We compared the online and offline movie rental services to see which was the more favourable option. Online rental won hands down. The benefits of renting movies online come down to what we like to term: The Three C's
• Cost
• Convenience
• Catalogue Size
Costs
Renting from a video store will cost anything up to around £4.50 per night in the UK and around the same figure in dollars in the United States. If you only rent a few movies then this is a better deal than you will find with any of the subscription rental services.
However, rent 3 or more movies a month and you are guaranteed to save money by taking out a subscription plan with an online DVD rental company. In fact, the more movies you watch, the cheaper it becomes.
For example, in a typical month we get to watch around 15-20 movies with our subscription plan. This costs us £14.99 a month, which equates to less than £1 per DVD rented - over 4 times cheaper than if we were to rent from our local video shop!
But there are other costs aren't there. According to industry figures, late fees amount to around a fourth of the profits made by video stores. That means the average customer really ends up paying around £5 per title! Online rental stores have no late charges, nor postal charges, nor any other hidden charges.
So, unless you only watch a few DVDs per month, an online dvd subscription rental service works out much cheaper than renting offline. Take a look around this site and you can also get months of FREE movie rentals by taking the rental companies up on their free trial offers...
Convenience
If you just have to have a particular movie, right there and then at that very moment, then you will definitely want to be taking a trip to your local video store. Online DVD rental companies send movies by mail, which can take anything from 1 to 3 days depending upon the rental company.
However, convenience comes in many forms. If you want a DVD immediately, then sure, the only way you are going to get it is to go out and rent one or buy one from a local store. But how's this for convenience:
Renting dvds by mail means you need never see the inside of a video store ever again and hence, no hassle driving/walking to the rental shop, no hassle looking for a parking spot or paying car parking fees, no getting all the way there only to find the title you want is rented out, no late night dashes to get your rentals returned on time...and the list goes on.
For convenience, DVD rental by mail order wins hands down.
Catalogue Size
The largest off line, high street video shops are said to stock around 2 - 4,000 titles on their shelves. The smaller, local stores much fewer at around 500 or less. Of these titles, they will usually have only one or two copies of the less popular movies and a fixed amount of new releases. If you want foreign or specialist titles, then you're out of luck in most instances.
Online movie rental clubs typially have many more titles. In the UK, Screen Select offers over 27,000 DVDs to rent with companies like Love Film hot on their heels. In the United States Gamez N Flix stocks over 30,000 DVDs and a large number of video game rentals in addition. The range of titles at these companies is huge, covering every genre of movie imaginable, some even offering to find a movie for you if it is not in their catalogue already.
In terms of range, internet-based dvd rental companies win hands down again.
Overall
For spur of the moment decisions or if you simply must have a particular title, then you can not beat off line movie rental stores. However, if you are more flexible in your movie choices then you can save a fortune in rental charges by renting from an internet-based movie rental club. In addition, you will benefit from a much wider range of titles and with the added convenience of having them delivered straight to your door with no due dates and no late fees.
