Zip.ca is Mostly on Target

Don't get me wrong, I love getting DVD and Blu-ray discs through the post. We've been with www.zip.ca for a number of years. They have a fantastic selection of not just standard fare, but also foreign and niche titles. Since opening their Vancouver shipping centre, we get very fast service. For the money, we get much more quality screen time for about half the cost of the monthly satellite TV service. I would highly recommend them to anyone who spends more than four or five hours a month watching DVD discs.

Nothing's perfect, however. The people at zip must do some major work on their website. It can be extremely slow. In fact, I cannot think of an example on the Internet where loading a single page can take longer. I'm not just comparing to Canada servers here, but www.zip.ca is often slower than foreign sites on the opposite side of the globe!

I do praise their efforts in going Blu-ray. The number of available titles seem to be quickly increasing. Again, there are problems surrounding the implementation of choosing them on their site. To their credit, there's a way for customers to discuss problems on the site. That's surely more useful than unanswered email to a customer service representative.

Here is a recent conversation:


Me:

I always want the Blu-ray version of discs which come in multiple formats. I've yet to figure out why my ziplist does not show combo selection boxes for most recently-released movies.

When looking through the new release titles and selecting, the standard DVD goes on my list. I have no way of knowing that it is even available on Blu-ray unless I do a separate search only for that title.

This is a major problem but there's no mention of it being 'worked on'. The site can be frightfully slow but usability is also being affected by poor design.

Member #1:

It is because some movies are inserted into the DB separately by format.

Search for Cloverfield, you will get two responses

-Cloverfield
-Cloverfield (Blu-ray)

So it would not have a drop down. I won't deny that Zip needs to fix this, but that is why not all movies have drop downs.

Me:

I generally don't like 'searching' for a specific title. (It takes much too long anyway.) As mentioned above, I usually select from your 'just released' pages. Of course, all end up as the non-Blu-ray version if added that way.

Unfortunately, given by what I've seen, it is not SOME it's MOST.

Of the twelve Blu-ray requests on my ziplist, only 3 are correctly entered in your database. For the other 9, I had to go through searches to locate.

Thanks for your response. I hope you actually have means correct the situation.

Member #2:

Oh, they are working on it, but first they are working on finding a cure for cancer, so hang in there.

Actually, it doesn't matter how many separate entries there are for a title, but rather if the titles are "mated" (joined) with each other or not. If you search for "Superman Returns" you'll get 3 different results but you'll still get the drop down menu on your ZipList because they are "mated" titles. And if you click on ANY of them, you'll only see Blu-ray appear in the dropdown menu window (on your ZipList) if that's what your format preference is set for. Although they may not actually send you the Blu-ray version (even if it shows up in the dropdown menu window on your ZipList) if you happened to click on a different version of the movie (by accident) without realizing it. Confused? So am I.

Me:

Come on, folks, who doesn't enjoy mating?

After reading the thread you provided, I can only revert to my original premise that there are problems with website design and major implementation issues.

Zip Staff:

We mated a bunch of the titles earlier this year, but shortly thereafter a glitch was introduced into the search results for mated titles (Pokerface's "Superman Returns" example should really only have returned one listing in the search results). This is slated to be corrected in the current bug-fixing period, and we'll also be getting some improvements to the tools we use to edit things like this at the same time, and we'll get everything mated that should be put together. Sorry for the current inconsistencies with the Blu-ray listings.