A minor gripe about the otherwise fine service Netflix provides. At some point a few months ago, I started noticing a new type of message in the web interface. If I look at my queue at a time when a movie has been received but the next one to be shipped has not yet been determined, one of my disc slots is empty, and in it is the message:
"We expect to ship your next available movie today." or
"We expect to ship your next available movie by [dayoftheweek]day." where dayoftheweek is always the current day.
It's a little strange to have those two different messages that are identical in meaning, but that I probably wouldn't notice on any site not as tightly implemented as Netflix's. The bigger problem by far is that every single time I've seen this message, probably 25 times at least, the movie has ended up shipping the next day instead. The message is always wrong, or rather its expectation is always let down. When I don't see this message (the next movie is already in the slot the first time I check), I get about 35% same-day shipping, 65% next-day lately.
There are two possible explanations for this. One is that they do have some algorithm generating expectations, and it just happens that it has always come up expecting the same thing for me, and always been wrong. The other (more likely) is that the expectation is always the same for everyone, and is based on the company's general policy of 'trying' to ship out the next movie the same day they receive the previous one. Either way, it's a terrible interface decision; I've become almost superstitious about seeing the message, since it seems to guarantee its own contradiction. It supports my strengthening belief that cute interface messages just don't get you very far, because even a naive user realizes when the machine says the same thing every time and learns to ignore what it says, and react to what actually happens when that message appears.
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A feature suggestion for Netflix. I've heard at places like the Hacking Netflix blog that when they don't ship your next movie the same day they receive, it's because that disc is not at your closest shipping center. Although they could ship it from another location where it is available, they know that could easily take more than an extra day to get to you, and there's a chance (calculated by some algorithm) that the disc will appear at your local shipping center by the next day. So they make a bet and wait until the next day. If it comes into your local shipping center, they ship it from there, otherwise they give up and ship it from the further location.
Netflix also says they 'try' to ship the top available movie in your queue, but they may choose another one if their algorithms tell them to.
Personally I don't care that much about getting the top movie in my queue. I'll get them all sooner or later and pretty much any one would be fine with me (except in the case of series discs of linear tv shows, which they have a special algorithm to detect and not ruin). But it seems that Netflix is doing much better at shipping the top movie than shipping the same day they receive. Getting a movie other than my top one (except when the top one has a wait on it) has only happened to me once or twice in a little over a year. My user experience would be much improved if I could switch off, or even fuzzily adjust, the importance of having my top movie shipped, and thereby improve my chances of getting a movie shipped the same day.
And yes, I'm aware that this post is going to sound like so much gibberish to about a third of my already infinitesimal audience. Just be glad that I don't try to blog about programming.
I'm curious to know if anyone has some different experiences to add to this account, or can correct any misconceptions that I might have acquired about NF's internal workings.
Comments (3)
This may just have more to do with my general mistrust of corporate America than anything else but I feel like Netflix doesn't want to get those discs out as fast as possible. Fast yes, but not as fast as possible. I can't prove it but I bet they have a limit to how many discs they will send you a month. The postage adds up for them so if they make it so you get a disc every other day as opposed to every day they pay half as much money in stamps for you that month. As for saying they will send it that day - surely they know it's a lie. I bet they know damn well it's not going out that day but they know you're happier if you think they are trying to get it out that day.
February 28, 2005 3:25 AM
I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that after the 16th movie or so in a month, they start losing money. I am inclined to agree that they do indeed slow down the process once you exceed ten movies or so.
March 3, 2005 1:14 PM
I think it's probably not a matter of sending you a certain number a month and then stopping (if that is what you were suggesting Mike), since the speed seems consistent over the course of a month. It is probably a matter of accepting that they no longer ship the same day to everyone, and intentionally not putting in more resources to reclaim that, as a simple business strategy. If that's what they have to do to stay alive I can't object too much, but certainly they could be more forthright about it.
They also have admitted to giving priority to lighter users of the service when shipping. This also makes sense as a strategy, and also pisses me off a little, because to implement it, I think there must be a scenario in which they receive a disc from me (a heavy user) early in the morning, and pause the selection of my next disc to see first if any lighter users want the same one. In fact this is probably exactly what's happening when I see the "we expect to ship your next movie today" message. Dammit, now I'm going to be even more irritated when I see that message.
March 5, 2005 2:49 AM