Netflix - What is it?:

Netflix is a DVD rental company that has no official storefront in your home town or any town for that matter. They rent DVD's from their website and the movies are delivered right to your mail box within a day or 2. This innovative system of renting movies has swept the United States and certainly has put a crimp in the businesses of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. In fact, the Hollywood Video just down the street from my house (which I used to frequent) just went under and several others in our immediately area are gone. Netflix is slowly taking business away from the traditional brick and mortar movie rental stores and turning people to the Internet for their movie rentals. It's really quite easy and consumers love the idea. The only problem is that eventually people have caught up with all the movies and then tend to cancel their monthly membership since they aren't using it enough. Netflix is now trying to move into the streaming video market where customers are allowed to watch the movies right on their computers or tv sets. This is where the business is headed and there will be competition from cable companies like Comcast.

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It's estimated that Netflix ships almost 2 million DVD's each day and their postage costs are roughly $300 million a year. The good news is that customers don't have to spend a penny on postage since everything is prepaid by Netflix. When you sign up on the Netflix.com website you fill out the subscription form and pick which package you want. The flat fee service is what movie enthusiasts like the most about Netflix. You can get unlimited movie rentals each month or choose to have just 1 or 2 movies out at a time. Netflix sends the movies in your rental queue to your home and then you return them whenever you want. The catch is that you don't get new movies sent to your house until you have returned the previously rented DVDs. Shipping them back and forth is fast since they have over 50 shipping points nationwide to keep their inventory of 55 million DVDs coming and going as fast as possible. I have found the service of returning the DVDs in the prepaid postage packages quite easy and convenient. The turnaround item is usually just 3 business days. The company is headquartered in Los Gatos, California and the CEO is Reed Hastings. The idea for Netflix was created in 1997 and in April 1998 the service began. Back to how the website works. Once you have established your membership online, you then search through their archives of movies to setup your queue of movies (6 at a time in the queue) and your job is to continually add new movies to your rental list so you always have new ones being shipped. The site is easy to search, they have categories like genres, new releases, Netflix Top 100, Critics Picks, and Award Winners. You can also find movies by looking in categories like Action, Comedies, Thrillers, Drama, Foreign, Documentary, Romance, Classics, Horror, and Sci-Fi. You just find a movie you want to see and click "add" so it gets into your rental queue. They will sent you an email when a movie has been received or when something is being sent out via mail. You can update your rental queue 24/7 and change the order that movies are delivered. They get new releases as fast as the rental shops so it's not like you have to wait while your neighbor is renting the latest movies through Blockbuster. I do feel that in the near future DVD rental companies are going to be pushed to compete even further on price. Right now Comcast charges a ridiculous amount for me to rent the latest movies via their "On Demand" feature. You pay something like $4.99 or more for a movie to watch instantly on your tv, but you can get the same movie from Netflix for much cheaper. Of course you have to wait a few days to get the movie on Netflix, but if Comcast can lower their rates a bit, it seems that almost all consumers would rent movies directly from their cable tv provider since it's easy and you instantly get it right on your screen. Netflix also rents the Blu-Ray dvds, but at a $1 premium.

How much is Netflix?:

I started my membership with a free 2 week trial to see if I liked the service. I knew that once the 14 days were up, my membership would cost be $8.99/month and I could have 1 movie out at a time and I could rent as many movies each month as I could get through. There is an even cheaper limited plant that is $4.99/month and you get 1 movie at a time but you can only rent 2 a month. This hardly seems like a good deal but everyone has their own preferences. The 3 at a time unlimited package is $16.99 and seems like a good plan if you have teenagers who are going to watch movies as well. The flat fee pretty much makes you want to take advantage of the unlimited rentals, but then again how many movies can you watch each month. The top tier plan is $47.99/month and that gives you up to 8 movies at a time. I could see signing up for that package with my neighborhood and then we could all swap movies and share the cost. Check out all the current Netflix DVD rental plans online HERE.

Renting DVD's Online:

Certainly renting a movie through an online service is easy since you don't have to leave your house. Just sit back in your chair in front of your computer and order away. The one drawback is that you have to wait for the movie to arrive via the mail, whereas with a video rental store you are able to watch the movie that night. The latest streaming movie technology is gaining popularity with online movie rental sites including Netflix and as people get faster broadband cable connections more of us will probably choose that option (if the price is right). For now, using Netflix to rent movies online and have them delivered to your door a day or 2 later is very convenient and worth the $10 or $15 a month we all pay.

Netflix Coupons and Promo Codes:

I see more coupons for Netflix in my mail than almost any other type of item except for maybe pizza. Netflix constantly advertises their services online, in newspaper, and in the mail. I finally gave in and gave them a try a few months back and so far I am happy with the service. The original offer is usually a promo code you enter at their website which gives you a 14 day free trial and lets you start renting movies. Once the free trial period is over, then your monthly membership fee is due and you pay for the movies to be delivered to your house. See our section on "how much is Netflix" listed above. If you go on Google search and look for "netflix promotions" or "netflix coupon" you will find all sorts of sites that list the special offers and you just have to copy the code and take it to the Netflix.com website to sign up.

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