Assumptions and Failures: Qwikster Fail

Laura Harper
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read

Qwikster was one of those brands that met its demise ‘qwiker’ than it came out.

In 2011, Netflix launched a new DVD by mail service, which separated its DVD-by-mail and streaming businesses into two separate entities. Netflix would continue to stream, and Qwikster would be born to conduct its mail service.

The Reason?

In their own words:

“So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.”

Instead of being proactive, it seems the decision was purely reactive.

It came after it jacked up its prices, creating some outraged customers. They then tried to fix the problem of subscribers leaving with a solution that doesn’t really respond to the problem. Instead of sticking with their plan, plans change, again, a month later.

Faulty Assumptions?

  • The solution did not fix the problem.
  • That people wanted only streamed movies. Not a bad idea, but for a time where watching streamed videos comfortably was limited, customers still preferred DVD-by-mail. There weren’t very many movie choices, and good ones at that, so why would we want to pay for a streaming service when all the movies I want to watch are on DVD only? It was an idea ahead of its time.
  • Qwikster could be sold. Truth? No one wanted it. Netflix was trying to sell its DVD database and move on to the more profitable feature of streaming, which they knew would be the future. So, with a cost intensive company that is becoming obsolete, it’s no wonder no one wanted it.

People ended up being confused, outraged and lost some trust with all of their policy changes. It seems that major decisions weren’t being properly planned out. Qwikster became deadster.

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