Consumers have numerous options in regards to viewing movies at home. Two of the most used are renting movies at the neighborhood video store and renting movies via an online service. An informal survey was recently conducted on a house electronics/entertainment site regarding the movie viewing habits of website visitors. The outcome pointed to some of the misconceptions that also exist about online rental of DVDs by consumers that have not yet tried the service.
Participants in the survey were asked numerous questions, including how often they watch movies at home, whether or not they rent movies online, and if not, why. Nearly 28% of the responding indicated that they rent movies online. Of the remainder, the absolute most frequently cited basis for not using an online movie rental service was concern which centered round the perception that online movie rental could be more costly than the neighborhood video store. When considering several scenarios it becomes evident which method is often more affordable.
For folks who indicated that they watch only 1 to 3 movies per month the savings from renting online are small. Renting 2 movies per month at the neighborhood video store would average around $7.40 whereas renting from Netflix like, should they chose the program that has a limit of 2 movies per month, would run $5.99. After obtaining a video at the neighborhood store the consumer would have overnight or maybe 1 week to come back the movie but an online rental will allow them to keep the movie for an unlimited period of time.
For those folks who responded that they view 1-3 movies per week, the savings could be more significant. As an example, renting 8 movies per month would run around $29.55 at the neighborhood store and as little as $14.99 online should they find the “2 out at a time” plan or $17.99 for the “3 out at a time” plan. As viewing increases so does the likelihood of experiencing greater savings.
For people who responded that they view 4 movies per week (averaged out to 16 per month) the typical cost at the neighborhood store could be $59.04 while 123 movies online rental could be $23.99 allowing the consumer “4 out at a time” ;.Renting via a service like Netflix generally does not limit how many movies a person views but alternatively, how many movies they can have out at any given time. Therefore rentals are more or less unlimited with most of the plans.
The 2nd most often cited basis for not utilizing online movie rental services was that the person rented movies on the spur of the moment and did not plan ahead. Certainly renting movies online and receiving them through the mail would not allow anyone to decide at 6:00 p.m. that they want to see The Queen and receive it so that they may be viewing the movie by 8:00 p.m. However, the delay for receiving movies selected through the mail is only 1 business day which will seem sufficient in most instances.
The continuing future of DVD rental might be changing however as Netflix announced in early 2007 that customers would now have the option of watching movies instantly with a streaming service that is now available for some movies. The service must be quicker than most download services as streaming allows viewing of the movie because it is streamed as opposed to waiting until download is complete. Although the full transition from the present mail delivery system to a download type of service will need time, it’s clear that immediacy is only going to continue steadily to improve. It would seem that other online movie rental services would follow suit in coming years in order to compete.