Netflix for delivery times, Blockbuster for selection (especially the newer SE's that Netflix will never carry)

Alright so far so good, at least I received my dvd in one day from BB :)

i just cancelled netflix today, after 5 years, I was a long time customer.

I switched because blockbuster offered $3 less, plus two instore rentals. they also seem to recevie the movie faster, as they have some sort of system worked out with the PO to say that they received it at the PO and allow the next movie to be shippd.

Aftefr a shaky 1st few weeks on BB, the past 3 weeks have been superb. They seem to have a pretty good mix of new and old movies, and there new releases do not seem to be plagued by the same issue with netflix, which is if you do not get that new release shipped on Monday night you ar escrewed with a very long wait time. BB seems to have less of an issue with that, and if you need to, you can go in store and use one of the coupons on a hot new title.

BB seems a slight lag in the older classic and niche movies, but they do have most of them, you may have to wait a bit more than in netflix. They also have a very good selection of TV shows.

Netflix needed to rbing there price down to $15 to keep my business after all these years, loyalty only works if it is a tie. And right now, BB is blowing them away, more rentals per $$.

jrock
 

'Sup, all? I just cancelled Blockbuster Online, they were crazy slow. It would take like 4 days for each movie. The in-store coupons should've been a clincher, but:
1)I don't rent many games (3 young girls and a wife) and 2)I basically use it for new releases which is a waste these days with Blockbuster's 'end of late fees' and 'Movie Pass'. Their shelves are empty.
I signed up for Netflix's free trial on Monday, and got 'Saw', 'Mr. 3000', and 'Sky Captain' on TUESDAY. I was sold. I couldn't get any of those from Blockbuster. I've had it a few weeks and they've never skipped a movie in my queue for a wait like Blockbuster did all the time. I get too many more rentals a month with Netflix, it's like 2 BBOnline accounts. And you guys forgot the Oklahoma City distribution center where I live that beats out Dallas and Kansas City for Blockbuster.

so does Blockbuster carry films like Emmanuell in America, (if you know what I mean)?

The one major complaint I have with Netflix is the fact that they don't seem to carry titles from either Strand Home Video or Cinevista.

Has this actually helped for anyone? When I did my trial just recently, I would wait the normal time to ship something back, they would say they received the movie in their email, but then they would wait 24+ hours before shipping out the next one, even if it was "Available Now". I'm certain they don't scan it at the post office at my end, despite dropping it off specifically at a couple of them to see if that helped, because it takes the same transit time to receive it as to send it. It doesn't seem to be helping on our side, it's probably more for blockbuster's benefit. I also had issues where I would have several movies with the same status at the top of my queue, either available now or short wait, and they would skip the ones at the top and give me my 3rd or 4th movie.

Just wanted to help add to your list, I Live in Fort Wayne Indiana and my disks come from Lansing Michigan and Indianapolis. Turn around times are typically excellent for me, unless of course it's the holiday season then things seem to slow down quite a bit. The only real problems I've had with them seem to be the occasional mix up with the version of the disk sometimes they say they are special edition when in fact they are a barebone version, stuff like that. I give them an overal 8.5 out of 10. :thumbsup:

I signed up for netflix almost a year ago and I had great service and 2 day turnaround times in the LA area. I then left for the blockbuster, it was a killer deal, but it seemed like it took forever to get my dvd's like 3-4 days total. I then decided to go back to netflix, and now it takes netflix almost a week. I sent my Dvd's on sunday (monday) and didn't get new ones back until the following saturday. The distribution center is only 30 miles from me...

I think i'm going back to blockbuster again.. Go figure!

I am also finding a number of DVD's that have been released that Netflix for some reason or the other either doesn't know have been released or doesn't want or can't make available for rental

- The Raspberry Reich
- The Good Old Naughty Days
- Taxi Zum Klo
- Artie Lang - It's the Whiskey Talking
- Mad Monster Party (Rankin/Bass animated TV show) (Blockbuster has this, Netflix doesn't - what gives?)

Blockbuster offers more for less money [for me] based on the monthly fee and the 2 free rentals which I use for games, which is worth 13.50 or so right there.]
Blockbuster is 'slower', however, mostly because their inventory levels suck, so if you have something that's in 'Wait' status at the top of the queue, they 'look' for it and that can take a day or two before they skip down to the first Available. Once it's shipped, it usually takes 1-2 days to get to me [they have a distro center about 100 miles away]. At no time in the last two weeks have I had more than 50% of my queue 'Available' [not even counting 'Coming Soon'.] I've written to them a couple times about this, and they've basically said 'Please bear with us, we're working on improving our inventory.' I'm keeping a spreadsheet, and after a month or so, if I don't see an improvement, I'll complain again. [As of right now, 50.79% of my non-Coming Soon queue is in some Wait status, and that's the best it's been yet. Whoever's got Disk 1 of S2 of BtVS, return it! You've had it like a month!]\

Speaking of Disk 1--
I have 8 non-anime S1 sets on my BB queue. 4 of them have Disk 1 in 'Wait' and the rest Available, 2 of them have Disk 1 in wait and some or all of the others also in a wait status. I can't imagine a customer would steal a Disk 1 to lower their inventory levels; I realize since sometimes they have more content, it might take longer to watch a TV series disk 1, but this is somewhat disconcerting.

Where are Blockbusters distribution centers?

Does BB wait on sending you discs 2 or 3 if disc 1 of a season set is not available? I refuse to watch a series on DVD out of order (even if they don't have a story arch) and i can't think of anything more useless than having disc 2 when disc 1 still has a wait on it.

EDIT: Just like the post above: Where are Blockbusters distribution centers?

Well, either BBO has no clue what they're doing, or they don't send you disk 2 of a series unless/until they send disk 1. I have a couple series that are listed as series [their entries are all in one color, a different color from the standalone titles.] The first couple things in my queue were on Wait status [go figure], so they skipped over the series that had Disk 1 in Wait. Trouble is, they sent me Disk 3 of an anime series, which was *not* identified as a 'series', even though I've got Disks 1-2 also in the queue.
HOWEVER--the title they sent me? Was like number 35 in my queue. The first 6 or 8 things in queue were in Wait, they skipped the two series with disk 1's in Wait, and then apparently skipped a whole bunch of other crap to send me this disk, which was nowhere near the top of my queue.
Dammit, I wanted to like BBO, because of the in-store rentals and better pricing, but they are really screwed up.
Once they ship something, it gets here pretty quickly [they shipped something 3/24 and it arrived on Saturday, I can deal with that.] But it takes them forever to find something due to their crappy inventory levels, and then they apparently choose stuff at random out of the queue.

According to a post on Engadget, BBO's distro centers are:
Charlotte, NC
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Lansing, MI
Miami, FL
Minneapolis, MN
Flushing, NY
Sacramento, CA
Santa Ana, CA
Seattle, WA
That was of Dec 2004.

13 more allegedly added in Jan 05
TX, Houston
MA, Worcester
MD, Gaithersburg
PA, Philadelphia
GA, Atlanta
NJ, Edison
IL, Chicago
MO, St. Louis
CT, Stamford
CA, San Jose
FL, Tampa
OH, Cleveland
AZ, Phoenix

according to random posts on Hackingnetflix.com, so I can't vouch for their accuracy. I have personally sent disks back to Gaithersburg, Atlanta, charlotte, Dallas, and Denver.

I finally cancelled Blockbuster. After 2 months my rental queue was as bad as it was when I was with Netflix. 75% of it was Long/Short Wait. Also, on 3 occasions I never received a disk they sent, however they checked it back in. On one on of those, all I got was the outer flap of the envelope. I'm guessing the flimsy envelope "de-perforated" while mailing, so all I got was the outer piece that has my address. This revealed the return address underneath, so it ended up getting sent right back somewhere along the line. The 2 other times I never got the outer flap, but just noticed after a week it was checked back in. Got very confusing. Fortunately the disc I guess stayed in the envelope and never fell out. Add to that a few extremely scratched discs that locked up at various spots and it just got very frustrating.

I got one 'deperforated' disk this weekend, they told me to report it as 'damaged' [which I had already done] but didnt' tell me if it would count against me. Their envelopes definitely are cheaper and shoddier than NF's.

Blockbuster has really gone downhill with their in-stock status. I have about 40 catalog titles queued (stuff like <i>Misery, Mask</i>) and all of them them are listed as Short/Long Wait. Their mailers are definitely a lot crappier then Netflix's. I received quite a few that had the flap open. I'm just surprised the DVD didn't happen to "disappear" from those.

I have been debating joining Netflix for a while now,but after seeing that there is a distribution center so close to where i live,i decided to give it a try since i should get very quick turnarounds.I wouldn't even mess with Block Buster for the simple fact that their regular stores pissed me off so much.

Hello,
I have just recently signed up with Blockbuster and there turn around is slow. They do not ship out the same day they receive a dvd they wait until the next day. Netflix recieves and ships the same day.

I think Blockbuster is catching up fast, and with the lower price AND the free rentals, I got to give them the edge. Netflix seems to be getting slower and slower and slower, while BB is picking up speed. Sometimes there is a wait for more obscure titles at BB that there wouldn't be at Netflix, but I am ok with that with the price difference. I just don't think Netflix is as fast as they used to be, so I got to consider price.

its got to be Netflix cause of the unlimited renting, but I'm not to fond of the $15 monthy price. maybe its just me but i know I'm poor

i have tried them both and netflix is much faster in shipping it is not even close i like blockbusters interface but their shipping is very slow so i now go with netflix

Can you use the "2 in store rentals" on Gamecube games??

And if so, HOW LONG can you keep each one out for?

If I can use the in store rentals on games, I am SOLD!

If your BBV has gamecube games, yes. I've been using mine on PS2 games. Since they've started their new No Late fees thing, you can rent a game for free for 13 days; and if you want to buy it, that first 6.99 was already paid for by the coupon, so it's like seven bucks off.
Today when I measured my BBO queue, was the first time in 17 measurements I had greater than 50% of my queue available. Assuming the queue/wait statuses mean a darn thing, perhaps they're finally starting to get some extra stock in.
My shipping to and from BBO is pretty quick, it just takes them a while to find me an available disk. I dropped two disks inthe mail Wednesday, they got one of them Thursday and sent me a new one Thursday--I should get it today or tomorrow. [I'm also learning not to return two things at once, at least not in the same mailbox--whenever I do that, they always check in one of them early and it takes a while for the second one.]

Hi,

I am in Madison WI. Could you possibly give me a turnaround time for Netflix delivery. Say I put in an item in the queue by 8 AM Monday. Assuming the movie is popular enough, when do I generally get it in my mail.

Thanks,
K

So I resigned up for Netflix the other day. All I have to say is that they now SUCK! It takes them two days to send out my first dvd and now it says the next two will ship on Monday (today being Friday). All the titles I have are marked as available now. So what's up with them taking a extra few days to send me out the dvd's that are available now? This is unacceptable in my opinion. I guess it's time to try Blockbuster.