Netflix Woes Mean a Gap In Shipments 239
Loopback writes "It appears that I'm not the only one waiting for my NetFlix movies. It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system. 'Netflix has been facing shipping delays and outages in its distribution centers for the last two days and is fumbling to find a fix. The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"
We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed (Score:5, Informative)
Dear xxxxxxxx,
Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
They've promised to credit user accounts for the interruption in service.
rj
what problems starting up? (Score:3, Informative)
I see that ZDnet's Larry Zignan concluded from a 2004 Baseline article that Netflix had startup problems for their homegrown business systems, but he apparently misread the article. It says the system was reworked in 2000, 2002, etc. as customers grew to 1.5 million, but tha's not startup problems, that's keeping with massive growth you wouldn't be able to get and handle if you had startup problems.
rd
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Redundant?? Really? Check some timestamps, you foolish mod.
According to the moderator's guidelines, a question asked that is answered by TFA deserves to be modded redundant. So sayeth /. !!!
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Informative)
We've also had a few disks disappear in the mail, they either never got to us or they never arrived at Netflix after we definitely posted them. It was never a problem, you just mark the disk as missing and that's it. One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them. I guess they'll cancel your account if you "lose" a disk per month, but they deal well with the occasional problem.
Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on (Score:2, Informative)
that site has never rendered quite right with FF... I simply installed the IE Tab add-on for FF and set it to always render Netflix with IE(still shows up in FF). I also found that the interactive map on weather.com requires me to do the same thing....
hope this helps!
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:3, Informative)
I think your experience is very different from the norm. Most people seem to receive a new movie 2 business days after they send back the previous movie.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, after you've lost a few, they start charging you for each one you "lose", but refund you if you find 'em and send 'em back later.
Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on (Score:2, Informative)
About two months ago, I had this problem for a couple/few weeks with Ubuntu & FF 3.0, but it seems to have been resolved.
Re:lose money? (Score:3, Informative)
They're giving credits to people with delayed movies. They don't say exactly what that credit is (a full month? 1 day's worth per day of delay?) This won't push people to a more expensive plan. The discs aren't shipping, it doesn't matter if you have 2 or 6 in your plan.
The Watch Now service is still available and always usable even when you have discs at home (as long as you have a high enough subscription, 2 discs is enough for that)
Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:5, Informative)
If I drop a disk in the mail on Monday, it goes into "Returned" status on Tuesday, or if I use a box at the post office before about 10 AM, it goes to Returned the same day, thanks to their special handling contract with the USPS. The next disk arrives within two days of that, often the next day. Weekends are the exception: they apparently do processing only Monday-Friday.
In the last couple of years I've received no more than two unplayable disks, not counting one that arrived broken.
rj
Re:Is there a Netflix in Canada yet? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux (Score:3, Informative)
Using Parallels on OS X works fine with Instant Viewing for me, even without any sort of fancy video/3d acceleration turned on.
I've got a 1.66GHz Mac Mini Core Duo. By my standards, it's a pretty nice machine, but also certainly not a powerhouse. On the other hand, if you've got something older, it might be possible that it's not powerful enough to decode the video, even without the performance hit of the VM.
I'm sure that if you have a decent enough machine (ie. good enough to use the feature natively without a VM), and decent VM software, you should be fine. VMWare is still noticeably better than any of the free options in terms of performance and stability. Thanks to virtualization, a VM should run pretty darn close to native speed these days.
Better than the competition (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:4, Informative)
And I had the exact opposite experience.
My DVD arrives in one day. It returns in one day (I will grant you that I only live 50 miles from the address on the label).
I have had 2 DVDs that were scratched in the 6 months since I started. They were both replaced in a day (and with 3 disks, I had something else to watch). It was older movies that were scratched (can you believe that I finally saw Vanishing Point a couple months ago?). When dealing with DVDs and clumsy customers there is pretty much no way to avoid this. They can't play every movie after return, so yes, occasionally one can be scratched. I would accuse you of hyperbole by saying it is half unless your sample size was very small.
I have been very happy with their service so far. I canceled all my movie channels on cable and just use them. It is way better because I am the one who says what is on tonight. I'd also be curious where and when you were mailing them. I drop them off at the post office on my way to work in the morning after watching it, and up until this glitch, every time the next day they would process a new one and send it.
Bravo for their honest, upfront disclosure (Score:5, Informative)
I first learned about this an hour ago. I read a good review of Trumbo and logged on to added it to my Saved list... I hit this great big conspicuous notice saying "IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed."
My first thought was that it was a sales pitch to upsell me to a higher-tiered plan, but no, it was a straightforward notice and apology.
I for one really appreciate this approach. Most companies' SOP would be to say nothing... wait for you to call.. make an individual apology to you without happening to mention that it was affecting thousands of others... and hope you don't read newspapers or Slashdot.
Mine was on time. (Score:2, Informative)