Consumers have a number of 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 home electronics/entertainment site concerning the movie viewing habits of website visitors. The results pointed to a number of the misconceptions that still exist about online rental of DVDs by consumers which have not yet tried the service.
Participants in the survey were asked a number of questions, including how often they watch movies at home, if they rent movies online, and if not, why. 123movies Nearly 28% of these responding indicated which they rent movies online. Of the remainder, the most frequently cited reason behind not utilizing an online movie rental service was concern which centered round the perception that online movie rental could be more expensive than the neighborhood video store. When looking at a couple of scenarios it becomes evident which method tends to be more affordable.
For individuals who indicated which they watch only 1 to 3 movies monthly the savings from renting online are small. Renting 2 movies monthly at the neighborhood video store would average around $7.40 whereas renting from Netflix for example, if they chose the program that’s a limit of 2 movies monthly, would run $5.99. After obtaining a video at the neighborhood store an individual might have overnight or simply seven days to go back the movie but an online rental allows them to help keep the movie for an unlimited amount of time.
For those individuals who responded which they view 1-3 movies weekly, the savings could be more significant. For example, renting 8 movies monthly would run around $29.55 at the neighborhood store and as little as $14.99 online if they chose 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 many who responded which they view 4 movies weekly (averaged out to 16 per month) the average cost at the neighborhood store could be $59.04 while online rental could be $23.99 allowing an individual “4 out at a time” ;.Renting via a service like Netflix generally does not limit exactly how many movies a person views but instead, exactly how many movies they could have out at any given time. Therefore rentals are pretty much unlimited with many of the plans.
The 2nd most often cited reason behind not utilizing online movie rental services was that the person rented movies on the spur of the moment and didn’t 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 wish to see The Queen and receive it so that they’ll be viewing the movie by 8:00 p.m. However, the delay for receiving movies selected through the mail is just 1 business day which may seem sufficient in most instances.
The ongoing 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 using a streaming service that’s now available for a few movies. The service must certanly be quicker than most download services as streaming allows viewing of the movie since it is streamed as opposed to waiting until download is complete. Although a full transition from the existing mail delivery system to a download kind of service will require time, it’s clear that immediacy will simply continue steadily to improve. It would seem that other online movie rental services would follow suit in coming years to be able to compete.