February 1, 2006

Grumblings about Zip.ca

A week ago Zip.ca announced a major change to its membership plans. The announcement was, “the honeymoon is over.” No more “unlimited” DVD rentals or you’ll be penalized.

A lot of people I talked to said they were going to cancel their memberships. I wasn’t happy about the announcement either. I felt like Rogers had something to do with this catastrophe (Zip.ca now powers Rogers’ online DVD rentals).

Should I be mad? Should I cancel my membership? Hold on a second! Let’s take a look at this and see how it will affect most of us.

If you’re on a 4-DVD Plan like me, this meant that you could have 4 DVDs out at a time. If you watched them all in one day, you could return them in the mail and get another 4 DVDs in a few days. Sounds great! I could watch 20 DVDs in a month and only pay $1.43 per DVD rental!

Here is how my plan works now (as indicated in the email I received from Zip.ca):

4-DVD Plan: Free shipping on your first 11 DVDs per month*, with a shipping+handling surcharge of $2.49 applied to the 12th and subsequent rentals.

At first glance this looks bad. $2.49 for a rental! What the hell is Zip trying to pull here?! But wait, let’s take a second look at this.

  • Blockbuster charges $5.19 per rental
  • In December I rented 10 DVDs from Zip
  • The most DVDs I’ve ever rented in one month from Zip is 13

If you’re actually watching the DVDs you rent from Zip then it is still a fabulous deal (even with the new surcharges). If you’re stealing hoarding copying all the DVDs you rent from Zip and not watching them then you might feel like you’re getting ripped off.

If you’re watching more than 11 DVDs per month then you must be unemployed, or you aren’t married, or you have a terrible social life. You really need to get out more.

I love watching movies but I find it hard to watch more than 11 in one month. I barely watch TV which means I should have even more time for movies but I don’t.

If you’re still not convinced that Zip is still a good deal then you can always go to Blockbuster or Rogers. There is probably one around the corner from you. Their selection isn’t as good and it costs more money to rent their DVDs.

Posted in Movies at 5:55 PM