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."

Perfection is in the pennies

[Saeul]

Imagine shipping 1 billion DVDs for one cent cheaper.

perfect paper envelope

[flogic42]

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.

This is how it works...

[Jerf]

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:Synopsis

[Descalzo]

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:big deal

[thatoneguy_jm]

This article makes it sound like you have to be an engineer to send a letter.

You may not have to be an engineer to send a letter, but to design an envelope that protects the DVD being sent while minimizing cost and customer frustration is quite a bit more complicated than simply sending a letter.

By continually evaluating and optimizing their envelopes, Netflix has been able to both save quite a bit of money (as someone above pointed out, saving 1 cent on every envelope adds up quick when you're sending out millions of envelopes a year) and design a sturdy envelope that is remarkably simple and easy to use. Good design should never be laughed at.

Still room for improvement

[frantzdb]

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.

Except we're not sending letters

[2nd Post!]

We're sending DVDs.
In case you weren't aware, DVDs have several properties unlike letters:
1) Rigid
2) Reflective
3) Smooth

If your package alters any of those three properties then your DVD has become a coaster.

Additionally your package has other constraints outside of mailing DVDs:
1) Easy to use
2) Cheap
3) Useful

Cheap means making them lighter and more durable. Useful means making them more productive in the warehouse and as advertising. Easy to use means more users.

I'll tell you what the big deal is...

[Rachel Lucid]

The big deal is that Netflix tweaked their mailers to eliminate the following:

• The need for a secondary envelope
• the large amounts of waste generated from their mailers (since you're using a separate envelope for returns, I'm going to assume you junk the original)
• As many pennies as can be saved as possible without risking further damage to the disk.

Now, if this 1.4 million mailers daily idea is to be believed, even $0.0001 saved in printing/scanning/postage comes out to saving over $51,000 annually per hundreth of a cent per mailer. If Netflix decides to spend the extra cent to add padding or a second envelope, that's a loss of over five million dollars to them each year.

In short, your FlixClone can get away with 'better' packaging because it's not having to deal with these ridiculously marginal values. Once and if their subscribers grow to as much as Netflix's current base, they'll either notice how much it's costing them or else cripple themselves financially.

poor economy

[GunFodder]

That sounds right, but I think bulk mail is still bad for us. I would rather spend a dollar apiece on the 2 or 3 letters I send out each year than spend time almost every day wading through junk mail.