GreenCine | board topic - GreenCine is too slow

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topic: GreenCine is too slow

larbeck

post #21 on March 9, 2004 - 3:38 AM PST
> On March 8, 2004 - 9:22 AM PST HOngchua wrote: > --------------------------------- > IMHO, they could use a stronger marketing push around here. That could increase their revenue inflows with less risk of customer dissatisfaction due to increased turnaround times. I dunno - sounds like trying to pull out a fire with gasoline!

larbeck

post #22 on March 9, 2004 - 3:42 AM PST
> On March 8, 2004 - 7:40 PM PST sinisterguffaw wrote: > --------------------------------- > Which is quite good considering I live in Utah. I am so very sorry! Nice mountains and some way cool deserts, though.

sinisterguffaw

post #23 on March 9, 2004 - 8:49 AM PST
The only thing that sucks about utah are the liquor laws, the "art" laws (seriously... a government position called Porn Czar?), and the mentality of some of the people (which explains the previous two things that suck). But these are things you'll find anywhere. It's a pretty georgeous state, no doubt!

calgodot

post #24 on March 9, 2004 - 9:23 AM PST

Net***x may get the movie to you faster, but will they have the movie you want to watch? And will you get the movie you want to watch? And when you send it back, if they don't get it, will you be accused of theft?

Net***x is past of a vast corporate empire, with funding from such bottomless pockets as Amazon.com and its crew of wealthy speculators and financiers. As such Net***x gets to enjoy the twenty or so distribution centers set up all over the country to get you and me to stop buying books from our neighbors.

My philosophy on using GreenCine is purely idealistic: I prefer them to Net***x because I prefer my world run by people I can talk to rather than faceless corporate entities. If we abandon these "grassroots" operations merely for the convenience of fast shipping, then we abandon ourselves to a future of control by corporate interests, watching what they want us to watch.

(By the way: DVDs through the mail is not meant for people with no patience: it's meant for people who don't have a Blockbuster next door, or who can't get out much, etc.)

I don't see GreenCine caving to pressure form certain special interests and nixing their porn offerings, or risque anime, or other "edgy" sexual content. Similarly I don't see Net***x having screenings for its members, or answering emails within 24 hours, or responding to customer requests for certain titles.

I was a member at Net***x from the beginning, back when they still sent VHS tapes through the mail and you could pay one at a time. In my last year of membership, when I had shipping problems, they blamed me or the post office - once even when they had received a disk on Thursday, but did not bother to send the replacement for 5 days. I've had a few problems with GreenCine since I joined, and every time I felt as if the person would be at my door with a disc in a matter of minutes if that were possible. And as for requests: Not once did Net***x honor a single request I made for a DVD. Though many, many times they did send me a disc I did not request. (Once I got a Jackie Chan movie when I was expecting Antonioni.) Finally, I never received one title they sent, and then another title I sent back never arrived. The two discs sat in my profile as "lost" for months. Finally I phoned & asked that they be removed, but my request was refused. A manager suggested that the discs would be removed when they were returned. That was enough for me. After years as a customer, with only two discs ever gone missing with me, I was practially accused of theft.

So in my view, the "extra" that you're paying for GreenCine is not for fast shipping, but for making sure you get the disc you wanted in the first place. It's for Customer Service, a phrase and idea that is all too rare in today's world.

sinisterguffaw

post #25 on March 9, 2004 - 9:54 AM PST
Calgodot: Hitting the nail on the head since 1978. Available at better locally run grocery outlets everwhere. Calgodot, take me away

NewAndrew

post #26 on March 9, 2004 - 4:46 PM PST

We talk about convenience of shipping time and getting the title you want as if they are mutually exclusive. Isn't all of this really quite simple? Choose to compete or choose not to compete. If GreenCine chooses to compete, do everything the other guy does, or better. If you choose not to compete, do something wildly different, or get ready for endless arrays of complaints.

Who cares if 2.625 days lagged between mail dates or 37.543 titles shipped in under 12.3 days? Really.

Can GreenCine deliver movies? If so, can they do it in a timely way? And can they offer something different (like their articles) that make discussions of NF utterly pointless? It's like comparing a library and a book store. I'd rather be watching a movie.

athaler

post #27 on March 9, 2004 - 9:32 PM PST
I have a mailbox across the street. However, I have a post office a few blocks away. I'm wondering if walking to the post office and dropping the DVD's into a mailbox there, the night before, will expedite the shipping. Since I'm in San Francisco, wondering if they'll receive it the same day or if it'll make any difference. I'm in 94123 and GC is in 94120.

lebugg

post #28 on March 11, 2004 - 11:22 AM PST
I got my first 3 discs in today. Shipped on Monday, so that's 3 days from San Fran to Rhode Island. That's pretty damn good considering that RI is about as far a distance from CA as you can get in this country. So far so good.

artifex

post #29 on March 14, 2004 - 12:22 PM PST

> I'm wondering if walking to the post office and dropping the DVD's into a mailbox there, the night before, will expedite the shipping.

Certainly. If you look at the drop box times at the office, you'll see the first one is at, like 5:30 AM, probably. They grab them, sort them, and ship them. If your DVD is sitting in a mailbox at 5:30 AM, even if the mailbox has a pickup right then, it won't be sorted until it gets back to the post office, which is at the end of that round. Sure, they process in several batches during the day, but they may not have multiple cross-town(or state, etc.) shipments every day... not to mention that GC probably only checks their mail once a day as well, and not in the evening :)

For me it's easy, because I get all my mail delivered to a post office box anyway, do I can drop off the old and look for the new at the same time.

RBellin

post #30 on April 28, 2004 - 10:02 PM PDT

I'm sorry to report I am cancelling my membership after a month. In New Jersey the turnaround time between movies was running about 8 days; I managed 6 discs in my trial month on the 3-out plan. It's not cost-effective, and it's frustrating not to have movies around when I want them. Sorry, folks, the corporate competitor may be evil and GreenCine may be run by film-buff saints, but the competition has a distribution center in NJ and averages 1 day each way in the mail. If GreenCine had any East Coast presence at all I'd be back in a heartbeat... but for now, I'm saying goodbye.

0ron

post #31 on April 29, 2004 - 6:11 AM PDT

I cant say I am here for cost effectiveness. I still rent all the mainstream movies from blockbuster on the weekends and I use Greencine to get the hard to find ones. Only trouble is. Not even greencine seems to have the hard to find DVD's. Sure you can put them in your Queue, but is it ever available. Living in Colorado I'm about 3 days in 3days out for shipping, so as far as Im concerned its a good deal for the money. But not being able to get the DVD's that I really want is becoming very frustrating. If I had to predict why I will leave Greencine it is likely to be because of the lack of available titles.

Shaky

post #32 on April 29, 2004 - 5:37 PM PDT

> On March 9, 2004 - 9:32 PM PST athaler wrote:
> ---------------------------------
> I have a mailbox across the street.
>
> However, I have a post office a few blocks away.
>
> I'm wondering if walking to the post office and dropping the DVD's into a mailbox there, the night before, will expedite the shipping.

To add to what artifex wrote above, not only will there be a difference between post offices and mailboxes, but there will be differences in service between different post offices!

I work in DC and live in Virginia. I experimented with mail from the post office near my home and the one near my office, and discovered that the one in VA, near my house, takes anywhere from two days to a week longer than the post office near my office. The post offices themselves are only a few miles apart, but the route the mail travels and the way it's handled seem to be much different.

I opened a PO box at the post office near my office and saw an immediate drop in delivery times for my NF membership also. When I was having them delivered to my home, I also noticed that occasionally, if I received multiple NF envelopes at the same time, I would receive someone else's movies also. The lazy ass postal carrier wouldn't bother to sort them, but would just put a rubber band around them all and drop them at my door. That makes me think the ones from my own queue that were lost in the mail for weeks at a time were probably bundled up with someone else's discs.

If you're having delivery or transit problems, I would highly suggest "shopping around" for a better post office. Unfortunately they aren't all the same.

tfoster

post #33 on April 29, 2004 - 6:14 PM PDT

I cannot ignore, as I mentioned in another thread, that N*tflix is now purposely delaying shipments to me. Because of this, the gap between them and Greencine is shrinking, in the short time I've had Greencine. I cannot keep both for more than a month, but if Greencine can at least keep their current clip, the better selection may keep me as a member when N*tflix is blatantly trying to increase their profits by delaying my shipments. But I'm going to wait a full month before making my final decision on this.

I find it odd, though, that a guy in Jersey was having such a bad time with turnaround. I'm a bit outside Philly and my service has been much better. I can only assume that it's USPS related.

Dampier

post #34 on May 4, 2004 - 5:21 AM PDT

> On April 29, 2004 - 6:14 PM PDT tfoster wrote:
> ---------------------------------
>> I find it odd, though, that a guy in Jersey was having such a bad time with turnaround. I'm a bit outside Philly and my service has been much better. I can only assume that it's USPS related.
> ---------------------------------

It's running around 7-9 days for me in Rochester, NY as well, which makes Greencine the second slowest of six different DVD rental clubs I've been sampling for an article I am working on. For the record, Filmca**y is the slowest and the worst run (despite being bought by Blockbu$ter). Several of the clubs are on the the west coast and they usually run 6-7 days for me, three in each direction with same day disc check-in and mail-out. Perhaps that accounts for the extra delay - if Greencine takes a day to check-in and another to mail out the next title, there is the extra day or two.

Greencine can't come close to competing with NF, which has a distribution center in Rochester that is so fast, discs can be dropped at the central post office in the morning and within three hours, the next discs are already on the way out the door to arrive the following day. NF does throttle active accounts though, slowing check-ins and ship-outs, and their recent price increase puts their prices at adult DVD rental club levels (their 8-out plan increased a whopping $10 a month!) NF doesn't carry some of the more unusual titles, and no adult stuff though.

I would recommend that until Greencine can open an east coast distribution center, it do what some of the more innovative clubs do to even the playing field between east and west coast customers - adopt the "honorable return system."

This lets customers mark releases as returned the day they drop them in the mailbox. On that day, Greencine would assume they were returned and immediately ship out the next titles. Some clubs offer this system to all their customers instantly, others estimate ship times and make the "return" button active a few days after the shipment went out. All make it very clear this works on the honor system and if customers abuse it by marking something as returned and then holding on to it for several extra days, they lose that feature permanently. This speeds up mailings for those of us suffering with week turnarounds without the huge costs associated with opening another distribution center.

I would strongly urge Greencine to consider this, because the average east coast customer is likely not to go beyond the trial when they see your competitors getting discs out the door and into their hands far faster.

Shaky

post #35 on May 4, 2004 - 2:12 PM PDT

I would recommend that until Greencine can open an east coast distribution center, it do what some of the more innovative clubs do to even the playing field between east and west coast customers - adopt the "honorable return system."

I agree.

I consider myself still in the "evaluation" stage of my membership. So far the only complaint I have in comparison with my NF membership is turnaround time. Right now, that's offset by the better website, member community and customer service at Greencine and, more importantly for me, the better selection of anime and Asian cinema. However, I watch a lot of DVDs, and it won't take me too long to get through a good chunk of my wish list of discs NF didn't have. As I get back to renting more of the discs available through both companies, it will no longer make as much sense to wait.

At that point I'll be weighing the wait time against future items on my wish list, which would be an unknown and difficult to evaluate. But if Greencine cuts the wait time by adopting an honorable return system, any incentive I might have to go back to NF is diminished significantly, and I'm an even happier customer knowing that when something weird pops up I want to see, Greencine will likely have it.

hamano

post #36 on May 5, 2004 - 10:11 AM PDT

I still think they should just analyze rental patterns to figure out where the problem delivery areas are, and give those people who live there "rewards" based on the difference between their delivery times and the average delivery time. An extra disc out once in a while. I'd rather they spent the funds that would be needed on a major investment like a second warehouse/shipping center on acquiring titles (and more copies of the popular ones). Even if delivery times improved, what good is that if all your top choices are showing red or orange?

greenmonkey

post #37 on May 5, 2004 - 3:53 PM PDT

I'm always amused by the slow shipping threads. If I, by some rare occurance, wanted to rent a mainstream, or even common indies, I have a Hollywood video in a 15-min drive.

This is the only place I can find stuff like the Seven Samurai Criterion, non-mainstream anime (all of the discs!!!!), obscure documentaries, and quality customer service, all in the same place.

It's very simple - less, more niche selection at slower speeds, or faster, inferior (for me) selection at Netflix. Since I can get most anything from Netflix at Hollywood Video, the answer is simple. Thus, I've been a member for about a year and a half (even though I turned the account down to 2/month for time reasons).

artifex

post #38 on May 5, 2004 - 11:26 PM PDT
I have a foolproof way to improve disc availability for most of us - cancel the accounts of everyone with the batman-like icon! Just kidding. But go back and look at all the complaint threads; almost all of them have been started by batmans or dragons, and most of them quit right away, anyway. It's enough to make me think they're not all different people.

wildwildguy

post #39 on May 29, 2004 - 12:58 AM PDT
still...nothing is done concerning this problem i live in MA and the turn around time about 8-9 and it is the only reason why i would go to NF

underdog

post #40 on June 2, 2004 - 1:27 PM PDT

> On May 29, 2004 - 12:58 AM PDT wildwildguy wrote:
> ---------------------------------
> still...nothing is done concerning this problem
>
> i live in MA and the turn around time about 8-9
>
> and it is the only reason why i would go to NF
> ---------------------------------

Actually a lot of things have been done and are being done to try to help east coast shipping times -- from new envelope designs to working with the post office, but the problem is, well, GC has to... work with the post office. And sometimes there are problems with the USPS on both ends, here in SF and a recipient's town on the east coast. But I know we're continuing to work with them to try to speed things up for those of you out there. Some cities have a pretty fast turnaround in the East, others have been slower.

I wish we could beam them to you! (Well, there's always VOD.) Feel free to e-mail support@greencine.com with any particular shipping problems, or just to let us know something's up so we can try to track, trace the problem.

Thanks!
Craig of GreenCine

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