Evolution of the Netflix Envelope

An anonymous reader wrote to mention an article over on CNN Money. They go into some detail on what seven years of tinkering has done for the simple red Netflix envelope. From the article: "Years of experimentation went into creating the perfect DVD envelope. In 1999, Netflix started out with a heavy cardboard mailer. With only 100,000 subscribers, costs weren't a concern yet. Then the company experimented with plastic envelopes, which proved not to be recyclable, and padding, which added too much to postage costs. Both top-loading and side-loading envelopes made an appearance."

Careful!

They re use those things and don't forget what most people rent! I wouldn't seal them with a lick.

Damn! I was SO interested in the history of the..

Netflix envelope! Too bad everything past the first slide is a 404. Now whatever shall I do?

Perfection is in the pennies

Imagine shipping 1 billion DVDs for one cent cheaper.

Bar Code on Envelopes

Netflix somehow always knows when I've sent a movie back before it actually gets there. I always assumed the barcode was somehow related to that.

Re:Bar Code on Envelopes

Actually the USPS do offer a service where they scan return envelopes at your local Post Office. It's used by a number of companies including Netflix to speed up return times.

Re:Bar Code on Envelopes

Close ... here's what the USPS actually does, and how that fits in with what the previous posters report.

There are two possible barcodes on the mailer that are of interest to the USPS.

The first, and most common, is the barcode immediately below the address area. This barcode is a routing code derived from the address, and is used only by USPS.

The second, and optional (you pay USPS for it) barcode will appear immediately above the address area. This barcode is used to do 'package tracking' of a crude sort. It contains a code identifying the USPS customer (netflix, for example), as well as some arbitrary data supplied by netflix - probably including a customer id and 'movie id' of some sort. This barcode is scanned when the envelope arrives at the USPS, and the scanned data is transmitted to the USPS customer who printed the labels. The customer then knows that 'the check is in the mail'. The most common users of this are credit card companies and utilities (gas, electric, cable).

Beyond the barcodes, there is another USPS mechanism at work, which your 'netflix delivery guys' allude to. That is, for a fee, the USPS will 'aggregate' mail for a customer in a largely internal way. For example, the USPS allows you to set up 'virtual' addresses almost anywhere. Any number of 'virtual' addresses can be linked to one or more 'real' addresses. So, in the netflix case, they might have one regional processing center, and several dozen 'return addresses' for the surrounding area. The USPS then internally aggregates the mail at each 'virtual' address, and delivers it to the linked 'real' address. This can both significantly reduce the amount of time that it takes USPS to process a piece of mail, but also reduces the number of actual processing centers that Netflix has to operate in order to maintain the desired level of service.

And no, I don't and never have worked for Netflix .. but I do know their business area well.

perfect paper envelope

As a long-time netflix user I think the paper envelope they have now is damn near perfect. It's dirt cheap, but keeps the DVD safe. It's recycleable too. It takes 5 seconds to put the DVD in securely and be ready to mail it.

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

As a long-time netflix user I think the paper envelope they have now is damn near perfect. It's dirt cheap, but keeps the DVD safe. It's recycleable too. It takes 5 seconds to put the DVD in securely and be ready to mail it.

I don't think their so perfect. I work for the post office and have to handle the damn things. I'm not the guy that stuffs your mailbox, I run the sorting machines. (about 95% of your letters are sorted by machine). Problem is, the DVDs jam the machine because they don't flex (enough). They need to be run on a special machine used to sort magazines. I regularly see their ripped envelopes and occasionally broken DVDs from the letter sorters, where they are mixed in with normal letters and difficult to see and remove. The envelope is too flimsy, and the adhesive sticker to "seal" it is a bit of a problem. It sometimes sticks to the adjacent mailpiece. You are seeing the result of "engineering" something to just barely meet requirements, to save a penny or two.

The Blockbuster mailer is great from my point of view. Envelope is sturdy, and fits and protects it's contents well. The NetFlix mailer has the floppy empty "tail" because it is rectangular rather than square. Difficult to handle to load into the machines. This deficiency requires more time to handle the NetFlix, so it costs more to process. But that's OK, 'cause you're paying for it by subsidizing it with your first class postage on other mail. You do realize you subsidize the discounted postage bulk mail pays with your full rate first class postage, right?

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

YES! Yes, we realize that. We do. We really do. It's okay. We all totally realize it. And we're grateful. Did we say we're grateful? We are. Okay. Now. Just put down the rifle...

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

You do realize you subsidize the discounted postage bulk mail pays with your full rate first class postage, right?

Funny, I was always told the exact opposite. Namely, that the discounts given to presorted bulk mail were actually less than the labor saved by the Post Office as a result of the presorting, thus most "junk mail" and stuff shipped at the bulk rate is more profitable, on a piece-by-piece basis, than individual First Class letters. So that really it's all those catalogs and crap that are subsidizing the Post Office's ability to deliver your letter to Grandma for 39 cents.

If what you're saying is true, and it's the other way around, then what I've basically been told my entire life about the Post Office is wrong.

I just ran some quick Google searches and I'm not the only person under this impression:
"Most people are unaware that bulk mailing is highly profitable for the U.S. Postal Service and it subsidizes first class mail." http://www.lawmall.com/abuse/abe-mail.html [lawmall.com]
"Bulk mail thereby subsidizes low cost stamps for letter, magazine, and book mailing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_mail#Legislati on [wikipedia.org]
&c., etc.

Re:perfect paper envelope... NOT

But that's OK, 'cause you're paying for it by subsidizing it with your first class postage on other mail. You do realize you subsidize the discounted postage bulk mail pays with your full rate first class postage, right?

That's silly... It's actually the other way around... Bulk mail is subsidizing first class mail, not the other way around bub. The bulk mailers get a lower rate because they come pre-sorted, and generally with bar codes on them or other machine readable notations to facilitate the delivery. They cover the costs of driving past everyone's door. The larger the number of pieces of mail, the more letters the delivery costs are amortized over. If bulk mailers stopped sending mail, there'd be a huge spike in the price of stamps. For those of us keeping score, that means they are good for us, not bad. Thanks, for playing...

Kirby

Neat to see.

I've been with Netflix for over two years now so I've seen a few of those.

That said, I've always wondered why Netflix didn't use more square envelopes. Some of the earlier designs looked that way. I wonder if it has to do with sorting or some such.

Re:Neat to see.

This is an easy one: square envelopes cost more [usps.gov].

Re:Neat to see.

The post office charges more for square envelopes.

From http://postcalc.usps.gov/mailpiecedimensions.asp [usps.gov]

First-Class Letter Nonmachinable Surcharge:

First-Class envelopes weighing 1 ounce or less require an additional $0.13 nonmachinable surcharge if any one of the following apply:

        * It is a square letter
        * It contains very rigid items such as wood or metal
        * It has clasps, string, buttons, or similar closure devices
        * It has an address parallel to the shorter dimension of the letter
        * It contains items such as pens that cause the surface to be uneven
        * The length divided by height is less than 1.3 or more than 2.5 (calculate this below)

Does the barcode need to be in the window?

I notice when I get the envelopes the bar code on the inside sleve is rarely visable in the envelope window. The instructions didn't seem to say anything about it, so Idon't really bother making sure it is there.

Would I save them any time by ensuring it is visible? Can anyone from Netflix corp answer this?

Re:Does the barcode need to be in the window?

> barcode so it's visible has made a difference in shipping / receiving times

I have the same theory. I played around with different PO drop box's on my route to work (different Postal districts) and discovered on a basis of less than 6 returns that orientation seams more important. I think it was 2 out of 6 got back the next day when oriented incorrectly. more like 3 out of 4 if correctly oriented.
If this were truly the case, since they re-use the cotton sleve, why they dont print the barcode in all 4 orientations, or at least encourage people to orient. randomly it would only be 1 in 8 dvd's to get the window correctly set. if they printed 4 on one side it would be 50/50 if it were both sides you could get 100%

since they allow you to return multiple dvd's in a single envelope, the importance of the barcode may not be so great to them.

evolution and intelligent design

I'm at a loss. The envolopes were clearly intelligently designed. But they appear to have evolved to match the current pressures of cost and safety applied by their environment.

Only a pointless flame war can guide me through this conundrum. That's why I'm turning to you, O Wise Slashdotters.

This is how it works...

For those of you who think that there hasn't been much technological progress since, say, 1980 (except perhaps computers which are special*), this is how it happens. Take this sort of incremental improvement by one company in one very small facet of our lives, and multiply it across any number of thousands of products, carefully trimmed and optimized and made more efficient. You only notice the things that the process isn't very good at; UI, for instance.

(*: And computers only seem special for two reasons: One, most fields don't get to experience exponential growth for decades at a time, and two, you know more about them. There's a lot going on under the hood of any number of other products, too. Familiarity breeds contempt; so does ignorance.)

Re:This is how it works...

Freud was dead, but in the '50s, his theories were all the rage in the US.

From: http://changingminds.org/analysis/betty_crockers_e gg.htm [changingminds.org]

Betty Crocker's Egg

Analysis > Betty Crocker's Egg

The story

In the early 50s Freud's psychotherapeutic approaches were sweeping America, even to the point where the CIA was trying to use it for mass-control of the population. Although these alarming mind-control experiments had limited success at best, there were some notable successes, particularly in promotion.

A place where it proved successful was in the unassuming kitchens of middle-class families. Betty Crocker Foods had produced an instant cake-mix. All you needed to do was to add water to the supplied powder. By today's standards, the result was probably quite unpalatable, but then, it was something of a miracle.

The problem was that the miracle mixture did not sell. Undaunted, Betty turned to the new science of psychoanalysis to help solve the problem.

The conclusion of the psychoanalysts that she employed was that the although the average American housewife very much appreciated the convenience of the cake mix, she felt guilty at deceiving her husband and other guests into thinking she had worked hard for them when, in fact, she had done very little work.

Their answer: add an egg.

An egg also has the connotation of life and birth, making the creation of the cake more meaningful -- the housewife thus 'gives birth' for her husband.

Changing the recipe to add an egg to the mixture (which was suitably modified to make space for one egg's worth of protein and cholesterol) offered the guilty housewife a way out. By doing more than adding water, by adding a real ingredient, she could assuage her guilt.

The result: sales soared.

Freud 1, Housewives 0
Comment

Was it all so Freudian? Were the housewives feeling guilty? Maybe -- but there are other explanations. For example:

        * Eggs are known for their nutritional value. Adding nutrition would seem to result in a better cake.
        * It may assuage guilt to add an egg, but the Freudian 'birth' stuff could be theoretical nonsense.
        * Doing work adds investment to the process, thus creating a sense of ownership.

The bottom line, however, is that it worked. In today's pre-packaged economy, there may be opportunity for purveyors of instant, one-shot goods to add a little activity into the process that actually increases sales.
See also

My Postman

I love the innovation but personally my postman always seemed to find that ONE weakness in em. I was at an apartment complex with those little metal boxes. I swear the postman would fold them every time and I'd still get a envelope of broken pieces. Happened more times than I'd like to recall.

Re:My Postman

Ah, such an innocent assumption. Perhaps your mailman's second job was at the local movie rental shop? :)

I hate the paper ones...

It's a pain when you get your movie and you have to be careful to avoid damanging the return envelope while you open it.

Plus, I can't send it back with a different movie because we only get one at a time.

Please insert DVD like *this*...

I noticed they removed the instructions telling people the orientation that the DVD should be returned.

Probably made their lives a lot easier, but I actually didn't notice those instructions until, oh, 6 months into my membership.

Sorry 'bout that. :)

Similar, but different, ...

...letter origami! [letterfu.com]

Did Netflix try origami? [ghh.com]

Not Perfect Yet

It seems to me that there are a few flaws yet - for example I have torn off the adhesive strip more than once along the wrong set of perforations. I am not sure why the outer flap has to be the full length of the envelope. Sometimes the little adhesive tab tears the envelope when I open the thing.

big deal

I use a Netflix competitor and they send the DVD in everyday white envelopes.
The movie is sent to me in a 6 inch x 9 inch envelope that contains:

• The DVD in a DVD sized paper sleeve (the paper sleeve has a barcode on it)
• A 5.5x8 inch return envelope with a first class stamp, addressed back to them
  
  This article makes it sound like you have to be an engineer to send a letter.

Question

I've noticed that the return address on the newer netflix envelopes now reads "Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility" and then has a PO box located in my very small rural town. It makes you wonder if they dont scan the barcodes in different locations and then once that nearby local has marked it as received your next disc is sent. There has to be something to the way they get movies to me so quickly when I live so far from a major city.

Still room for improvement

That's a fascinating look at innovation. But they still annoy me in several ways in that it's too easy to damage the return mailer while opening it. First, the perforations on the thin flap are too sturdy. Second, the circular sticker is a pain; unless I am careful I wind up ripping the thin layer with my address on it. If the circular sticker were thinner or perforated or had notches in it to act as stress risers then it would easily rip the way it should. Lastly there is, the flap with the adhesive strip on it to seal it. The line of perforations is often stronger than the fold on the other side of the adhesive strip. Several times I have had to tape a Netflix mailer closed because I accidently ripped off the adhesive strip. Simply cutting notches in the ends of the perforation would get it started ripping.

The fact that there is an "OPEN ALONG EDGE" notice says to me they aren't done innovating. I should be able to open it naïvely the first and get at my disk without worrying about damaging the return envelope.

mail it like it's 1999

In 1999, Netflix started out with a heavy cardboard mailer. With only 100,000 subscribers, costs weren't a concern yet.

I dunno, you'd think a business with a small number of customers would be cost-conscious. But then 100,000 isn't all that small I suppose.

I hope Ubuntu sees this

I tried Ubuntu's ShipIt service for a few free CDs. They came, but the cardboard holders had scratched the surface enough that the disks were no longer reliable. Of course I found this out 3/4 of the way thru an install in front of a bunch of people I was trying to impress with Linux.

Redbox beats red envelope hands down....

While it is interesting to see how the envelope has changed over the years, I find it more interesting to see some new competitors in the marketplace who are really innovating...

Imagine being able to go online and request any movie you want, and be watching it within the hour. (OK, other than using BitTorrent!). You just go down to the local Redbox kiosk and pick it up within the hour.

This is on the way, and you can't beat the current prices ($1/day) for new releases. And, there is a website with Redbox codes [insideredbox.com] where you can get A LOT of free rentals, too.

So, if you are in one of 10 major metros [mappoint.net] you can get this today.

So, forget the red envelope, and get ready for the Redbox.

Top-loading is abandoned in favor of side-loading.

I fail to see the impact of this on an essentially square envelope

Sorting Machines Eat Them

If they don't properly affix the sticker that seals the flap, the USPS sorting machines can mangle them pretty good.

In fact, just today I received only the address flap in the mail. It must've been ripped off from the envelope (who knows what happened to the dvd), and those persistant bastards at the post office delivered just a red flap.

I've also received a disk that had the flap partially torn off. It took two days longer than normal, and the USPS had placed it in a "Sorry we damaged your mail" envelope.

So not quite the perfect solution, but still pretty good.

Evolution?

I dunno. Sounds more like intelligent design to me.

Re:Evolution?

FSM works at netflix? i guess it takes a lot of noodly appendages to juggle all those dvds.

Next Step: Extinction of the Netflix Envelope

The next step in the evolution is the extinction of the Netflix Envelope ...

Once Video-On-Demand (VoD) becomes more common and affordable, services that snail mail DVDs will seem quaint...

Ron

What Pure Bullshit

They make it seem like this was an advanced and complex problem.

Every ounce of weight in the mailer added to postage costs

Weight (within reason) shouldn't be an issue. You can send letters up to 1 ounce, for base USPS postage. Since a DVD only weighs half that, and they only send one at a time, they could have very heavy envelopes before it would cost them any extra money. I think it would be a good idea for them to send 2 at a time (and in an envelope 2/3rds as large) which would make this more of an issue, but that's another story.

but if the mailer was too flimsy, DVDs broke in the mail.

DVDs will occasionally break in the mail, no matter what. An envelope would have to be incredibly strong to even slightly reduce the incidents of damage. So, it's the DVD's own strength and flexibility that keeps them from breaking, which has NOTHING to do with the mailer. The envelope is just scratch-protection...

Hum..

Must be a slow news day...

direct link to gallery

the summary already says it all. here's the direct link to the gallery: http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/netflix/fram eset.exclude.html [cnn.com]

Engineering oddities

The referenced article is very interesting and I often wonder about the process that goes into such things or what seems to be a lack of process. One thing that has me wondering is the rack managment of some servers. You have companies like HP that in the past has made some great contributions to technology with a wide variety of electronics, test equipment, and computing with both hardware and software. All that being said, HP has some of the strangest contraptions for server wire management. A few years ago, they had this setup with these retractable cables that could probably sever your fingers if they let loose (like those retractable keychains) connected to what looked like a small cargo net with about 6 sets of velco straps, the contraption even had numbers so you knew where to attach what as you were fighting with the velco glob. You put your wires in that thing if you could. They eventually moved over to the swinging metal rack and after several years of revisions, they finally have something reasonable. For a company that was one of the most respected engineering companies in the world, you'd think they could make better progress with wire management and rack slider setups then what they have offered up to this point.

Not perfect yet

Until they find a way to keep my kids from grabbing them out of the mail and losing 'em.

You're supposed to be able to send the DVD back in the same envelope as another one, but you have to report the DVD as "lost".

Netflix inventory

I wonder how big the netflix inventory is, not only do they have to have every movie out there, but they have to have multiple copies of it too.. thats a lot of DVD. Imagine financeing that? Did they buy them wholesale?

No Adult DVDs on Netflix

NetFlix doesn't do porn. I created a website using the domain name NotNetFlix.com to capitalize on this fact. NetFlix did not appreciate this and $2,500 in attorney fees later I finally relented and had to turn the domain over to them. I sure miss that name as my new one generates only half the traffic: RentXReview.com [slashdot.org].

Re:Crappy cheap envelope

They tried something similar with the transition from 6 - 7:
"2001
Foam padding is dropped because the benefits don't justify the cost. The company gives top-loading another try."

Re:Synopsis

Perhaps this doesn't make for hot debate, but for some inexplicable reason I found this one of the neatest things I've read on Slashdot for about a week.

I guess it's just the idea that incremental progress is quite fascinating when you look at it all at once.

That said, I also think it would be cool to see something on the evolution of slashdot interfaces,

Re:Synopsis

kratei wrote:

"1) The Mailers started white then turned red (Embarrassment about obscene profits?)"

      And they were quite sturdy, some type of thin cardboard. I actually thought they were a better, more protective mailer, but not as cost-effective for Netflix, probably.

      After the white mailers were discontinued, I was getting yellow paper Netflix envelopes, a transitional format before the current red envelopes started being used...

Re:Lies from the article

To quote you "From the article. The result of more than five years of experimentation, this mailer transports approximately 1.4 million DVDs a day to Netflix's 4.2 million subscribers.This isn't even theoretically possible. This would require them to ship 3 DVDs per person per day."

No. This would mean they would ship one DVD every 3 days to each customer.

Wrong units, its 3 days per movie

Sorry, but your calculations are a little off. It says 1.4Mil per day for 4.2Mil subscribers.
You are correct in that it works out to "3", but your units are wrong.
It is 1 movie per subscriber every 3 days which is in keeping with my personal use.

12.6Mil per day would be 3 movies per subscriber.

Re:Lies from the article

I'll go out on a limb and guess that word problems are not your forte.

Re:Lies from the article

(1.4 million DVDs)/(1 day) * (4.2 million people) = 0.33 DVDs per person per day or 1 DVD per three people per day, not 3 DVDs per person per day.

Re:Mod This Comment Dumbass!

Would that be +1 or a -1 dumbass mod?

Re:Lies from the article

My guess is that they are saying that at on any given day, 1.4 million DVDs are "in-transit".

If you ship 10 DVDs on one day, and it takes 3 days to get to the destination, you would still have 10 DVDs in-transit per day.

It sounds funny, knowing what's "in-transit" is an important inventory metric.

Plus, they might be counting the return trips as well.

It's impossible to know, however, without having the underlying data.

Re:Lies from the article

From the article. The result of more than five years of experimentation, this mailer transports approximately 1.4 million DVDs a day to Netflix's 4.2 million subscribers. This isn't even theoretically possible. This would require them to ship 3 DVDs per person per day.

By my math, 1.4 million dvds a week to 4.2 million subscribers = .33 dvds per subscriber, per day, or about 10 dvds a month... which really doesn't seem that unreasonable.