Posted on by stormy

Mail Service: Netflix and Post Office Experiment

Frank and I set up a Netflix and Post Office experiment to check out our mail service.  I’ve always maintained that the mail service in our little town is terrible and now we are one step closer to proving it.  (As if all the missing post cards I’ve sent wasn’t enough.)

We mailed three Netflix movies back in the same day.

  1. CD #1 was mailed from the mailbox next to our house in our town of 5,000 at ~7:30am on 3/20.
  2. CD #2 was mailed from the post office in our town of 5,000 at ~7:30am on 3/20.
  3. CD #3 was mailed from a post office in Broomfield at ~8:30am on 3/20.  (About 30 miles from home.)

Netflix got CD #3 a full day earlier than the two mailed from our home town.  (The Broomfield DVD arrived 3/21 at 9:30.  The other two arrived at Netflix 3/22 at 8:30am.)

Netflix service note: it looks like they process all of their in coming DVDs in the morning and send out emails at between 8:30 and 9:30am.  I got notices for all three at 8:30am in the morning.  (Two just a day later than the third even though we mailed them all the same day.)

Obviously, without lots of further experiments, it’s hard to tell if the problem is with our mail service, Netflix or the Post Office but in the future we will return all of our movies in Broomfield on our way to work.


Related posts:

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  2. Creative Dog Tricks: Dog Goes to Post Office To Get Mail
  3. What are the Netflix bar codes for?

5 Replies to “Mail Service: Netflix and Post Office Experiment”

  1. According to this list, your nearest Netflix distribution center is Denver, Colorado. Netflix probably sends trucks to each major post office in the surrounding area to pick up their envelopes, so my guess is that Broomfield is one such place, which is why discs returned there get next-day processing.

  2. Interesting, however I returned an envelope (Jarhead)and forgot to include the DVD(Duh) I was told to put the forgotten DVD in the same white envelope of my next rental (Godzilla)ie:(return both DVD in one white sleeve). I did this and returned the movies togather. Netflix two days later received the movies but cleared my queue 48 hours apart from each other. Even though they received both movies the same day they cleared (Jarhead) forgotten movie that day and took 48 hours to clear the original movie (godzilla). This only indicates to me that Netflix not only throttles sending you movies but also delays crediting your queue as well.

  3. I definitely think you should return each movie in a separate envelope with the bar code showing through the slot in the envelope. I think when you return more than one movie in an envelope, it takes them longer to process them. That’s our next experiment!

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