Consumers have a number of options when it comes 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 outcome pointed to some of the misconceptions that still exist about online rental of DVDs by consumers that have not yet tried the service.
Participants in the survey were asked a number of questions, including how often they watch movies in the home, if they rent movies online, and or even, why. khatrimaza Nearly 28% of those responding indicated that they rent movies online. Of the remainder, the absolute most frequently cited reason for not having an online movie rental service was concern which centered across the perception that online movie rental would be more expensive than the neighborhood video store. When taking a look at a couple of scenarios it becomes evident which method is often more affordable.
For folks who indicated that 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, should they chose the master plan that’s a limit of 2 movies monthly, would run $5.99. After getting a video at the neighborhood store the user would have overnight or perhaps 1 week to return the movie but an online rental allows them to keep the movie for an unlimited amount of time.
For those folks who responded that they view 1-3 movies per week, the savings would be more significant. For example, renting 8 movies monthly would run around $29.55 at the neighborhood store and as low 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 individuals who responded that they view 4 movies per week (averaged out to 16 per month) the common cost at the neighborhood store would be $59.04 while online rental would be $23.99 allowing the user “4 out at a time” ;.Renting via a service like Netflix generally doesn’t limit how many movies an individual views but instead, how many movies they could have out at any given time. Therefore rentals are more or less unlimited with many of the plans.
The 2nd most regularly cited reason for not utilizing online movie rental services was that the in-patient rented movies on the spur of the minute and didn’t plan ahead. Certainly renting movies online and receiving them through the mail would not allow someone to decide at 6:00 p.m. that they would like to see The Queen and receive it so they can 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 will seem sufficient generally in most instances.
The ongoing future of DVD rental may be changing however as Netflix announced in early 2007 that customers would now have the choice of watching movies instantly using a streaming service that is now available for many movies. The service should really 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 complete transition from the present mail delivery system to a download type of service will require time, it is clear that immediacy will simply continue to improve. It would appear that other online movie rental services would follow suit in coming years to be able to compete.