that choice myself, or have it as a setting for my account overall, where I could choose “1.) always send the movie in my queue that will get to me fastest” OR “2.)always send the 1st movie in my queue that is available, even if it will take longer to get to me”. Option 1) is better for people who just want to get a mailer movie so they can bring it into the store to get what they really want, some people use Total Access like this, so they can get more movie rental mailers/in-store-coupons per month for cheaper than if they had the in store Movie Pass. Option 2) is better for people who actually look forward to watching that movie that is 1st in their queue and “available”. These people get let down when this “available” movie is skipped in favor of the next movie in queue that is getting to them faster (this was the case with me a couple times, at least it shouldn’t say “available” if its not actually going to be the next one shipped). Or maybe we could be given an option on our My Queue page for each movie that’s near/at the top of our queue if we get there in time before our acct. is ready for a movie to be shipped, such as: “Click here if you would like us to next ship this movie (1st in Queue), expected shipping time 4days”, OR “Click here if you would like us to ship the 2nd movie in your queue instead, expected shipping time 2 days”. We could choose on each movie this way, or you could do it where we have our acct. defaulted to always choose either the fastest one or the one with a higher queue priority.
ON YOUR CLAIM of FAST SHIPPING TIMES…
I hope the above problem is not a result of you trying to keep your statistics up on “shipping times”, so you can say “Blockbuster Online has normal 2 day shipping times”(mine usually came in just one day!-but might not have always been the next “available” one in my queue that I wanted : ( Maybe we’d rather get the one we want later instead of the one we don’t want as much sooner. I hope this wasn’t your “solution” to keep your shipping time stats up, you should really consider taking care of your customers (by perhaps getting more titles at more distribution centers as soon as financially possible), over pulling in new customers using your advertisements on shipping times. We expect not only that we’ll get a movie fast, but that it’s the one we are expecting to get and want most.
WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE
Hope that this tactic you have used thus far has gotten you enough $$ and customer base that you can now focus on getting more titles at more distribution centers like Netflix.
WHAT THE BETTER OPTION FOR ME IS NOW…
For me, I live practically across the street from Blockbuster, so I am going to pay a few bucks more and get the in-store Movie Pass 2 at a time for $25, because even though you can use mailers as in-store coupons and all, there are times more than once a month when I don’t have one available to use, or I have one but don’t want to quite watch it or return it yet, and so can’t get a free in-store rental. Better would be 4 in store rental coupons per month than just one. I’m switching to in-store only, though I am sad that I will be missing out on the titles that are available online but not in store. They are not the big name movies that I hear about and want to watch, but sometimes there are interesting titles that are only available online that I desire to be able to rent at a reasonable price.
I’D SWITCH BACK TO ONLINE IF…
Wish there was a cheaper way to get those more rare titles since I prefer in store renting. Like you could make it unltd. in store rentals, with like 3 online rentals per month for those times when you want a rare title, but it would have to be under $25. That would be my ideal, or give me like 4 instore coupons per month with unltd. online rentals
ON FIXING YOUR ONLINE CANCELLATION METHOD…
Oh, and when I was cancelling my online account, I typed all this then it said “must be 255 characters or less”. It should have said that where it said:
“How Can We Improve? Would you mind taking a minute to explain why you’ve decided to cancel your account?”
And should have only allowed me to type in 255 characters max, and if I wanted to say more, should have shown me where to go right there to email cust. svc. with my comments.
Then, when I was in the final step of cancelling and chose “Cancel my account now”, (no I didn’t want to choose one of those other plans) I got a server error and no confirmation and had to email you through the website with my request for cancellation. I am suspicious of you for this now because I used to have regular Blockbuster online before you had the Total Access program, and when I was trying to cancel it because I was going to do the in-store movie pass (like I am again now), the website wouldn’t let me do it then either and I had to call in to get it cancelled,and I was on a different computer. I hope it was an issue with both of my computers and not a sneaky tactic of yours to discourage cancelling. Likely not, but if there are such issues with your website and McAfee security or Cookies or whatever, and it could prevent people from cancelling ontime before they get billed again, you should have an option on your site where you choose “I am trying to cancel online but the website seems to not be cooperating with my computer”, then the system would note the date/time that this was selected and would then require the user to fill out a customer service email request so that a rep could handle the cancellation and get back to them. That way if someone wants to cancel, it will be a smooth process and they don’t have to worry about being charged for another month that they don’t want.
ON GETTING CHARGED $24 EXTRA for NOT RETURNING ON TIME
I used to have the Movie Pass, which is untld in store rentals only, 1-3 at a time depending on how much u want to pay. So I was used to keeping my in store rentals for as long as I want. When I signed up for Total Access online, I could keep the mailed movies as long as I want, but if I exchanged it for an in store movie, that movie will have regular rental terms, i.e.: 2day rental for new releases, have 7 days total to return it, if you keep it 10 days, you’ll get charged the 10th day for the movie (like $23.69). You have 30 days from the day you get charged for the movie to return it to the store for a refund minus $1.25 for “restocking” fee(see Kim’s post 8:22AM on Jan 1st 2007 by kim, for what that charge really is). So then you get a refund for $22.44. So don’t keep one of the in store exchanges for more than 7 days. No “late fees”, but they might just charge you for the whole movie. Wish they had made that fact pop out at me more when I signed up for Total Access online.
Yesterday I was at a Blockbuster store and asked one of the associates if they planned to offer a mail-back service for their in-store rentals and he said “no way”. It would be a much better service if you could really mix and match in-store and mailed movies. I hate returning movies – I’d love to be able to just drop them in the mail, but that feature is not on the horizon.
Blockbuster does BLOW! Too many times to ignore, the movies at the top of my queue listed as available were not the ones shipped.
WARNING: If you cancel your membership, wait until a few days before your next billing date. My account was paid until July 14th. I cancelled mid-cycle on June 26th. Even though my accound was paid, I received NO movies for the remaining 3 weeks, and Blockbuster refused to refund the 3 weeks I was without service.
I will NEVER return to Blockbuster. Go with Netflixs.