Blockbuster Total Access

[Chris Gohlke]

A few years back, Blockbuster followed on the success of Netflix with their own DVD rental-by-mail service. The original service did not leverage the value of Blockbuster’s numerous bricks and mortar locations. Blockbuster upped the ante and introduced Blockbuster Total Access in the later part of 2006.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/blocktotalaccess.jpg" /><br /><br /><i>"BLOCKBUSTER Total Access gives online customers the option of returning their DVDs through the mail or exchanging them at a participating BLOCKBUSTER store for free in-store movie rentals. For each online rental exchanged in the store, customers can receive a free in-store movie rental, essentially allowing them to double the number of movies they can access each month. BLOCKBUSTER Total Access allows subscribers to generally get their online movie(s) a day faster than if they had dropped the return movies in the mail, because when subscribers return their online rentals to a participating BLOCKBUSTER store in their return envelope, the store check-in automatically initiates the process of shipping the next available movie(s) in the subscriber's rental queue."</i><br /><br />This sounds like a pretty good deal. So, after the break we will take a look to see if Blockbuster can live up to the promise of Total Access.<br /><!><br />I’ve been a Blockbuster user since mid-2005. For this review, Blockbuster set me up with a separate account to test their services without impacting my normal rental pattern.<br /><br />Registering for the service and finding movies is pretty simple. They say that they currently have over 65,000 movies and for the most part, I’ve been able to find most of the movies I’ve looked for. There have been a few instances of movies I could not find (“Red Sonja” and “How I Got Into College” come to mind). Also, while renting the Andromeda TV series, I noted that while they had all of the seasons, there were some disks missing from the latter seasons. I’m guessing that these disks were either damaged or lost and have not been replaced by Blockbuster. I did find this kind of frustrating since I had watched through a good part of the series and then had to skip some episodes that were part of a story arc.<br /><br />With any rental service, delivery time is a big concern, so I thought I would put the service to a speed test to see how many movies a person could get in a one month period. All movies were returned directly to a Blockbuster store. Below is the queue I set up and my results.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/blockgrid.jpg" /><br /><br />The telling numbers are the average mail time (3.12 days) and the average turnaround time (2.59 days). Movies had to travel nearly 250 miles to reach me, so while next day service would be ideal, I can understand that they take a bit longer, but averaging over 3 days seems a bit excessive. Additionally, there seems to be no reason why the turnaround time is so long. It appears that new movies were often not shipped until they received the old movie back to their shipping center rather than when I returned it to the local store. Based on my experience using the service, it appears no quicker to return the movies to the store compared to mailing them back. That said, you get a free in-store rental for each movie returned to the store, so it does make the wait more bearable. I also noticed that movies were not necessarily shipped in the order they fell in my queue, even though they showed as available. I’ve also observed these same issues during my normal usage of the service.<br /><br />All disks received during my test were in good condition, but in the past, I have received a handful of disks that were either scratched or broken. Also, I’d be making better use of the free game coupons if my store had a better selection of games that I was interested in. My store only has Ice Age and Far Cry for the Wii.<br /><br />While I don’t think they quite live up to their promises, I think Blockbuster provides an excellent value. For $17.99 I could have watched 34 movies during my test. This is a fantastic deal, in fact, when I signed up for Blockbuster, I cancelled all my Comcast movie channels and ended up saving over $20 per month. You can sign up for Blockbuster Total access at <a href="www.blockbuster.com">www.blockbuster.com</a>.<br /><br /><i>Chris Gohlke is a Contributing Editor for Digital Media Thoughts. He loves Sci-Fi and loves to get his hands on real-life tech gadgets. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, USA with his wife and three cats.</i>

[Jason Dunn]

Interesting article...Blockbuster Canada doesn't offer this service, but I often wished they did because being able to drop off locally seemed like a great advanage. But if you don't get credit until they get the movie back by mail, that doesn't seem to be much of an advantage over what I have now with Zip (www.zip.ca). It's interesting they don't cap your monthly renting - Zip started out as "unlimited" but now they've capped it at 11 rentals per month. That's not bad, if I ever each 11 rentals I'm getting movies for $2.26 each, about half of what I'd pay at a local DVD rental place. I rarely rent that many anyway, though when I do it's irritating to be hassled by Zip with reminders that I'm getting close to my monthly limit and they're going to hold back rentals until the first of the next month...

[Chris Gohlke]

Also, it could be possible that this was just an issue with my local blockbuster, the return to the store is SUPPOSED to initiate the shipment of the next movie, but perhaps the store is not checking them in properly or there is a bug in the system that needs to be addressed.

Normally, I would never rent so many movies, but I figured a stress test would be interesting in this instances. In reality I rent far less movies. I use the online service for TV series and titles the local store does not have. I then use my free in-stores for new releases and such.

[Chris Gohlke]

Quick update. I did finally receive Lady in the Water yesterday and the disk was cracked from the outer edge all the way through to the center ring. No sign of trauma to the envelope.

[cmorris]

I've gotta say I'm a fan of BB Online... mind you I live pretty close to a BB store and also seem to live close to a distribution center (get next day delivery).

Anyhow, I'm on their 3 movies by mail for $7.99/mo plan. Given the Total Access plan and the e-coupon that you also get every month, it actually works out to 7 movies for $8 or $1.14 each. That is hard to beat...

[Bob Christensen]

Chris,
My experience with BB Online is similar to yours. While they definitely do not live up to their claim of sending a DVD on the next business day after you return one to a store, the coupons do make the delays easier to live with. I've contacted their customer service a couple of times about delays that seemed excessive. Here's part of their reply to a recent gripe:

"Your last movie was checked in on 02/26/2007, and we will be shipping another movie to you from your Queue by the end of business day on 02/27/2007."

BUT, I actually returned the last movie on 2/22--not 2/26--and as I'm writing this on the afternoon of 2/28, their web site does not yet show they've shipped a movie. Pretty typical of my experience, although I've also had fast turnarounds.

[Chris Gohlke]

Yeah, I've had some where I dropped the DVD in their box on the way to work and the next one was shipped the same day. They just lack consistency. I think it might just be a training issue.

[Crocuta]

There may well be some significant regional variability to service. I've taken to returning about 3/4 of my movies to the store to get the free rental and they always ship my next one before physically receiving the previous one. The typical scenario for me is Day 1 - return movie to local BB, Day 2 - receive notice that new movie has shipped, Day 3 - receive notice that old movie has been received and Day 4 receive new movie. Now if I'm looking for one-day turn around, then I'm not going to get it because it seems to consistently take two days for the post office to get a movie from there to here or vice versa. But it hardly seems unreasonable, especially with the free local DVD to hold me over in the meantime. And compared to NetFlix, it's no contest. My turnaround for NetFlix was over one week per movie on average even though their distribution center is only one day away by mail. I was already much happier with BB, and Total Access is just like icing on the cake.

[cherylsgoodies]

Don't know if anyone else is NOW having trouble with Blockbuster. Have had the service about 6 months and have been pretty happy- until this last week. I had been getting and returning an average of 5-6 movies a week directly to the store. Now, all of a sudden, I have gotten 1 movie last week- Period- ONE!!! I have written twice about it and have gotten some long-winded replies about "available" not meaning available to me and 2 day shipping etc. Still- one movie in a week! Not Cool!

[Chris Gohlke]

My service has improved. Usually I return in store and 2 business days later, I have new movies.