Family Video still seems to be running strong around here and regularly announces that they’re opening new locations and need new people. They’re a little unique in that they own the land and property their locations are on (as opposed to leasing) which I guess gives them a little more stability but that alone doesn’t make people want to come there and spend money and rent videos/games.
They have always seemed “friendlier” and more customer service oriented in my opinion. Willingness to waive or reduce fees, free children’s movie rentals, “Good grade” rental promotions for kids, etc. Blockbuster always felt like they were trying to gouge you and Family Video feels like they’re actively courting your business.
Color me unsurprised. Netflix is better and cheaper. People also have better internet connections, so streaming is possible for a much larger segment of the population than it was 5 or 10 years ago.
Not that it’s particularly relevant, but I worked there for a few months in 2008. Pretty typical retail bullshit.
Dish bought Blockbuster two years ago for $320 million. It’s hard for me to see how they got their money’s worth, or ever hoped to. Maybe saying the name still has value is just a way of deflecting criticism.
So why didn’t Blockbuster shift to online distribution like Netflix? ISTM with their war-chest (at one point) and connections they could have crushed them. Googling, I see they they do offer some streaming movies but their internet presence seems bizarrely weak.
Blockbuster used to have a Really good store in Central Square Cambridge MA. It had obscure TV shows and old silent films, in addition to the standard video fare. Worth making the trip.
Then without warning they closed it down and opened another store a block away, but it was just a standard-issue Blockbuster, without the art films, silent movies, or TV shows. And, of course, that one closed down quite a while ago. The last Blockbuster Video I knew about closed about 2 1/2 years ago.
They tried (online streaming) but I believe that Netflix was already the giant in the field and had the best studio licenses. Plus people who were interested in online streaming were probably the same audience who thought DVDs by mail ordered via internet was a good idea and were already Netflix subscribers.
Probably the same reason they didn’t shift their retail distribution to Red Box. It’s a company that has difficulty with innovation. Too bad for BlockBuster, we live in a world of “innovate or die”.
They did try to follow Netflix, first into the DVD by mail service and then online streaming. But Netflix was already pretty well established in the area, and Blockbusters rather aggressive policy on late fees back before they had to worry about competition from Netflix gave people a pretty negative view of the company as a whole, and so no one really wanted to follow them into a new set of services, especially when a company with a better reputation was already offering the same thing.
Plus, IIRC, Blockbuster had some legal troubles starting their own online services since they were then competing against their own franchises. Obvoiusly they worked that out somehow, but the delay probably didn’t help.
Yeah, Blockbuster had a bad reputation about late fees as a physical rental outlet and then they tried that byzantine “No Late Fees!” promotion which boiled down to “We’ll just assume you’re buying the disc and charge you for it if you’re more than a couple days late”.
A case of “a day late and a dollar short” if ever there was one. I co-wrote a research paper back in MBA school (2002-2003) saying that Blockbuster should basically leverage their name and marketing ability to either move directly or via partnership into dvd-by-mail or (better) into streaming video as soon as possible, because even back then, the writing was on the wall.
Unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon for companies to get sort of sclerotic about what their actual business is, and where they have opportunities to make money. For example, at the time, Blockbuster was THE video rental chain in the country, with huge name recognition and great deals with studios and distributors.
They were almost certainly hung up on the brick & mortar concept of having people walk in and rent videos, and probably discounted the idea of dvd-by-mail, which in hindsight wasn’t what did them in. However, that attitude and focus prevented them from seeing the potential and threats from streaming video/video-on-demand, and kept them from either licensing their name & trade dress to some streaming video outfit, or building their own version from the ground up in time.
I don’t think Blockbuster’s late fee policies had much to do with it per se, but rather the mere existence of late fees in ALL brick and mortar / dvd-by-mail vendors was a huge strike against them relative to streaming video in people’s perceptions. Sure Blockbuster was aggressive about it, but I don’t think that their policies in particular drove people from brick & mortar/dvd-by-mail to streaming video, which is what eventually killed Blockbuster.
Look at it this way- it’s not like there’s some other national scale thriving video store competitor chain; the closest thing is Redbox, which is clearly aimed at lower income people without streaming video, at least based on where I see the kiosks.
The Family Video stores in my area are ALWAYS hiring (translation: it’s a crummy job) and they have recently branched out into pizza. I ordered some, and it’s pretty good.
The FV stores I’ve been in have always been filthy, too.
Don’t blame Android, blame your carrier. I hate software the owner can’t uninstall. Greatest thing I ever did was get my phone separate from my carrier.
Netflix (who was the only other name in the DVD-by-mail business worth mentioning) had NO late fees which was a huge factor in their success. Because of their subscription model, they actually benefited from you leaving a DVD on your coffee table for six weeks but customers saw the ability to do that and have no penalty as a huge favor to themselves. It was win-win and people loved it (still do, I assume).
When you could breathe a sigh of relief when you realized there was no penalty for finding the Netflix DVD your kid slid under the refrigerator a month ago, the idea of paying Blockbuster $1.50 a day penalty seemed absolutely barbaric.
Radio Shack and Circuit City are two fairly different things. When I go to RS, I go for things like speaker wire, AC adapters, and audio/video plugs and converters. (I used to go for AV cables as well, before I discovered Monoprice.)
Perhaps you’re thinking of Best Buy? Even then, you would expect at least one “superstore” that sells TVs and stereo equipment to remain. (The Good Guys, like Circuit City, is long gone.)
Do Blockbuster stores ever get leased out to other businesses?
Because the BB by my house has been closed down for 5 years now and has yet to be leased out to anyone else. And this is a prime piece of property. It’s a shame too, because I could use a good Chinese take out close to my house.
