Monday, February 07, 2005

Netflix distribution centers

From a discussion on Fool.com's Netflix message board, and Listology.com, I have concluded that Netflix doesn't maintain a physical location at each of the places on the following list (they officially claim only 30 distribution centers). There's not a one-to-one relationship between PO box addresses and distribution centers. I believe they use a drop-shipping method (a money-saving way of mailing by delivering mail in bulk to a postal facility close to the addresses in the mailing). You may have a Netflix PO Box address on your return envelope's label which doesn't seem to match the DC, because the DC code is for a "metropolitan area" which might be served by several drop boxes. It could be that Netflix sends a truck from each DC each morning to several area post offices to pick up discs for a central processing point, and in the afternoon, drops off the next batch.

As we've heard in the past, Netflix processes discs both by hand and machine. I reckon that a large metropolitan area like New York or Chicago would have a central DC that uses a machine to read, scan, label, and sort all the discs for the region. Such a machine would be too expensive, and unnecessary, for every DC to own.

The following list of Netflix distribution centers was collected by Listology's Netflix Tracker . Where there is more than one city listed side-by-side, I believe more than one PO box address is being used for the same DC code. We still have too many DC codes missing because not everyone who uses Listology has verified their DC's code.

1. Austin, TX (need code)
2. Baton Rouge, LA (BR)
3. Bedford Park, IL (need code)
4. Birmingham, AL/Duluth, GA (DUL)
5. Carol Stream/Chicago, IL (CHI)
6. Chattanooga, TN (need code)
7. Cleveland, OH (CLE)
8. Columbia, SC (COL)
9. Coppell, TX (DFW)
10. Daytona, FL (need code)
11. Denver, CO (DEN)
12. Flushing, NY (FLU)
13. Fresno/Bakersfield, CA (need code)
14. Ft. Lauderdale, FL (FTL)
15. Gaithersburg, MD/Easton, MD/Harrisburg, PA (GAT)
16. Greensboro, NC (GB)
17. Hartford/Worcester, MA (WOR)
18. Honolulu, HI (HI)
19. Houston, TX (HOU)
20. Indianapolis, IN/Bowling Green, KY/Louisville, KY/Dayton, OH (LOU)
21. Kansas City, MO (KC)
22. Lakeland/Tampa/Ft. Myers, FL (LAKE)
23. Lansing, MI (LAN)
24. Las Vegas, NV (LV)
25. Manchester, NH (need code)
26. Minneapolis, MN (MN)
27. New Brunswick/Newark, NJ (NWK)
28. Oklahoma City, OK (OKC)
29. Orlando, FL (need code)
30. Paducah, KY (need code)
31. Phoenix, AZ (PHX)
32. Pittsburgh, PA (PITT)
33. Richmond, VA (need code)
34. Rochester, NY (ROCH)
35. Salem, OR (SAL)
36. San Francisco, CA (need code)
37. San Jose, CA (SJ)
38. Santa Ana, CA (SA)
39. Southeastern/Philadelphia, PA (PHIL)
40. St. Louis, MO (STL)
41. Stamford, CT (need code)
42. Tacoma, WA (TAC)
43. West Sacramento, CA (SAC)

You can find your DC code on your return label. If you would be so kind, please check this list for your code, and if it's missing, email it to webmaster at listology dot com.

UPDATE 1-09-06 I've re-posted this list of Netflix distribution centers, including mailing addresses, which used to be on Wikipedia.

6 comments:

  1. Austin most likely is (ATX)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Orlando is LAKE

    best,
    av.

    ReplyDelete
  3. sorry, i should be more precise about it - I live in Windermere which is inches away from Orlando and it says LAKE - so Windermere is definately LAKE and Orlando very well might be too but it would be nice to have confirmation with this.

    best,

    av.

    (sorry for not being clear the first time)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Portland, ME
    Manchester, NH

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alex: thanks for posting.

    I'm not updating the list at this location, but I'm keeping a list of Netflix distribution centers with addresses here instead.

    ReplyDelete