Amazon to Enter the Online DVD Rental Business

ChrisF79 writes "Wired News is reporting that Amazon.com is hiring programmers to work with online dvd rentals. From the article: "Advertising for positions based at the company's Seattle headquarters, the listings seek engineers to help in 'building systems and algorithms that must move inventory between our fulfillment centers and our customers in a way that gives customers exactly what they want, when they want it.' The postings indicate they are specifically for an online DVD rental service." Netflix seems to have a stronghold on the market so despite numerous advantages for Amazon, especially economies of scale, can Amazon enter the market and surpass Netflix?"

Re:Instant gratification

[dazzla_2000]

Their other advantage is they've already done this in the UK.

Already in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon already have a DVD rental system in the UK. I have never tried it as I use LoveFilm, but I hear its ok.

News?

[Florian Weimer]

They have already entered the DVD rental market: Amazon.de Launches DVD Rental Service For Customers in Germany [corporate-ir.net], Amazon.co.uk Launches New DVD Rental Service [corporate-ir.net]

Re:Advantage: Amazon

[Cerdic]

WalMart also had those advantages over Netflix, but look at what happened. They stopped taking new subscriptions (because they intend to stop the service) not too long ago.

Re:Amazon's Advantage

[garcia]

However, personally, I really never use Amazon for anything more than books.

Why? In addition to books (used and new) I have bought multiple things there including two GPS units and a mobile phone.

The latest GPS unit (GPSMap 76CS) was on sale, no rebates necessary, and priced $50 less than its lower end unit (76C). Six months later, the price I got (with no mail-in-rebates) is still less than you can find 99% of the time.

The mobile phone (T-mobile Sidekick 1) came with instant and mail-in-rebates that totalled enough to make the phone $0 with on year of service.

Why would you only go to Amazon for books when there are so many bargains on there that I seem to only be able to find there?

I'm not an amazon.com rep, investor, or otherwise, just a happy customer.

Re:Instant gratification

[rale, the]

I think the throttling thing is a bit of an exageration. I just pulled up my 3 month history on netflix's site, and I rented 20, 15, and 17 dvds for a total of 52 over 90 days. Before that I was renting roughly the same amount aswell. I have the 3 at a time plan, which is $18 a month. That means I'm paying $54 for 3 months, which works out to $1.04 per rental, whereas that site says they'll throttle you if you get under $2/per. It is possible that the occasional extra day waits are some sort of throttling measure, but it doesnt seem to me that they're very aggressive, if so. Well, atleast I think I'm getting a pretty good deal at 1.04/each.

Re:Advantage: Amazon

[Enzo the Baker]

Blockbuster competes on price

Not anymore. Blockbuster is raising their fee [reuters.com] to $17.99 as of August 19. Unless Netflix is raising their rates and I haven't heard about it, they are now the same price.

Re:Instant gratification

[nsayer]

It's cheaper than Netflix

Not anymore. [reuters.com]

Re:Already in the UK

[TBR]

I use it and it works very well, had Zero problems with the system at all.

Re:Advantage: Amazon

[javaxman]

I haven't tried it, but a quick search reveals Netflix Freak [thelittleappfactory.com] which is your OS X version of the same app... of course, it's not free, just free-to-try, whatever that means... frankly, I don't find the web form that hard to use, but I also pretty well let my wife manage the thing. Which is OK, usually, because when she gets crap I don't want to watch, it means more time to play Vice City...

There's also this spiffy-looking Dashflix [apple.com] dashboard thingy, which is only a viewer not an editor, but still neat... and free...

Re:Advantage: Amazon

[Dirk Pitt]

I'm a little confused that people are challenging this model as if it's unproven; I don't know why WalMart didn't succeed, maybe they chased the wrong demographic for this sort of thing, but NetFlix has already proven it works:

Netflix 2nd Quarter [com.com]

I'd say on-track for a $650mil year is pretty successful.