One other quick point: I also am very skeptical about Blockbuster only charging $10-15 for a movie that you keep. (although no amound of skepticism would ever make me use that awful “dubious” smiley .)
I once accidentally returned a movie to the wrong Blockbuster store. (I rented from a couple different ones at the time.) I never knew my mistake until I get a letter from the original store that they never got the movie back. At that point I owed them a large amount. I believe it was about $60-80. I’m not sure on the exact amout, but it was a lot more than the movie was worth.
I did get them to call the other store who had the movie and get it back. I then ended up paying 1/2 of the original fee or so.
Ah, OK. If they’re charging you $8 per rental, then I don’t blame you for renting elsewhere. That’s pretty outrageous. My local BB doesn’t charge that. They are priced very competitively.
As to your other comments, OK, you’re responsible. And their rental policy doesn’t meet your needs. I’m cool with that. Somehow I read into your posts that you should be able to keep stuff out late and not have to pay late fees. If I misread you, I’m sorry. There are plenty of people that have that attitude, though.
BTW, the BB near me has 6 night rentals, and late fees are charged in 6 night blocks. That’s very reasonable to me, and it sounds like they’re trying to remain competitive with their policies. The only reason I don’t rent there often is because their selection sucks ass. They don’t have the more obscure foreign movies, such as Ghostbusters.
I don’t see them charging more than the price of used movies they already sell, which are in that price range. Of course, they may not sell used copies of things that are outrageously priced. That’s where they might take you by surprise. But others have pointed out that most new movies are affordable these days.
And I see nothing wrong with them charging whatever it cost them. If their copy of Ghost costs them $100 to replace, then I have no problem with their passing that cost onto the customer. But it would be nice if they’d let the customer know this up front. I doubt they will.
That sounds reasonable to me. Unless, of course, you returned them during business hours and at the counter. It’s still your responsibility to return videos to the right store, but it would have been a good idea if they could have told you about your mistake.
Debaser, this is the process we are supposed to go through when a movie is returned to the wrong BB store:
Every morning, a list prints out of all the movies returned to our store (we’ll call this store A) that belong to another store (store B). The manager on duty at store A is supposed to call store B and report that their movie is at our store. Then the person at store B checks the movie into the “wrong store account,” at which point it is checked IN on the customer’s account. Store A now has to pay UPS shipping costs to get the movies back to Store B. Store B, in the meantime, loses revenue on the product that they aren’t able to rent out. The customer is not supposed to be penalized. Occasionally a manager will forget to call the stores on the list (this doesn’t happen when I’M the opening manager, but I’ve seen it done before), in which case store B has to figure it out either a) when the customer calls to complain that they’re recieving postcards/phone calls about a movie they turned in, or b) when the shipment with all the wrong store DVDs comes in, they scan one, and realize that it’s not in the “wrong store account.” In this case, they’re supposed to remove the late fees from the customer’s account. At least, that’s what our store does. I have heard people at other stores make comments like, “well it IS the customer’s responsibility to return it to the store they rented it from.” Which is true, of course. Maybe I take the fees off because I don’t feel like dealing with bitchy customers.
Anyway, everybody is getting credits tomorrow night!
WhyNot, I consider myself a damn cool manager! I won’t list all the rules I allow my CSRs to break, but we’re very “relaxed” at our store. While there are a lot of great customers at our store, there are a lot of crappy regulars too. We’re located in a somewhat wealthy part of Baton Rouge, and some of these Louisianian “aristocrats” have gigantic rods shoved up their butts. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the new computer system we’re required to use at BB, Compass. It SUCKS! One of the main reasons I’ve gotten so sick of my job is because they’ve gotten increasingly pushy with sales (especially since the Moviepass!). So the company wants us to sell more Moviepasses, then they seemingly decrease our rental inventory so that we don’t have as many movies to offer the Moviepass folks. It seems to be getting better as we adjust, but I can’t tell you how many complaints I’ve had about “Ever since this Moviepass thing started, you guys don’t have ANY movies!” Of course, this is good for the company - not so good for the employees who have to deal with complaining customers.
/hijack tdn, your customer who wanted nothing to do with video credits was a moron. However, a good salesman (not that video store workers should be expected to be good salesmen) could have overcome her opposition.
The customer seemed to be objecting to the term credit. What a good salesman does at that point in not only excise the term credit from his vocabulary, but tries to overcome the customer’s irrational fear and make the customer forget the word.
I am not a good salesman. I’m snarky (it may show in this thread ), and have limited patience. It is going to hurt me from moving much farther up the food chain in my current profession. My boss, a partner at a major accounting firm, is just the opposite. He is a consummate salesman. He could sell sand to a Bedouin. He would have had that customer taking all four free rentals, plus buying two movies, popcorn and a few movie posters.
In retrospect, yes. I’d thought of this 5 minutes after the exchange. But in the moment, of course, we were like trained monkeys. We’d see the little “4 credits” indicator on the computer, and immediately go into our spiel. The cat would be out of the bag before we catch ourselves. By the time we knew better, so did the customer – as soon as we deviated from our normal script, she’d go into “Shut up! No credit!” mode.
I like Blockbuster, though I wish they had a better selection. But for our needs (the average movie watcher) they are fine. Of course, they are literally 5 minutes away so renting/returning movies isn’t such a big deal.
I also like PPV, though the selection is even more limited. It is very convenient, however, especially since we have the ability to rewind now.
Netflix doesn’t interest me because for the same price I can rent or PPV 4 movies per month. I can’t tell you the last time I rented 4 movies in one month. Hell, I don’t think I can list 4 DVDs that I’d want to watch even if I had the time. I prefer reading to watching movies.
The DVDs that truly interest me (e.g. Buffy, Sopranos), I buy outright. Just re-watched “Almost Famous” last week while I was wrapping Christmas prizes. I love that movie. “Dude, do you want to watch me feed a mouse to my pet snake?” “Yes, I do.”
Most used movies at Blockbuster are around $12.99. The $12.99 stickers are always the first to go when marking prices. The highest they get (with few rare expections is $14.99. It’s pretty common to see $9.99 movies and even the occasional $6.99 movie. The best bet is to wait for the inevitable 2 for $20.00 sales and stock up then.
Well, here at our Movie Gallery (one of 2 places in town to rent movies), we get a movie/game for 5 days. As soon as it’s one day late, they charge you the full price of a rental again. They say that it’s a good thing, the re-renting of movies. Anyway, my uncle had this happen, and when he found out that they had re-rented it to him, he decided to keep it for the next 5 days. He was getting late movie calls the next day. :rolleyes:
I wasn’t talking about the fact you can get movies cheaper elsewhere. I was talking abvout the prices I see in Canadian Blockbuster stores. They seem higher than where you are. I got really lucky the other day getting “Waking Life” for 10 bucks but nothing else remotely interesting/popular generally seems as cheap even sven or you say. Maybe it’s that darn weakened US $.
Well, not really. If you steal a crystal vase from Carsons, aren’t you liable to pay their price for it if they catch you, and not Marshall’s discount price? If we take it down to its basic level, renting a video tape and never returning it is theft, plain and simple. If you choose to steal from Blockbuster, then they should charge you the amount they would have charged you at that store for a sale. Simply because the theft is easy to track and hold you accountable for doesn’t mean it’s anything other than theft.
Doesn’t seem like an argument against my point, but perhaps I wasn’t clear.
Some people (theoretically) don’t like Blockbuster because they charge too much for their items. However, if people buy from Blockbuster despite their higher price, it does not make Blockbuster evil or predatory.
The same would go for buying an unreturned rental. It doesn’t make Blockbuster evil or predatory. It makes one a poor or uninformed or irresponsible consumer.
Corollary: If I buy popcorn at a theater, is it the theater’s fault I’m willing to sign over my biweekly paycheck for it? Or is it mine for being too weak to resist the faux buttery, salty allure of the popped kernels, and for not being able to go three hours without stuffing my face?
Sorry, I thought you were saying that charging Blockbuster’s price for a stolen movie was unfair when there were cheaper options available. Looks like I misinterpreted your statement. I apologize. Looks like we’re on the same page after all.
So, umm, consider my above post a response to one or more of those who were whining about paying Blockbuster’s supposedly higher prices (they’re not ever higher then MSRP) for a tape you stole from Blockbuster. But leave D-Odds out of it.
Thanks! I only drool occasionally, usually after my orthodontic appointments
Does anyone here think this will actually make more money for Blockbuster, or at least keep them from sinking? Everything I’ve read points to this as being great for Blockbuster customers, but I just don’t see how this is going to be good, overall, for the company in any sense except a stopgap to keep from losing customers.
Not me. They’ll be making far less per movie, and thay’ll have fewer movies. To me this sounds like a desperate attempt to hold on to an ever-shrinking market share.
XJETGIRL, I think it’s good for the company in that it will help preserve some of its video rental income stream that other methods have been gnawing away. It will lessen the bleeding of customers while they come up with a plan to compete with, or purchase, Netflix / Video-on-Demand / etc.
XJETGIRLX, the ship is sinking. The little rat-employees have been scurrying away from the water belowdecks, while the corporate guys have been listening to chamber music on deck. They tried the lifeboats (offering a Netflix-like plan) and they ran out. They’re now fashioning rafts out of armoires. Soon the stern will be under, and we’ll be left with the strains of Celine Dion as we chortle in glee whilst adjusting our Netflix queues.
Unless they have some secret insight into customer psychology which informs them that more people will keep the movies 14 days or more, then I don’t know how they could possibly make money at this. Then again, if EVF fees are only around 12% of revenue, then they only have 12% to make up through some other source. So maybe? But I think it’s panic.
Well, there are some franchise stores in Lafayette, LA that have been doing this for at least a year. A few of the people who work at those stores said as soon as they started the program, their business went “through-the-ROOF.” They said that most people return the movies about a day late, and only about 2% don’t return them at all (again, this is just word of mouth, these are not actual figures). So, if it draws a LOT more people into the store - and it probably will - then BB will be making money… of course, if BB fails to send us more rental product to make up for it, people might not ever be able to find the movies they want (since most of our customers only want the movies that just came out), they might get frustrated and stop coming… who knows?!
Overall, I think the company is hoping that increased business will make up for the lost “late fee” revenue.
I don’t really care anymore though, 'cos** it’s my last day!**
.)
I won’t list all the rules I allow my CSRs to break, but we’re very “relaxed” at our store. While there are a lot of great customers at our store, there are a lot of crappy regulars too. We’re located in a somewhat wealthy part of Baton Rouge, and some of these Louisianian “aristocrats” have gigantic rods shoved up their butts. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the new computer system we’re required to use at BB, Compass. It SUCKS! One of the main reasons I’ve gotten so sick of my job is because they’ve gotten increasingly pushy with sales (especially since the Moviepass!). So the company wants us to sell more Moviepasses, then they seemingly decrease our rental inventory so that we don’t have as many movies to offer the Moviepass folks. It seems to be getting better as we adjust, but I can’t tell you how many complaints I’ve had about “Ever since this Moviepass thing started, you guys don’t have ANY movies!” Of course, this is good for the company - not so good for the employees who have to deal with complaining customers.
