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Peerflix Review
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Editor's Verdict: Peerflix isn't really a DVD rental site, it's more a fiendishly simple way for members to sell unwanted DVDs from their personal collection and buy a new range of DVDs. The website blurb compares this to trading stocks and shares online - the cost of each movie is determined by taking the recommended retail price into account and factoring in how much demand there is for it in the Peerflix community and how many copies are floating around. It's supply and demand, pure and simple. Membership costs nothing, Peerflix make their money from the 99 cent transaction fee you pay each time you buy a DVD. This funds their role in providing the website and in matching the movies you want with those another member wants to sell. So its really more of a movie matchmaking service, and that goes a long way beyond simply facilitating DVD trading - it also matchmakes communities of people who love certain kinds of movies or want to discuss the work of a favorite actor or director. Instead of the company buying and providing a movie library themselves, the libraries are made up of members' collections and instead of simply watching your DVD and sending it back to the company you can either keep it or list it on your Peerflix profile as a movie you want to sell. Its either ingenuous or obvious, or possibly both, but either way its a neat system. Think of it as trading stocks and shares on the internet or think of it as online movie matchmaking, or maybe as recycling old DVDs for new, whichever metaphor you prefer. The Peerflix concept may sound odd if you're used to a conventional online DVD rental service, but once you get your head around it the benefits are obvious. How can Peerflix charge only 99 cents per transaction? Well, their overheads are almost nonexistent seeing as they don't have to buy in thousands of DVDs in the first place and mailing takes place from one member to another so they don't have to pay for that either, all they really have to do is maintain the website that facilitates the whole operation. Very clever. The fact that members are responsible for mailing isn't actually as much of a hassle as you'd expect. The website provides you with printable labels and instructions of how to turn them into packaging, though this has the disadvantages being a bit flimsy and not having room for the DVD packaging (call me superficial, but isn't part of the joy of a DVD collection having it all nicely packaged on your shelf?). That done, all you have to do is post it, which generally costs all of 37 cents because its so gorram light (the flimsy has an upside)! This is a lot quicker than the conventional system because rather than having to wait for your desired DVD to make its way from the last viewer to you via the depot, the last viewer sends the DVD directly to you, bypassing the depot. That also means that it's only half as likely to get lost or mangled in the mail! Naturally, its not a perfect system: the selection is a little limited, with some telling absences. This may seem surprising until you consider that your choice is restricted to the DVDs other people don't want. When you look at it that way, what can you expect but 20,000 incredibly cheap copies of Norbit and Howard the Duck and 3 copies each of the Godfather Part 2, The Seven Samurai and Serenity? Thankfully, things are nowhere near that bad, but you get the idea. That there is as much good stuff floating around the system as there is may be partially due to the amount of collectors currently beginning to replace their favourite DVDs with Blu-rays, so now is perhaps a good time to snap up second-hand DVDs via a system such as this. Similarly, being able to get hold of hot new releases depends on someone owning the DVD, eventually becoming bored of it and deciding to get rid of it, by which time they are likely neither hot or new. An option real DVD fiends might enjoy is to trade on Peerflix and either buy and/or rent from a traditional online operator. Either way you've certainly nothing to lose by trading with Peerflix. Peerflix, then, is a clever system, and can be very handy in cheaply recycling your DVD collection to fill in the essential movies you're missing (albeit without the nice, shiny packaging) and weed out those that just take up space on your shelf. It may never supercede conventional DVD rental, but there's certainly a place for it in the market.
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