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Maybe some Canadians can chime in on the Canadian Post. When I was a credit analyst that dealt with Canada, many people would not get their mail every day or h

Maybe some Canadians can chime in on the Canadian Post. When I was a credit analyst that dealt with Canada, many people would not get their mail every day or have a reliable way to send it back. Many would take their bill payments into a bank or store or whatever and pay them. This may be the reason streaming only works much better. In fact that's the first thought I had, "I wonder how they are going to deal with the Canadian mail system." This seemed to vary by province/region. I remember some towns way out east having only a few phones (in the local store). And I remember thinking, "wow, and we think the Midwest is isoloated."

ojbyrne 16y ago
Canadian mail is slower than US mail, plus there's no deliveries on Saturday, so Netflix wouldn't be quite as good a value. Zip.ca, a similar service, does one thing that helps get around this - it has an honor system where you can say "I've mailed this movie back today" and it will ship out the next one.
- gamble 16y ago
  I was a zip.ca subscriber for a couple of years. The service itself was okay, but I eventually cancelled when half of my returns started going 'lost' in the mail. There are some postmen with suspiciously great DVD collections out there.
varaon 16y ago
There's an existing and established competitor in the mailed DVDs business: http://www.zip.ca/ http://www.zip.ca/ Postal service has always been good for; depends how far back you're talking.
jarek 16y ago
When were you a credit analyst that dealt with Canada?
waterside81 16y ago
I'd guess that cost is also an issue. The Canadian market is a tenth the size of the US but is spread out across the entire continent. One of my startups ships kids books. We pay $8 to ship from Toronto to Vancouver using Canada Post and that's with a large volume discount, but if I want to ship to the US using USPS from our New York distribution center, I pay $2.30 to anywhere in the lower 48. Also, the US deliveries take no more than 3 days, while Canada Post takes up to 5 business days - and that's expedited. Having said all that, why bother setting up the logistics required to ship DVDs when you can just stream them to a population that is heavily wired and internet literate.

ojbyrne 16y ago

Canadian mail is slower than US mail, plus there's no deliveries on Saturday, so Netflix wouldn't be quite as good a value. Zip.ca, a similar service, does one thing that helps get around this - it has an honor system where you can say "I've mailed this movie back today" and it will ship out the next one.

gamble 16y ago
I was a zip.ca subscriber for a couple of years. The service itself was okay, but I eventually cancelled when half of my returns started going 'lost' in the mail. There are some postmen with suspiciously great DVD collections out there.

varaon 16y ago

There's an existing and established competitor in the mailed DVDs business: http://www.zip.ca/ http://www.zip.ca/ Postal service has always been good for; depends how far back you're talking.

jarek 16y ago

When were you a credit analyst that dealt with Canada?

waterside81 16y ago

I'd guess that cost is also an issue. The Canadian market is a tenth the size of the US but is spread out across the entire continent. One of my startups ships kids books. We pay $8 to ship from Toronto to Vancouver using Canada Post and that's with a large volume discount, but if I want to ship to the US using USPS from our New York distribution center, I pay $2.30 to anywhere in the lower 48. Also, the US deliveries take no more than 3 days, while Canada Post takes up to 5 business days - and that's expedited. Having said all that, why bother setting up the logistics required to ship DVDs when you can just stream them to a population that is heavily wired and internet literate.