Yeah, I know, but people still don’t want to be reminded that the teenager checking them out knows thier porn rental history.
It’s one thing for your identity to be visible to the parties in the transaction between the store and the customer. It’s another thing to broadcast that information to others nearby.
I own a video store consulting business as well as run a buy/sell/trade video store. While the BST isn’t quite the same as rental business I think I might be able to help you out a bit.
Overall i’ve found that, especially for smaller businesses in competition with larger ones, that the one of the biggest things that you can do to increase either the sales, rentals, or traffic of your store is to provide a “shopping experience” for your customers. Do something that they will remember you by such as providing excelent customer service, have a specialized selection of titles as well as your catalog ones, have daily promotions(free popcorn fridays for example). If you can create an environment that will make your customers WANT to brag to their friends about this “cool new store” they found you’ll be well on your way to increasing your entire business.
As far as calling customers by their name, well, using your discretion seems to work best for me. You don’t want to try and remember the name of a customer who comes in now and again and rents a select few titles. You do want to remember the names of customers who come in all the time and will freely talk to you or your employees. These are the customers that will rememer you too and will want your advise or opinions on a peer to peer level.
I don’t know if you have a live or dead inventory (inventory actually on the foor vs. the actual movies behind the counter) but one thing to be carefulof is how you structure your shelves. You don’t want to cram a lot of movies into a little space if you can help it. Spread out the titles, face out the good ones. You want the really nice titles to catch a customer’s eye but you want them to stop and look at whats around them too.
Does your store have something to give to every customer when they walk out the door? something with your store’s name, address, and phone number on it? Even if they never look at it these are types of things that can easily end up in the hand of a customers friend and will bring you more business.
As already mentioned, you can to a request list type of system where a customer can get in line for a title that is already rented out, you could also expand this to titles that customers would like to see in the store. This will at least give you an idea of what types of movies your customers would like to see, even if you never get any any. Another thing you can add on to this would be a place for the customer’s name and address/e-mail. Of course you wouldn’t want to sell the information to anyone, but it makes a great source for a mailing list for your own store that you can use to announce certain titles coming out. You can also use it to send out special deals to the “preferred” customers on your list. People seem to love these things and in my own store i’ve had people ask how they can get added to our mailing list just so they can get one of our mailers.
Video entertainment is also evolving a lot right now VHS is dead/dying DVD is being reduced in price to the point most people would rather buy and rent(even Movie Gallery/Hollywood and Big Blue are having issues) and two new competing formats are being introduced. There is a whole lot of things you can do with this, such as following suit with hollywood and blockbuster and having select sell through items, renting select HD DVD/Blu Ray titles, and even pulling aside classic, hard to find, and out of print VHS and setting up a collectables section.
With all the advise you’ve been given so far and any more to come I’m sure you’ll figure out a successful solution. Good luck and I hope you, your store, and the owner can continue to evolve in the business. 
The Minneapolis Public Library does this. Just before it’s due (2 days for videos, 1 week for books), they send an email to you reminding you of the due date. The message also mentions that you can renew the item, and gives the phone number and a link to the online web site for renewals.
That’s really helpful!
They also offer a full catalog search online, plus the ability to request books from any library, and to have them shipped to the library nearest to you. Then you will get an email notice when the book arrives, telling you it’s on hold for you.
All of these would be useful functions if you set up a reservations system at your store.
Stand as firm as you like - the percentages on who likes it and who doesn’t seem clear. It’s unpleasant to me to be addressed by name by someone I’m not socially familiar with. I understand that when you handle my credit card or my video membership, you can see my name. It’s still weird and awkward to me to be addressed that way by someone who’s not my friend.
If I visit a video store often enough that the clerk and I recognize each other and are friendly, then it’s okay - but even then, it’s certainly not something that would particularly draw me to a store. If I don’t feel like I know the clerk, it’s absolutely creepy. Besides, it’s something that has begun to feel unbelievably corporate to me, as that kind of thing is more and more common in the enforced faux-friendly world created by chain businesses. I like chatting with friendly employees. I don’t like that startling moment when they use my name and I know they shouldn’t know it, because I haven’t told them. Bottom line - I like real friendliness, but I don’t like that phony, carefully planned-out stuff.
I’m going to disagree with some people and suggest that some minor efforts to make people aware of the adult section might help. Don’t promote it, obviously, but I would certainly be more willing to rent an adult title if I knew about the adult section than ask whether there was one (of course, I have the internet, which makes the video store kind of moot, really . . . .) My understanding is that most non-chain video stores make most of their money off of adult titles - they’re something the chains simply won’t compete with you on, so you’ve got a natural market there.
Others have mentioned discounts on movies based on returning them early. The local store I rent from allows you to choose with new releases - I think it’s two bucks for one day, four bucks for five days. Since I often know I’ll be watching a movie the day I rent it, I quite like this. But I think the credit towards another purchase for returning it early (make sure customers know!) is an even better idea, since they’ll feel like they have to return it to get the deal. I just generally appreciate the flexibility I get from being able to choose how long I rent a movie for.
I don’t know how much of your customer base is like this, so I’m not sure if it’s a big moneymaker, but the single biggest draw of a video store for me is an extensive back catalog and particularly a good selection of foreign films. Blockbuster doesn’t have those, so it seems like if there are customers for it at all, that would be a good way to distinguish a video store from its competition. But those might not draw enough people to be worth it.
Another vote for don’t call strangers by name. Safeway has ruined that by forcing their employees to call everyone “Wrong Title” “Mis-pronounced First Name” “Mangled Last Name.” When you get to know me because I’m a regular, then by all means, go ahead (but only if the clerks wear name tags, too, so I can call them by name too). When you’re reading it off my membership card, don’t do it. I won’t like it, and I know the clerk is just doing it because some manager with a big idea made them do it.
We had a thread a long time ago called "Your Hidden Gems of Movies, " and we got A LOT of good suggestions for old and obscure but still excellent movies. I would love a video store with a “Hidden Gems” or “Obscure but Excellent” section in it - I don’t see a down side, either, as these movies are almost uniformly older and while some may be a little hard to come by, they shouldn’t cost nearly as much as new releases. And you only need one or two copies of most of them.
I’m a little concerned that your customers rent mostly full-screen. In my opinion, that is an indicator that you’re not dealing with movie buffs. Maybe it’s time for a little customer education.
Very disconcerting, what are you monitoring my video habits? If I wanted that I would sign up for netflix
You might want to build up a collection of films that tie into a theme related to your local community. For example, if hockey is the big sport where you are, have a section of hockey films, and promote it right before, during or after the season. Around here there is a major documentary film festival, so it might work to have a bunch of the documentaries they showed in previous years. If there is a famous actor/actress from your area, have all their films.
You might also try working directly with the teachers in the school.
Suggest to the English teacher that while they are studying the section on Shakespeare, you will offer a student discount on any of the many Shakespeare films you have, and students who turn in a review on the movie get extra credit in their English class. And give the teacher some coupons (Rent 1, get 1 free) to give out to reward students who get A or B on their review.
Then do the same with the History teachers. Revolutionary War, Civil War, settling the west, WWI, WWII, etc. all have films set in those times.
Also try math teachers (films on famous mathematicians), business teachers (films on business leaders), and even PE teachers (films on sports heroes)
You guys are really a wealth of information and ideas – I really appreciate all the input so far. A couple of things:
– Based on the response so far, I will abandon any idea of encouraging my employees to memorize customers’ names, unless they do so naturally and the customer seems open to the idea. There’s too much of a negative response here for me to think it would be a good idea.
– The suggestions for getting internet terminals (with IMDB) or internet reservation systems or e-mail reminders would be great but are, unfortunately, way out of our league. The computer system we use isn’t even Windows based; our one main computer does have Windows, but can only sign on to the internet for seconds at a time to send and receive e-mail on our ancient e-mail system.
Bingo. Unfortunately, we’re not for the most part dealing with movie buffs here, at least not so far. I wish we were; it would make my job a lot easier. About 85% of our profits come from the new release wall, and the majority of the new releases that sell are the big Hollywood releases (for example, some of our current hot sellers are “Big Momma’s House 2,” “When A Stranger Calls,” and “Hostel”). Our smaller, independant movies by and large just don’t rent. The adult section accounts for another 10% of our profits, leaving the catalogue section just 5%. Of course the profits don’t tell the whole story because the new releases and adult movies are more expensive than the catalogue movies. But even having said that, the catalogue movies just attract very little interest – and most of the ones that do are just the newer ones; our classics and foreign sections go virtually untouched.
Maybe I should take the above as a challenge – not just to educate customers, but as a way to generate extra revenue. There are lots of great ideas you guys have given to generate interest in our older movies – theme shelves, movies related to the local community, etc.
– Someone above recommended making the returned movies available to customers to look at before putting them back on the shelf. I love this idea – it’s so simple, and so plays to human nature! I do it myself – whenever I’m at the library if I see a cart of items to be put back I’ll immediately check it out to see if there are any hot items I should grab. Never occurred to me to put the same principle to use in the video store!
– I think I will try to come up with some subtle way to draw more attention to the adult room. Even long-term customers have told me that they’ve never noticed it before, so it’s obviously hidden away TOO well.
– I like the free promo item idea; we have a lot of movie posters lying around – may as well make some use out of them.
– I will agree with those who say that customer service is ultimately the key. I’m finding that it’s harder than I would have thought to keep my staff on their toes around the customers – I think I’m going to have to get some management books. I do have a good crew, but I think they may see me as a lightweight, in part because I’m younger than all of them.
Lots of other good ideas on here; I’m going to have to print this thread out and take notes!
Hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Find me someone who considers themselves a “movie expert” that wants to work at Blockbuster, and I’ll show you an idiot. Real movie enthusiasts want nothing to do with corporate rental chains.
I was going to suggest hiring more-capable movie fans and paying them a decent wage… Being a knowledgable movie afficionado and being a movie store employee, are almost mutually exclusive. There is a middle ground, but the pay has to be right.
To the OP, use some sort of “free” item in your advertising. It catches more than anything else.
Put an ad in the local paper looking for a movie geek. Pay him or her well, and let them help your customer base flourish. Acknowledge regular cutsomers with a hearty “hey” not a personal greeting as you have noted.
Hve some “Rent 10 get 1 free” cards printed up.
Blockbuster does this, and people are always looking at them.
Well, since they are just sitting there anyway, how about this: On movies that are seldom rented, make them free (or $.50, or whatever) with the rental of a new release or adult title. Promoting this (via cheap fliers) could also promote the adult section w/o being too “out there” with it. I think this would draw lots of people in…two for the price of one. I personally like to see old favorites, but if I am paying full price, I often want the new release. I would gladly pay an additional 50c to see an older film with the new one. Just thinking here…how about 50c durring the week, and “Free Movie Fridays!” where older titles are free w/a new release rental?
One last thought: one place we used to frequent offered 3 movies for 5 days for 5 dollars. You can guess which movies these were, but my husband and I did it all the time.
Let me come in here and add my voice to the cacophony of those who hate- nay, despise being called by the first name by complete strangers, be they people who’ve read my name badge at work, the lackeys behind the counter at any major retail establishment, or bank tellers- regardless of whether they’re giving me money or taking it off me.
And while we’re on the subject of employees addressing Customers: DON’T EVER, EVER, EVER CALL ME SIR! (Your Majesty, Your Eminence, Your Lordship, or Your Excellency are fine, however. )
The only nearby video store to us is a Blockbuster, and they have an excellent selection of new and current release titles- but for anything slightly obscure, offbeat, or made before the popularisation of Colour, good luck.
So, my suggestions:
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DO NOT make your staff refer to customers by their name.
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Get in a large stock of “Cult”, “Classic”, and “Offbeat” films- Anything by Ed Wood, The Coen Brothers, or the sort of films people here on the SDMB are likely to watch.
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Porn is good. Don’t have a big neon sign advertising it, but have an area near the back of the shop with “Persons entering this area must be over 18” (or whatever the legal age in your area is) on it. Make sure this area is well-lit, clean, and laid out clearly, by genre. If people can see it’s not “seedy” or “sleazy”, and that it simply contains Adult films, they’re not as likely to be offended by it’s presence*. And for Smeg’s sake, don’t waste your time with Non-X rated porn. Keep a selection of R-rated porn for couples near the door to the adult section(in it, obviously!), but otherwise, you want your porn to be X-Rated, and you want a selection of genres- including All-Girl, Interracial, Gay, Bisexual, Fetish, and Amateur.
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If Community Standards prevent having Porn on display in the shop, why not enable it to be rented over the net or the phone? Customer calls up/e-mails/logs onto website, selects the adult film they’d like, and then pops down to collect the film- perhaps already in a bag (with your store’s logo on it!), so the neighbours don’t have to see Mrs Smith renting Buff Military Boys Volume III or Mr. Johnson renting Fetish Butt-Sex IV: The Furries Return.
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Train your staff not to make inappropriate comments, regardless of what someone’s renting. No-one wants to be made to feel embarrassed because the 15 year old girl serving them is clearly weirded out by the fact they’re renting a non-mainstream movie, be it Big Titted Lesbian Dildo Orgy, Ishtar, or Something In French With Lots Of Sex And Violence.
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Ditch late fees altogether. A film is due back by the time the store closes of an evening on the due date. There’s a grace period till, say, 9am or 10am the next day, but otherwise, they get charged for an extra day if they keep it longer than that.
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Hire staff that know something about films! Not film students or pretentious wankers, but people who really enjoy films and can recommend things the customers might enjoy.
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Give away old film posters to people. Don’t charge for them, just give them away- on a first in, best dressed theory.
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Don’t let your personal tastes dictate what you will and won’t stock. You (the generic you) may hate films with Subtitles (“I don’t go to the movies to read!”), but plenty of us love them
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Have you thought of renting PS2s/Xboxes and the games thereof? There’s a lot of money to made from Game Rental- it’s very popular in Australia. Selling ex-rental games is also a good way to make money, too…
*Weird Religious Issues Commonly Found In The US excepted, of course
I agree with this. You can demonstrate you remember someone without doing the forced familiarity thing. “Hey…how’d you like the movie? Did you see him in X? I think you’ll like that one, too.” No need for fakey friendship.
Take a little time to educate yourself on some accounting principles as well. I think what you probably meant to say was 85% of your gross revenue comes from the new release wall, not profit. The owner will respect your opinion a lot more if you speak in accurate terms about matters financial.
I don’t work for a video store, but I frequent our local, non-chain store often. We rent a ton of movies, and I’ll ramble on about the things that they’ve done. They’ve been open for a good while (before I moved to the area) and they seem to do a good business, even with a Blockbuster in town just down the road.
–Get a write-up in the local paper, alternative or otherwise. My video store has their write up from The City Pages, which is a newspaper that’s more alternative than the big newsies in the area. You know, the one with the different movie and restaurant reviews and “Twin Cities Favorites” polls issues and such. People like knowing that their video store is the best in the area, but they like knowing that other people also think their video store is the best in the area more, if you know what I mean.
–You’ve mentioned that you’re about at the end of your rope for freebies, but my local store does “rent 1 get 1” specials on Sundays (which, I’m guessing, is usually a slack rental day). Apparently it’s successful enough that they’ve extended it to Mondays as well (either that, or early-week rentals are really down).
–The local store has also added a “free kids movie Tuesdays and Wednesdays” this summer. Not sure if it’s a rent 1 get 1 thing or not (we don’t have kids), but you can see that the goal behind the promotion is just to get people in the store.
–They’ve got a board with recent release names on it, followed by what their employees thought of the movie, in sticker form. A blue sticker means that Kate thought the movie was excellent, an orange sticker means that Bob thought it was good, a green sticker means that Tony thought it beats whatever’s on TV, and a red sticker means that Sue thinks you should count it as the free movie for your Sunday rental. I *always *check these out. Not necessarily because I’m renting that movie, mainly to see what others had to say and whether I agreed.
–Like many stores, they offer the extra movies they’ve rented out for sale at a price break. Once or twice a year, they have a huge sidewalk sale with even more reduced prices that always has people out there browsing.
–They’ve got a gumball machine. Get the yellow “winner” gumball and get a free rental!
–Posters and other propaganda/advertising is for sale.
–They’ve got some sort of arrangement where they’ll trade tickets to the local professional team for rentals. (Last year it was free rentals for Wild tickets.) Not sure if it’d really be a benefit to me (depends on how many rentals they were offering), but if I had the tickets and couldn’t go and couldn’t sell them, I’d think about it.
–They’ve got 5 for 5 deals on older movie titles and games, I think. 5 titles for 5 days for 5 bucks, or something like.
That’s all I can think of for now.
I can sympathize with you on most of your customers going straight to the new releases, but I think if you worked on the older, lesser-known goodies a bit, your customers might surprise you. The draw for me for these types of movies is that I can keep them longer and they cost me less. People like me (a little older and more patient) can be a good revenue source, too - we never rent new releases, but we do try to work our way through older movies that we’ve had recommended to us. I love a “recommended by staff” section or something like that - we’re very open to trying movies we’ve only heard of by word-of-mouth.
It’s a good fit for a smaller, less massive franchise, too - you can be more personal and have more cult classics available. You can become known to all your local geeks as the movie store that has all the John Cusack films/all the Kevin Smith films/etc. My husband and I would never bother with Blockbuster et al if we had such a video store nearby.
Regarding the sir/ma’am thing - us mature ladies hate being called ma’am, too (most customer service people pull the “ma’am” out when they think you’re completely full of shit). I challenge you and your staff to come up with slightly inventive respectful names to call customers. A clerk giving me my bag and saying, “Here you go, lady,” or “Here are your movies, madam” would tickle me to no end.
Some suggestions employed by my favourite video rental store of all time:
Pick an actor that is generally despised/made-fun-of by most of your clientelle. Make his/her movies free to rent (in the case of the above mentioned video store, it was Brooke Shields - I was never a big renter of her movies, but it was a delightful surprise when I went to rent Freeway only to discover it was free!).
Keep several notebooks by the door that list every movie you have available for rent alphabetically, and where in the store they can be located. Include any movies not currently out on the shelves (see below).
Keep the films that you pull from the shelves because no one ever rents them. Someday some person (most likely me) will ask if you carry Bloodsucking Freaks.
As stated before, stock a large cult section. This is something sadly lacking from the big franchises like Blockbuster, Hollywood, etc., and, along with X-rated movies, one of the main reasons why folks will continue to give their business to smaller video stores.
Here’s one I haven’t heard mentioned before: if you are a store that has movies playing in the background, play some good movies that folks may not be familiar with!! Obviously nothing with sex or violence, but there are lots of movies out there other than big Hollywood blockbusters or Disney films that you can play. Nothing gets me scampering out of a video store faster than some cartoon musical turned up to an obscene volume.
Know what you’re talking about!!! I love getting into discussions with folks that are obviously as passionate about movies as I am. Also, know where your movies are!!! Nothing makes me more annoyed then a video store employee not being able to find what I’m looking for when the computer says they have it. Mr. Bunny and I watched the first several volumes of Twin Peaks, only to get just far enough into Season 2 to get sucked in, and then have them inform us after an hour long search that the next volume had disappeared mysteriously.
Anyway. My two cents. I’m very jealous, I would love a job like this!
I’m surprised this hasn’t come up before–a popcorn machine at the front of the store. How about a Free bag of popcorn (small bag–but free) while the customers are browsing? The first challenge it seems is to get them there, and the second it seems is to keep them in the store long enough for them to find a movie (or lots of movies) that they’d like to see.
I would also agree against the using the customer’s names (ick, ick, ick!), and would agree with foreign flicks and cult movies. I also like the idea of staff recommendations. One of the used bookstores I visit has staff recommendations section, and the turn over rate for the books is amazingly fast. Plus, I like reading what others thought of the book. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with movies as well.
Twice I’ve come to these forums asking for advice since I took the job as video store manager, and twice I’ve received tons of excellent advice. And the advice seemed to work – in June sales were up 30% compared to the same time last year, and the new programs we’d been implementing were popular with the customers. So I’m a bit sad to let you all know that it’s coming to an end: on Monday my boss told me he’s closing the store. Sales were getting better all the time, but they just weren’t enough, and he decided to throw in the towel.
The most annoying part about it is that the boss wanted to close the store the very next day. That’s it – less than 24 hours notice. So we started packing up the movies yesterday, finished packing today, and will disassemble all the shelves tomorrow. And then…out of a job. My employees are pissed; when I asked if they would get paid for the rest of the hours they were scheduled this week, he said no – they would get paid for whatever hours they worked to help pack up, but that’s it (too bad for those who work other jobs during the day!).
Anyways, it all kinda sucks, but thanks all for all the advice. It was fun while it lasted!
(On a side note, luckily I did get some good news today!)