There's a surprise inside Jessica Rehling's mailbox - it could be a Broadway musical, last season's hit TV show or a Hollywood hunk.
As a subscriber to Netflix online video rental, Rehling is able to pick movies online and have them sent to her home through the mail. She's one of the Web site's 2.2 million members and the growing number of college students who've ditched the rental shop and subscribed to online video renting.
"I tell people about it all the time," said Rehling, who started using Netflix in March. "It's kind of like getting a present every time you open up your mailbox."
Rehling uses Netflix's three-at-a-time program. For less than $20 a month, she can rent any three titles, keep them as long as she wants and never pay a late fee.
"I used to rent videos from the store all the time and I would get late fees all the time," the student affairs administration graduate student said.
With online movie renting, there's no beating down the video store door in a rush to return discs on time. When Rehling is done watching a film, she puts the disc in its pre-paid envelope and drops it in the mail. Within two days she receives the next title on her queue, the list of film requests she's made at the Netflix Web site.
Rehling's queue is currently 96 titles long. She watches about three movies a week and said she uses the Netflix's lists of Academy Award winners and American Film Institute's 100 Years ? 100 Songs to make her picks.
"I put them in order so I don't have all the operas together or all the horror movies together," she said.
Started in 1999, Netflix is now the largest online DVD rental service. The company offers more than 25,000 titles on more than 16 million DVDs total. It operates 29 shipping centers around the country, including one in Lansing, which means local users can get their orders in about a day.
Pricing programs range depending on how many DVDs customers rent, anywhere from eight out at a time, to three.
This month, Netflix dropped its pricing on the company's basic and most popular plan, lowering its fee for the three-at-a-time program to less than $20 per month.
It's a move some say Netflix made to be competitive with other online DVD rental services' basic plans such as those offered by Blockbuster Online that charges $17.49 per month and Walmart.com that charges $15.54 per month for its two-at-a-time plan.
Blockbuster, which uses the same basic rental system as Netflix and also offers more than 25,000 titles, dropped its pricing below the $20 per month mark in late October.
Of the three big services, Walmart.com's is the only plan that allows unlimited rentals per month with a two-at-a-time plan. Its three-at-a-time plan is also under $20 per month.
Amy Colella, a spokesperson for Walmart.com, said the convenience, selection and pricing of online DVD renting makes the business attractive to all movie lovers, especially college students.
Colella said she couldn't compare Walmart.com with the competition but said the service offers about 17,000 titles and operates 14 distribution centers nationwide.
Blockbuster and Walmart.com have had to play catch-up with Netflix, which has nearly a four-year head start on the competition.
"Netflix was a phenomenal business idea," said Kenneth Boyer, a marketing and supply chain management professor at MSU. "It really came out of the blue. Nobody else seemed to have thought of ordering videos and having them mailed."
As the market for online renting grows, actual video rental stores are starting to change their marketing strategies, Boyer said. He pointed to Blockbuster's growing selection of food products, gaming supplies, toys and cross-promotional items as an indication that stores are expanding their selection.
"If you're a movie store you have to be aware of the fact that a lot of your market could be taken away," Boyer said.
The owner of Video to Go in Lansing's Frandor Shopping Center said online renting hasn't affected his store, which carries about 20,000 titles and specializes in supplying obscure and foreign films.
"Netflix and companies like that work well in areas where there isn't a selection as much or in big metropolitan areas where people just don't want to go out," said Tom Leach, the store's owner. "The video store is like a social gathering place. People like to meet here and talk.
"It's like the drug stores were back in the '50s."
Boyer might disagree.
"A movie in this day and age is an electronic file," he said. "Making it physical is very inefficient because then you have to handle that."
Boyer said the online-renting trend differs from other industries that transitioned to successful online sales such as book buying. That online market didn't affect traditional storefronts, Boyer said.
"Bookstores aren't going to go away because people like to go browse and it's a different experience in the store," he said.
Boyer said if anything could heel the online movie rental industry it will be companies that sell movies for download straight to home computers.
When it comes to illegal movie downloading, though, Netflix user Rehling said online-rental programs work well to curb the temptation to "borrow" illegally.
"I'd rather pay a little bit of money and be able to watch a movie legally than downloading it and feeling really guilty about it," she said.
Even with the monthly fees, Rehling said movie lovers shouldn't be deterred.
"It's a fee you have to pay every month and people are really hesitant about that," she said. "But because you pay for it automatically once a month, you don't really think about how much it costs.
The online rental system is something self-proclaimed film buff Nathaniel Janick said he'll be looking into. The English junior currently sees about 10 movies per week, shoveling out $25-30 each month on rental fees
Janick said he'll be looking into an online rental account since the major services charge less than he's currently paying in rental and overdue fees.
"I hear it's a fantastic deal," he said. "I wish I weren't a broke college student."
