Obi-Wanma

If you want to get new releases from Neflix, mail your movie back on Saturday and have a new release at the top of your queue. Most times, it will be in your mailbox on release day.

Abob Teff

Amen RonG! I have always said that the brick and mortar video store can be a successful business, but it has to be run with the flexibility and personality of a small ("mom and pop") business. It does not translate to a mega-corporate model. It is a business in which the company has to cater to the true customer, not stock-holders.

Many of the stores that Blockbuster closed down were making money ... enough money that I would have been happy and comfortable owning that particular store ... they just weren't making enough money for the corporation.

This may sound odd, but I really believe that the landscape would be much different had Hollywood not sold out to Movie Gallery. I believe that both companies would still be around. That move eliminated one major player and left another with a game that it didn't know how to play.

One of Family Video's major successes is the fact that it is a privately-owned and run company. You would not walk into one of their stores and imagine that the company is as big as it is. Not to say that it hasn't had it's own internal struggles, but it is able to adapt. It also has made very prudent "non-core business" investments (i.e., real estate instead of production companies and worthless used video games). Trust me, I have plenty of criticism for FV, but I also have plenty of respect for it.

Gizmo

And with higher prices more and more people will learn what Torrenting is and Netflix will be gone (well, not the older crowd who think they are hip and cool now since they can 'stream'). I've already cut back to DVD only for Netflix and I'll just find movies elsewhere. Younger generation will just find out a 'free' way and never go back to the pay model. Just like CDs.

jpb07

Fixed for you

jpb07

I agree with you to a point but Apple/iTunes might have something to say about that.

Abob Teff

That too!

calhoun07

Even with all the hate for the company I would NOT want to see that many people lose their jobs. It's crappy it's come to this. I was watching a CNBC documentary about McDonald's and back in 2002 or so they posted their first quarterly loss. They stopped opening new stores and decided to focus on the stores they already had, remodeling them, making them clean and nice and training the employees right. And they went back to focus on what they did best: HAMBURGERS.

Blockbuster started to sputter and they plowed ahead opening new stores, sometimes two or three more in areas that already had one, they cut back on employee training and started to branch out into other areas, thus squandering money away their stores were making. They decided to stop focusing on what they did best: RENTALS.

When Blockbuster was a rental focused store they were top of their game, there was no touching them. Once they started this "one stop entertainment shopping" experience BS they wanted to force on everybody it really was the beginning of the end then.

The sad truth about all this is their stores are still making money, for the most part. But once it is out of their hands corporate squanders it away.

I felt sorry for all the Circuit City employees who lost their jobs and there was no real celebration in that, and likewise for Blockbuster. Too bad they couldn't take a cue from McDonalds and tried to get back to the basics when they had a chance to change to survive. I doubt there is any turning back from where they are now.

Alan Smithee

But people like me don't rent anymore. I'd patronize them a lot more if they stocked a lot more movies for sale (and I don't mean 'previously viewed').

MrSmearkase

Agreed. They often have older titles that are no longer carried in other B&M stores, many times with the first-pressing slipcover, but their pricing kills the appeal for me.

Alan Smithee

When I was searching for something to buy with my giftcard I passed on a lot of titles because they were in cardboard slipcovers with no shrinkwrap, and the stores had put their price tags right on them (see my hundreds of other rants about this subject, which has led to me buying a lot fewer discs since it started.) I can't help thinking that's part of what drove the local FYE out of business too.

calhoun07

Blockbuster can never offer new DVD or Blu Rays for sale at a discount. It's the one thing in the store they make the least amount of money off of. They couldn't afford to take it as a loss leader to lure you in.

fujishig

Not to mention that their pricing is most likely why they have stuff long after it's out of stock everywhere else. Same with Suncoast, or whatever they're called now.

d2cheer

Agree. I like to be spontaneous in renting a movie, game whatever. Not having a B&M store to go to will cut way down on what I will be watching or playing. Netflix is hit or miss sometimes it is one day to get it in the mail sometimes it is 2. Maybe if the streaming selection gets better I might not miss the B&M as much but where does one rent a game on a whim then?

calhoun07

I read online (I can't recall where...some article somewhere) that Blockbuster plans to scale back to 3500 stores by the end of the year. They have what now? 6000? That would dramatically cut their presence back.

Osiris3657

I worked at Blockbuster way back in 2002 as a teen and honestly I hated the job (before I was accepted the job I thought it would be the greatest thing ever). Management was terrible, we were forced to push products and programs onto people (I'm not talking about simply suggesting a product or service, but having to meet a weekly and monthly quota), the shifts were brutal (3pm to 1am was not out of the ordinary).

I absolutely feel bad for the thousands of hard working customer service people who will become unemployed, but the corporate and management assholes can suck it.

On another note, I'm curious to see what kind of liquidation sales they will have

Gizmo

Again? Didn't they just close down like 20-25% of their stores this year?

Alan Smithee

Anyone being forced to push stuff on customers is brutal- I heard back when "Jerry Maguire" was coming out on sell-thru VHS, Blockbastard employees had to ask EVERY customer when checking out if they wanted to pre-order it, and when answering the phone the first thing they said had to be "Would you like to pre-order Jerry Maguire?" That was one of the first day-and-date DVD releases BTW, but not all Blockbastards had them yet. One store near me ditched laserdiscs in 1998, reason being "To make room for the DVDs" they said, then it took them more than a year to get any DVDs in, for the time in between all they had was VHS!

calhoun07

I thought it was about 960 last year.

james2025a

Thank goodness. I stopped using them years ago when i got a letter from them saying that i owed around $600 in late fees because a number of the DVDs i had rented were scratched and needed to be replaced, so charged me late fees as a starting point. I took great pleasure in going in and reminding them that every single one of those movies i had complained about because they were unplayable when i got them out in the first place and that i suggested they contact the last person to rent them. That branch is still open near me, but when it closes i will make sure i pay a visit just to applaud it. Godawful company. On the plus side they used to have a daily movie question competition and i used to manage to get a free rental every day out of it and even won a Christmas Quiz competition with a voucher for $200. So that was a couple of things on the plus side.

Sonic

lol@blockbastards lol

Undeadcow

I'll miss the cheaper previously viewed titles.

I remember as a kid picking up Rosemary's Baby and Friday the 13th on VHS at Blockbuster ($2 sale each new, Halloween promotion) to see them both for the first time. My life has not been the same since...

Alan Smithee

I just wish they'd hurry up and get on with it already.

ben12

Wow, what a difference!

Xander

Other than occasionally buying used DVD's from them, I won't really miss them. Their business practices are sadly outdated.

On a positive note, I hope this gets rid of the damn "30 day window" on Warner Brothers movies for Netflix. Wasn't that due to their exclusivity deal with Blockbuster?

MrSmearkase

Yes, but if the kiosks remain in operation, it could still just apply to those. Who knows, though?