BlockBuster- How would you make it better?

[MosHighDef]

I was wondering what would you guys do to make Blockbuster better? What would you like seen changed, added, any ideads you have to make the store different and better just name them. Thanks

[Ferris]

Originally Posted by MosHighDef

I was wondering what would you guys do to make Blockbuster better? What would you like seen changed, added, any ideads you have to make the store different and better just name them. Thanks

IMHO, it's mainly a money issue. They're expensive, and they're not getting any cheaper. Their on-line rental service used to include some nice perks, but they've removed the perks, and increased their price. That does not create loyalty amongst their consumers.

[fatediesel]

I really don't see the need for retail rental stores anymore. If I had a choice between going to Blockbuster or going to a Redbox kiosk I would choose Redbox. Of course none of the Redbox around me carry Blu-ray so that isn't an option.
I honestly don't know if Blockbuster can be fixed. Their prices are way too high to rent video games and Blu-rays, and they aren't making it better by stripping some of the perks as mentioned. I remember the first time I joined Blockbuster online in 2006. Back then you could do unlimited trades, and you got 2 free in-store rentals a month which could be used for video games. I even got a new Shrek 2 dvd when I joined. Now they limit your in-store rentals and don't ship new movies until you have returned your movie back to the store.

[Moefiz]

Let's see..for starters they have to lower there prices, there prices are way too high to rent a movie and forget about games $9.00 for a week..that's way too expensive.
They need more of a selection for Blu-ray, yes its not as main stream as DVD but they have to cater to the customers who already has the new format.
Get rid of there older movies ,they are just siting there not making them any money..makes no sense when you pay $4.00 to rent an older title and you can buy it for $5 at Walmart.

[jadedeath]

Jesus, don't get me started.

For starters, the entire 'no late fees' thing is rubbish.

Worst idea anyone has ever thought up. Up here in Canada even Rogers {the main national competition for Blockbuster} has gone back to late fees. {in a manner of speaking}

Blockbuster finds new and creative ways on a daily basis on how to waste money. Instead of getting a blue-box and a paper shredder, they pay a company {at least up here in Canada} to come and do it for them.

Now, having said that, if they really wanted to make more money, they'd start with their staff. In my experience a happy staff member makes for happy customers. They should try 'sharing the wealth' with their employees.

It won't only result in people hating their jobs a little less, it'll also result in spending less money for training due to the lowered turnover rate in employees. Take a look at any Blockbuster location that you walk into, check out the staff, if you go once now, once again in a week, then after two weeks you'll likely be dealing with a different person each time.

If you have the same employees over the course of a few years, then those employees will start to create relationships with your customers, customers will start to come to certain employees {that they trust} with regards to their movie watching and suggestions, and thus, the employees will better be able to upsell to said customers.

Everyone wants to see a familiar face when they walk into a place of business.

Next they need to get the pricing of the movies down, they don't need 120 copies of the latest Michael Bay movie. They don't need a massive rack of candy and chips. People don't go into Blockbuster to buy candy, get rid of most of it. They'd save A HUGE amount of money if they did that. Not to mention getting in small bags of chips instead of the massive ones, it's a constant complaint I heard when dealing with some customers.

As for the late fees and it chasing off customers who don't understand their responsibility to pay them? First off, screw the customer, if they didn't understand the OBVIOUS that if you keep a movie for weeks at a time you end up with {get this} late fees that can run you back $20 then that's their fault.

Secondly, with some of the customers I do sympathize, however that problem could easily be fixed by not giving the employee trouble for writing off some of the late fee. Or even allow their managers to pick a customer every week to write off their late fees, call them up and offer them a free rental. It's not like the late fees they're collecting now are bursting their bank accounts with awesomey goodness.

Finally, I'd get the top brass to actually LISTEN to the front line employees. They do studies here and there {and pay for the results} of consumers and what the consumers want, instead of listening to their employees and what the consumers TELL the employees. It's not only cheaper, but {wait for it} you can break it down to the individual stores instead of paying a couple hundred thousand for a study that TELLS you what you want to hear instead of listening to your employees tell you what SHOULD be happening.

None of the above Blockbuster will do, so IMO Blockbuster is doomed.

Logan

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by Moefiz

Get rid of there older movies ,they are just siting there not making them any money..makes no sense when you pay $4.00 to rent an older title and you can buy it for $5 at Walmart.

Just thought I'd hop in here.

The older movies make Blockbuster an @$$load of money, as those are the titles that have made their money back for Blockbuster and every time they rent one of those it's pure profit.

Logan

[mikejet]

Porn. Lots of it.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by mikejet

Porn. Lots of it.

Porn actually costs a crapload of money to maintain in the long run.

Logan

[mikejet]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

Porn actually costs a crapload of money to maintain in the long run.

Logan

When I worked at a small mom and pop video store the majority of the income was from adult rentals. Even though they cost alot, since the rentals were only for one night the ROI was high.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by mikejet

When I worked at a small mom and pop video store the majority of the income was from adult rentals. Even though they cost alot, since the rentals were only for one night the ROI was high.

Yeah, but you could easily make up that revenue with a space that caters to kids movies.

Plus, most employees would rather clean the separate room of kids sticky fingers than adults sticky fingers.

Logan

[sonnyworld85]

This past weekend I rented NHL 09 for my xbox 360, total came up $10.25
Blockbuster is way too expensive. Their discs for movies and games are always scratched too

[Another_Dude]

As a former store manager for Blockbuster I'll say this:

They're done.

At my store years ago we had movie and film experts working the registers and walking the aisles. Excellent staff that made it worth coming into our store even if the customer didn't rent something. We had regulars that would stop in just to talk about movies. I knew my "Tuesday morning regulars" by name and had their accounts pulled up before they got to the register. I go to my local store now and its nothing like that, just a warm body that somewhat knows how to pull the trigger on a scan gun.

Netflix started the bleeding, but it will be Redbox that delivers the final blow. Blockbuster's business model won't work when there are $1 rentals over at Walmart and McDonalds.

I sent Redbox an email and told them that I'll be cancelling my Netflix subscription the first day I see a BR in my local kiosk.

[toef]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

Jesus, don't get me started.

For starters, the entire 'no late fees' thing is rubbish.

Worst idea anyone has ever thought up. Up here in Canada even Rogers {the main national competition for Blockbuster} has gone back to late fees. {in a manner of speaking}

Blockbuster finds new and creative ways on a daily basis on how to waste money. Instead of getting a blue-box and a paper shredder, they pay a company {at least up here in Canada} to come and do it for them.

Now, having said that, if they really wanted to make more money, they'd start with their staff. In my experience a happy staff member makes for happy customers. They should try 'sharing the wealth' with their employees.

It won't only result in people hating their jobs a little less, it'll also result in spending less money for training due to the lowered turnover rate in employees. Take a look at any Blockbuster location that you walk into, check out the staff, if you go once now, once again in a week, then after two weeks you'll likely be dealing with a different person each time.

If you have the same employees over the course of a few years, then those employees will start to create relationships with your customers, customers will start to come to certain employees {that they trust} with regards to their movie watching and suggestions, and thus, the employees will better be able to upsell to said customers.

Everyone wants to see a familiar face when they walk into a place of business.

Next they need to get the pricing of the movies down, they don't need 120 copies of the latest Michael Bay movie. They don't need a massive rack of candy and chips. People don't go into Blockbuster to buy candy, get rid of most of it. They'd save A HUGE amount of money if they did that. Not to mention getting in small bags of chips instead of the massive ones, it's a constant complaint I heard when dealing with some customers.

As for the late fees and it chasing off customers who don't understand their responsibility to pay them? First off, screw the customer, if they didn't understand the OBVIOUS that if you keep a movie for weeks at a time you end up with {get this} late fees that can run you back $20 then that's their fault.

Secondly, with some of the customers I do sympathize, however that problem could easily be fixed by not giving the employee trouble for writing off some of the late fee. Or even allow their managers to pick a customer every week to write off their late fees, call them up and offer them a free rental. It's not like the late fees they're collecting now are bursting their bank accounts with awesomey goodness.

Finally, I'd get the top brass to actually LISTEN to the front line employees. They do studies here and there {and pay for the results} of consumers and what the consumers want, instead of listening to their employees and what the consumers TELL the employees. It's not only cheaper, but {wait for it} you can break it down to the individual stores instead of paying a couple hundred thousand for a study that TELLS you what you want to hear instead of listening to your employees tell you what SHOULD be happening.

None of the above Blockbuster will do, so IMO Blockbuster is doomed.

Logan

I disagree with most of this. You can't pay people more than they're worth, or at least that's how businesses think. If you want to cut costs, among the last things to do would be to pay people more. Obviously one example doesn't prove a point, but at least in my area, the two Blockbusters I've gone to since high school still have some of the same employees.

Few people treat working at BBV as a long-term job.... they'll do it in high school or in college, or whatever. So there's no point paying them more when they only plan on being around for a few years anyway.

I don't think there's enough potential for up-selling to justify spending more money on employees. I don't know of many people who say "I hate going to Blockbuster, because every time I go there, there's some new guy working there", or "I wish I had a familiar face at Blockbuster to recommend movies for me to rent". I imagine most people go there knowing what they want, and don't need the help of the employees. And the few who need help generally get it by locating the new release area, and finding the movie that has 200 copies.

Late fees I think is a stupid idea. Was it a bit deceiving to advertise "no late fees" and then just sell the movie to people if they didn't return it? Sure, maybe, but what else would you do? If you bring back late fees, you bring back the annoyance of being charged a huge premium just for bringing the movie back a day late. I'm not excusing people of being irresponsible, and not returning stuff on time, but Blockbuster is a business, and the late fees plan was hurting their business. People who accumulated late fees and had to pay them off if they wanted to continue renting movies would just walk out the door and go to another video store. So at that point, what is worth more? Getting the late fees, or having a customer? But if you go back to late fees, do you offer a grace period for late returns? Only charge them if it's 2 or more days late? I say stick with the no late fees, and if someone doesn't return a movie for 2 weeks (or whatever the period is) then fine, they can enjoy owning it.

As for the candy, sure, it's overpriced. But that's the point. As long as one person buys some, I think that makes up for having it all there. Don't underestimate a person's laziness. One of my friends routinely buys a few sodas and bags of candy when he goes to rent a movie there, even though he knows it's overpriced; he just doesn't feel like stopping at another store.

The studies part might be a good idea, but who knows. Just because there is 1 vocal customer who says they want a certain movie doesn't rule out that there might be 20 silent customers who don't voice their opinion about what they want, which happens to be the opinion found in the studies.

[brettallica]

^^ I was just gonna say:

The only way BLOCKBUSTER could get any better would be to take its toys and go home (or sell itself to Netflix).

[DetroitSportsFan]

Lower prices.

[mikejet]

Originally Posted by Another_Dude

Netflix started the bleeding, but it will be Redbox that delivers the final blow. Blockbuster's business model won't work when there are $1 rentals over at Walmart and McDonalds.

I sent Redbox an email and told them that I'll be cancelling my Netflix subscription the first day I see a BR in my local kiosk.

I was shocked the last time I went to the supermarket and saw the line for a Red Box.

Considering how much money those things make and how low the overhead is...man thats some good profit.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by toefer

I disagree with most of this. You can't pay people more than they're worth, or at least that's how businesses think. If you want to cut costs, among the last things to do would be to pay people more. Obviously one example doesn't prove a point, but at least in my area, the two Blockbusters I've gone to since high school still have some of the same employees.

And I disagree with your disagreeal. *LOL*

If you take how much late fees brought in for the last year they were collecting them {$30ish million} and how much it costs them to not only waste the paper in the first place but bring in an independent company to shred the paper for them {at least a few million annually for a company the size of Blockbuster} and there are quite a few other places where they could likely cut costs, you could easily raise the pay of each person in the front lines {storefronts only} of the company with money to spare.

Few people treat working at BBV as a long-term job.... they'll do it in high school or in college, or whatever. So there's no point paying them more when they only plan on being around for a few years anyway.

They treat it as short-term because they're paid crappy wages, I'm sure if they would be paid more some folks might stick around.

I don't think there's enough potential for up-selling to justify spending more money on employees. I don't know of many people who say "I hate going to Blockbuster, because every time I go there, there's some new guy working there", or "I wish I had a familiar face at Blockbuster to recommend movies for me to rent". I imagine most people go there knowing what they want, and don't need the help of the employees. And the few who need help generally get it by locating the new release area, and finding the movie that has 200 copies.

I know a ton of people who used to say stuff like "who's the new person" or of people coming to specific employees in order to get service.

Hell, after I stopped working at Blockbuster and started working at a direct competitor in the same area, people would come in the new store based on the fact that I was 'the guy from Blockbuster' to deal with me specifically.

Late fees I think is a stupid idea. Was it a bit deceiving to advertise "no late fees" and then just sell the movie to people if they didn't return it? Sure, maybe, but what else would you do? If you bring back late fees, you bring back the annoyance of being charged a huge premium just for bringing the movie back a day late.

It's not a huge premium, it's another one of the many lawsuits that Blockbuster was involved in.

Blockbuster can't charge more for a late fee than what it would cost if they re-rented the movie again on a daily basis.

Example: If they charge $5 for a 2 day rental, then they can't charge any more than $2.5 for the late fee per day.

I'm not excusing people of being irresponsible, and not returning stuff on time, but Blockbuster is a business, and the late fees plan was hurting their business. People who accumulated late fees and had to pay them off if they wanted to continue renting movies would just walk out the door and go to another video store. So at that point, what is worth more? Getting the late fees, or having a customer?

See, therein lies the point. You sort of ARE excusing people of being irresponsible.

If they were responsible they'd pony up and pay the fees that they accumulated themselves. It's not like Blockbuster {at the time} or any other video store hid the fact that they charged people late fees for being late.

The customer walking out is his right, but it's also my right to call shenanigans on his bull$#!+.

But if you go back to late fees, do you offer a grace period for late returns? Only charge them if it's 2 or more days late? I say stick with the no late fees, and if someone doesn't return a movie for 2 weeks (or whatever the period is) then fine, they can enjoy owning it.

They made a massive mistake in that regard, it's actually a month.

As for the candy, sure, it's overpriced. But that's the point. As long as one person buys some, I think that makes up for having it all there.

Not if you saw Blockbuster's financials.

Don't underestimate a person's laziness. One of my friends routinely buys a few sodas and bags of candy when he goes to rent a movie there, even though he knows it's overpriced; he just doesn't feel like stopping at another store.

One person's laziness no... but if you're interrupted with people who plan ahead, you end up with a ton of candy that not too many people are buying.

The studies part might be a good idea, but who knows. Just because there is 1 vocal customer who says they want a certain movie doesn't rule out that there might be 20 silent customers who don't voice their opinion about what they want, which happens to be the opinion found in the studies.

Then do the studies in the stores, get the employees to do them for you instead of contracting out the studies or paying for the results from an independent company.

Another cost saved that could be better served paying your employees instead of someone else for the same {actually better} result.

Logan

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

They treat it as short-term because they're paid crappy wages, I'm sure if they would be paid more some folks might stick around.


Logan

Nice work. I can see you're very passionate about this subject, and that's awesome. I only have one thing to say, and it's about the snippet that I left from your most recent post. While I somewhat agree with what you're saying there, you're kind of talking about a chicken-or-the-egg scenario; it's kind of a circular argument for which no side can ever really be right because it's based on the fact that one depends on the other.

Basically, BLOCKBUSTER doesn't pay people well because they know they're not going to stick around; and people don't take BLOCKBUSTER jobs because they know they're not going to keep that job for life (most of the time).

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by brettallica

Nice work. I can see you're very passionate about this subject, and that's awesome. I only have one thing to say, and it's about the snippet that I left from your most recent post. While I somewhat agree with what you're saying there, you're kind of talking about a chicken-or-the-egg scenario; it's kind of a circular argument for which no side can ever really be right because it's based on the fact that one depends on the other.

Basically, BLOCKBUSTER doesn't pay people well because they know they're not going to stick around; and people don't take BLOCKBUSTER jobs because they know they're not going to keep that job for life (most of the time).

That's exactly it.

But I feel the lens can be applied to most aspects of society. {especially during the financial crisis} if the companies {not just Blockbuster} shared more of their profits during the 'good' times then they would likely get more back during said good times as well.

Logan

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

That's exactly it.

But I feel the lens can be applied to most aspects of society. {especially during the financial crisis} if the companies {not just Blockbuster} shared more of their profits during the 'good' times then they would likely get more back during said good times as well.

Logan

True dat. "Do unto others" works in many ways! If big (or any size, really) corporations learned that, all would do better.