St. Ives, UK (PRWEB) August 5, 2006

UK DVD Rental Guide (http://www.uk-dvd-rental-guide.com), a review and comparison website of the 34+ online UK DVD rentals by post sites, has today announced its assessment of the industry, which continues to expand, offering more choice and value for consumers as rental activity shifts from the high street to the letterbox. The BBC has rightly described an explosion in the popularity of renting DVDs via the internet and Screen Digest research indicates that by 2009, rental-by-post will account for over half of British video rental transactions.

Online DVD rentals growth is due to its convenience and ease of use, with most companies following the same four-step process. First, a customer signs up online, and picks a wish list of films in order of preference from a library of tens of thousands of films. Second, the DVD rental company mails the DVDs by first class post in individual envelopes (usually in a small plastic caddy, entire DVD boxes arent sent). Third, the customer keeps the disc as long as desired, as most companies dont charge late fees. Finally, the customer posts the disc back to the company, which then sends out another disc from the wish list, etc.

The online DVD rental industry was pioneered by US giant Netflix, launched in 1999. In the UK, online rentals only really started gaining momentum in 2003, with explosive growth from 2004 as they went mainstream. The situation is similar to the late-1990s mobile phone craze, before the market reached saturation. Prices are low with generous free trials to entice new customers.

Companies have different tariffs, most commonly allowing 1, 2, or 3 DVDs at home at any one time, and most are theoretically unlimited in how many discs you can watch in a month. A few years ago when the online rental industry was just getting started, many customers who swiftly mailed back their discs could get through 25+ discs in a month on an industry-standard,