Online DVD rental in Bangalore

seventymm has launched an online DVD/VCD rental service in Bangalore. On the face of it, it looks like a service that would work in Bangalore - the city has a reasonably young and large Net-savvy population with time and money on hand to watch DVDs/VCDs.

This idea is a straightforward copy-paste of the Netflix and Screenselect model. In fact, their website features look strikingly similar to that of Netflix, whose co-founder is on the advisory board. Further indication there are and will continue to be many more ventures that start in emerging markets that are direct replicas of proven business models in the West. seventymm has got funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the VC firm that has made lots of money from Hotmail, Skype, Baidu and Overture.

Here's what is interesting about seventymm though - the pricing. I am sure they would have done their research, but the pricing looks shockingly high. 200 Rs a month for 4 movies (2 at a time) or 550 Rs a month for unlimited movies seems high enough, but the bummer is the registration fee of 500 Rs and a refundable deposit of 2000 Rs! Whatever the heck is that for???

I think the pricing is high is because of competition. These guys compete with the neighbourhood VCD/DVD rental shop, who merrily rents out pirated stuff for 10/20 Rs a movie. Even though it is for a day, quality is suspect and all the titles are not available, the price difference is considerable. No normal person will watch more than 10 movies a month (even that sounds too high) - which costs 200 Rs. max. There are many such VCD shops who offer free delivery and pick up services as well, so that benefit is negated as well.

In my opinion, if seventymm can shake off the security deposit and reg. fees, the game changes a bit. What are they scared of - someone not returning 4 DVDs?

The other issue is of personal pick-up of DVDs. In the US and the UK, customers have to mail back the DVDs in a pre-paid envelope. That makes it a lot easier to coordinate logistics. In traffic-crazy Bangalore, if they promise to collect DVDs at a particular time of day and don't turn up, that just leads to utter confusion and dissatisfaction.

I hope this works - the convenience is definitely there, but as with most other things in India, price and execution is critical. I don't think they have got it right so far.