If you haven’t returned that rental copy of The Hangover yet, you might want to pick up the phone. Your local Blockbuster just might not be there anymore.
According to MSNBC, Blockbuster is planning to shutter at least 500 of its retail stores across the U.S. They are doing it pretty quickly, too. About 253 were already closed in January 2010.
It’s pretty hard to maintain all of those storefronts in this cheapie movie rental market. Redbox charges a mere $1 a day and Netflix will deliver right to your door — or TV, in many cases. Last time I stepped foot in a Blockbuster, it cost me $20 for three rentals. They did actually throw in a tub of popcorn with that, but toxic buttery flavoring can’t always cushion the blow.
That said, Blockbuster doesn’t want to die quickly. Instead, they are piggybacking on the success of both Netflix and Redbox. They’ve been doing the mail-order thing for a little while, and now Blockbuster vending machines have been popping up in retail locations, offering rentals for $1. There’s even one in the crappy no-name convenience store down the block here.
Shouldn’t Blockbuster have been the innovator of both of those business models? Maybe they were too busy wiping out mom-and-pop video stores. If they really want to compete, maybe they should consider the Walmart approach and knock the kiosk prices down to 99 cents or something. After years of charging an arm and a leg for 3-night rentals, it’s just too little too late.
[Image via Flickr]
i need the feed back from people in blockbusters i go to holcomb bridge or old alabama the guy that works there name kevin knows how to help me his trivia is unbelievable i can call the store and ask him about a movie i was looking for he knew exactly what i was looking for thought you should know talking to a person is much better than no one to talk to as the crappy cheap trick net flix not the same as talking to a human. please keep blockbusters they are warm friendly humans.kevin carter has helped me so many times and as a human he rembers my name and knows the type of movies my family enjoys and is very friendly please do not lose human touch.
Don’t worry, traditional video stores will continue to exist, the neat part about all of it is those same Mom and Pop stores they wiped out will start to spring back up and it will have all come full circle.
Of course their will be major differences, more namely the focus on buy/sell/trade of used DVD’s, an combining them with Music and Game products, but it’s not all going to go Netflix and Redbox, the stuios have made the first big leap and cutting back what those two behemoths can do, Warner was the first and the rest are sure to follow soon enough, If you check Redbox and Netflix you can no longer rent Warner DVD’s for the first 28 days through them, they now have to wait 28 days from release to do so… think I am kidding? See how many have Sherlock Holmes for rent right now… Zero, you can only get it for rent at Blockbuster or regular video stores, Warner sued, they don;t want their movies rented for .99¢, Universal and 20th Century Fox followed suit, all say the cheap rentals have devalued the consumers perception of DVD’s, and are killing the in-store retail sales of their products, Warner cut a deal with both of them to keep a 28 day window, Universal and 20th Century are trying to.. but they want 30 days, not 28, and it’s still in limbo, most expect however to see them all agree to a 28 day window, and when that happens probably all the studios will jump on, the studios want it to try and improve their retail sales… and the side effect is it giving the traditional video store a shot in the arm to keep them in the game, Blockbuster unfortunately probably won’t survive, too much overhead will continue to keep them shuttering their doors, some major restructuring will keep some stores afloat, but you will soon begin to find that instead of their being a video store on each street corner, they will spread back out to about 10-15 miles in between each one, and all these big giant stores that come with giant expenses will be gone, even if the lowered their rental prices to $2 – $3 per rental you can’t rent enough to pay a $5,000 per month rent, with that comes employee’s, cost of merchandise, cost of maintenance, and before you know it your pushing a base expense of $15,000 – $20,000 per month, which is no longer doable in most areas, you have to find stores with cheap rent, cut your space,staff,and all expenses in half, add products you didn’t normally carry, create a niche that will keep the consumer interested, along with offering rentals, and you can survive all of this and come out smelling like a rose.
Blockbuster can’t do it… to many GREEDY corporate pockets to try and fill… but there’s plenty of Mom and Pops out their that have been waiting for things to implode.
I did, began in ’83, dropped out in 2000, opened a store last year with a new approach to things and it’s been taking off ever since, just expanded from 1500 sq feet to 3,000 sq feet to accommodate the need for more product, it’s not over folks… not by a long shot, you just have to actually know what your doing and what the people want.
Jim
Media Mania
Stockbridge, Ga
P.S.
(I had the concept of Netflix long before it existed, you just couldn’t do it with VHS tapes, and DVD didn’t exist… should have kept trying to figure it out I guess, maybe whoever started Netflix was a customer of my little home delivery movie business in Central Florida back in 91-96? I know there were many who inquired about investing in it… you live and learn I suppose)
Where did you move to?