The recent closure of HMV signaled goodbye to the last major high street retailer of music and movies. Shortly followed by the overdue closing of Blockbusters doors. best pizza dough recipe So now more than ever, competition for the online entertainment market is extensive and increasingly fierce.

We are far from the days where the TV was the only way to watch films, how to make pizza dough outside of the cinema. With so many variations in platforms and operating systems now, there are no shortage of content providers willing to sign us up.

At the top end of the market are the big companies like Sky Movies and Virgin Media aiming at the £20+ per month market. Making their mark in the online and multiple platform subscription world are the 2 big hitters of Lovefilm and Netflix coming in at Pizza Dough recipes with yeast around £5 per month. There are of course many others like BlinkBox, Curzon on Demand and many VOD services.

And so now, another corporate giant – Domino’s Pizza are attempting to enter the potentially lucrative world of pay-per-view and streaming movies to add to their current Pizza Delivery service, in an attempt to eek out their slice of the action. Their grand idea: order a pizza online and rent a movie at the same time. What could be more fitting than a cosy night in with a pizza and the latest blockbuster? All conveniently purchased from the same outlet.

Well yes, in theory this is a fantastic idea. I imagine many people that are calling or clicking Dominos – are also pressing play on some form of movie menu – whether it is a disc based player, download, stream or otherwise.

So the idea is good – what about the reality?

The Website

The website itself is a problem. Not only for ordering Movies but just ordering food is more complicated than it needs to be. Having used it before to order pizza’s only it has always seemed a bit clumsy. That side of things sadly is still no different. Now, you just get an additional tab next to ‘Side Orders’, ‘Drinks’ etc for ‘Movies’

Domino’s badly need a makeover for their website. There are too many confusing elements. For example – throughout the site there are adverts for “Pizza Box Office” but none of them link to the Movie section. They state “Check the Movie Tab for Details” – Why? This is just poor web etiquette. A company of this scale, really should be doing better with their site.

The Movie Selection

Key to the success of this new venture is the actual selection of films available. If Domino’s expect customers to purchase a one-off streamed film for £3.49 – they would need to have a great selection to choose from. There are too many other sources easily available otherwise.

Titles on offer are split into 3 categories.

Latest Release £3.49
Current Release £3.49
Library Title £2.49

It makes no sense to have 2 of these categories in the same price bracket.

The showcases section is “Latest Releases” – on offer here we currently have:

Keith Lemon the Film
Expendables 2
The Possession
Magic Mike
Friends with Kids
Gangsters, Guns & Zombies
LOL
What to Expect

That is it. 8 films is just not enough – even if all them were masterpieces, which these are very far from, 8 is still nowhere near enough. At least half of these, people will have never heard of.

The interface itself is an annoying sliding carousel. It is very jumpy on all different browsers. This risks losing customers who are not quite so internet savvy – before they can even view the selection of films, let along order one.

Summary

At the moment, Domino’s attempt to enter the online move market feels a little bit half baked. They need to find themselves a USP and push that. If they intend to survive and grow in this market, they need to come up with something better to entice people in more. Not least of all – having more, and better, films to choose from.