Blockbuster may disappear along with its late fees

[ditchdj]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30076153/

----Company after company's still going broke.

Even the well-known ones.

[draggar]

Looks like I might have to move my queue over to Netflix. I've been happy with BB.

[Rine]

But...but I like my blockbuster!

NOOOOOooooo.

Now I'll have to go to movie gallery if BB goes under.

My BB is so close. Whenever I get a hankering for a movie, I can walk and get something and I know a lot of the employees! (sorta)

I am sad now.

[SG15Z]

Great another business to add to the "going of out business" list. The list is really starting to get long folks. I don't like where this is heading. I'm really glad I work for a company that sells products that people actually need to survive. People will still need to go to the grocery store even during a depression.

I'm officially no longer calling this a recession folks. Because we're spiraling fast into a depression. We not be there yet, but I have a very high feeling we're going to. The next couple of years are going to suck (hopefully it's shorter than "years" but that's pretty wishful thinking considering how long depressions have lasted in the past.)

[videodrone]

yeah.........this would not be good for me.

[Jack T. Chance]

So, let me get this straight...

Over the course of the last 20-25 years, Blockbuster became essentially the Wal*Mart of video stores, driving most mom & pop video stores out of business, buying at least one major rival (Erol's Video, which they bought out at some time in the early to mid '90s) and causing their only surviving major rival, Hollywood Video, to close a HUGE number of its locations (here in my part of Maryland, we went from 5 Hollywood Video locations that I knew of, to only 1 of them still being open today) and Blockbuster STILL might go under?!?

Can you say "mismanagement"? I knew you could!

I mean, I knew Netflix and DVD rental vending machines such as Redbox were giving Blockbuster a lot of competition, but still, the upper management of the company must be a bunch of IMBECILES for the company to fail THIS badly, especially when they're now pulling tricks like having a lot of titles made Blockbuster Exclusives, so that you CAN NOT rent them anywhere else!

[Broomjockey]

I'm officially no longer calling this a recession folks. Because we're spiraling fast into a depression.

That's hilarious, since just the other day, I heard that there's signs it might be starting to turn around. "It won't be a quick recovery, but the downward side is almost done."

[Custard Chick]

Ugg, are you serious? I literally JUST signed up for their DVD-by-mail service and JUST received my first DVD today!

Lame...

[Rapscallion]

The problem is that once they got dominance, they didn't keep an eye on what was going on, from what I can see.

What usually happens is complacency. "Oh, mailing out DVDs, what a quaint idea. The public love coming into our stores for our customer service. We can ignore this." Six months later and they're running to catch up.

Evolve or die - it's business.

Rapscallion

[Kiwi]

Our local block buster charges $7 for a DVD (its usually very dead, I have never seen more than one person working there at a time)

the corner store charges $1.50 (these are popping up in all of the corner stores in my city)

The library charges nothing. Sure I have to reserve stuff in advance but you can have up tp 28 dvds reserved at any one time so I go once a week return the old ones, get 5 new ones and they have all the new popular ones and the cool rare ones you can never find.
Guess where I get my dvds from?

If a business doesn't pay attention to the other practices for the same exact product what do they expect? For a while you couldn't get DVD's anywhere but the two chain places. People got sick of being over charged and looked for alternatives. I regret that people will be losing their jobs over this but thats how it works sometimes.

A business that wont adapt fast enough to a changing market is likely to go the way of the dinosaur. Pay attention to your company practices, do they seem smart to you? If not jump ship!

[Rapscallion]

Someone at work today related a tale similar to that of Kiwi. His partner worked for one company who was really excited to get a new account. This was way back when, and the account was for something like £200 a day or so, which was a huge amount of money back then. They'd bargained with the company to get the account and given all sorts of promises and extras and discounts etc.

"So, have you done your calculations on this account?" asked partner of colleague.

"It's £200 a day turnover! It may grow to more!"

"Have you done your calculations?"

Partner got the back of an envelope and sketched out a few sums, only to come to a rough total of a profit of a few pence each day. He scratched his head, reworked it, and went job hunting. Two weeks later he handed in his notice. Six months later, the company didn't exist.

Rapscallion

[smileyeagle1021]

I hate to say it, and apologize to the members who work for blockbuster... but good riddance.

At least in Salt Lake they were a joke. The by the mail service isn't as fast as netflix, the stores have very little variety, even when compared to the netflix watch instantly, they were overpriced, and they kept charging me for lost movies that I know were turned in because the store only had one copy of the movie and I could see it on the shelf. They couldn't change with the times, they need to die to let someone new have a chance.

[HorrorFrogPrincess]

You know, those smaller rental places may have a second chance because of this. Not everyone wants a constant stream of movies coming to their door. Some only watch a few movies a month. There's room for a few smaller rental stores again.

[Mike Taylor]

I kinda saw this coming a few years ago. Back in 2005, they pulled out of my hometown, leaving Video Warehouse and Movie Gallery to take up the slack. The remaining Blockbusters in the surrounding towns started looking shabbier and shabbier as well.

Digital distribution and online ordering of movies has certainly been a factor over the past couple of years, but I'm absolutely certain that the change in the way movies are shipped to retailers is also a factor. Back in the days of VHS, the video stores would get rental copies long before the mass market retailers. They'd purchase the tapes at $150 each, but make that back many times over in rental fees, then a few months later the retailers would have the videos for sale for $19.99 or so. Nowadays, a movie hits the retailers and the rental places at the same time, making many folks less inclined to go rent the titles when they can purchase it for just a few dollars more.

[Kogarashi]

This actually makes me kind of sad. The Blockbusters here are actually quite well-kept with friendly staff, and one of them is where I actually managed to find my Wii last year. Also, aside from one rather ghetto-looking Hollywood Video, there really aren't any other rental options that I've found in the area.