Blockbuster Heading for the Dustbins of History?

BLOCKBUSTER CAN THANK FORMER CEO(JOHN ANTIACO) FOR THE CURRENT FINANCIAL DOWNFALL FOR WHICH IT HAS INCURRED. ANTIACO SHOULD NEVER HAVE ALLOWED THE DEMISE OF "LATE FEES". BY DOING SO THE VALUE OF A DVD RENTAL HAS DEPRECIATED(THANKS TO THE RIDICULOUS 7 DAY GRACE PERIOD/30 DAY RETURN POLICY ) ANYONE WITHOUT A MARKETING DEGREE CAN TELL YOU THAT A COMPANY WILL LOSE MANY RETURNS ON INVESTMENT BY PEOPLE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE POLICIES!! BLOCKBUSTER, BEFORE DROPPING LATE FEES,
HAD PRORATED LATE FEES BY THE DAY WHICH WERE FAIR AND REASONABLE. THIS GAVE THE CUSTOMERS AN INCENTIVE TO AT LEAST BRING BACK THE DVDS'!! CUSTOMERS COMPLAIN ABOUT NOT GETTING THE NR DVD THEY WANT, BUT THE ANSWER COULD BE RIGHT IN FRONT OF A MIRROR(IF ONLY TO OPEN THEIR EYES)!!! BRING THE DAMN DVD BACK A.S.A.P!! 2 DAYS SHOULD BE SUFFICIENT(ESPECIALLY WITH 2 DVD RENTALS). DON'T BE A DVD WHORE AND KEEP THEM FOREVER!!! BUT IT GOES BACK TO THE "GREAT MARKETING" POLICIES AGAIN BY "FORMER CEO" JOHN "THANK GOD I'M GONE" ANTIACO!! NOW TO THE BLOCKBUSTER ON LINE SAGA!!
BLOCKBUSTER HAS PUT UP A VALIANT CHALLENGE TO ITS RIVAL NETFLIX. THE IDEA OF ALLOWING CUSTOMERS TO EXCHANGE THEIR DVDS' IN STORE WAS A BRILLIANT IDEA AT FIRST! THIS HELPED BLOCKBUSTER TAKE AWAY NETFLIX CUSTOMERS LEFT AND RIGHT!!! HOWEVER, BLOCKBUSTER ON-LINE(AKA "TOTAL ACCESS") A SUBSIDIARY OF BLOCKBUSTER HAS "SLOWLY DRAINED"
AND "CANNIBALIZED" THE PROFITS OF THE STORES!!
THE STORES TO MY UNDERSTANDING ONLY GET PROFITS FROM ONLINE USERS RETURNING ENVELOPES IF THEY BUY (DVD'S, CANDY, ECT...) OTHERWISE NO PROFIT IS MADE ON THE EXCHANGE OF ENVELOPES IN THE STORE!!
I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE 2 COMPANIES, BUT AGAIN SEEMS TO FALL ON THE "FORMER" CEO (WON'T MENTION NAME THIS TIME)AND HIS BAD DECISIONS!! THERE ARE JUST SO MANY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO WILL DO ONLINE RENTING ANYWAY(UNDER 15 MILLION) I HEARD WAS THE AMOUNT THAT BLOCKBUSTER AND NETFLIX ARE FIGHTING FOR!! I'M NOT CERTAIN ON THE FUTURE BATTLES OF THE BLOCKBUSTER/NETFLIX WARS AHEAD. I DO KNOW THE MAIN "CORE" OF RENTERS GO TO THE STORES AND DO NOT DO ONLINE!! BLOCKBUSTER NEEDS TO MAKE THEM THE CENTER OF ATTENTION. THE PRORATED "FEES" NEED TO COME BACK SO INVENTORY IS RETURNED IN A TIMELY MANNER AND PROFITS CAN BE MADE. IF THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN THEN THERE WILL BE NO MORE "BLOCKBUSTER NIGHTS" GOOD LUCK TO THE NEW C.E.O OF BB JOHN KEYES. HE USED TO BE C.E.O. OF 7-11. HE WANTS TO BRING MORE MERCHANDISE TO THE STORES FOR PEOPLE TO BUY(I-POD ACCESSORIES AND FRAMED ARTWORK). MR. KEYES, WHILE YOUR AT IT WHY DON'T YOU BRING IN BREAD, BUTTER AND MILK. WHAT ABOUT JUST FOCUSING ON DVD RENTALS!! ISN'T THAT BB'S STRONG POINT?!!!

Never been in one and never will!

The rudeness of the staff was a key contributor of the downfall. I once returned a movie and requested a discount with a coupon that my daughter had forgotten at home. I commented on how disappointed I had been with the movie. The woman said I was only saying that to try to get a refund. Even if that were so, the ill will created by such an outlandishly rude remark lost them any possible future business.

This make perfect sense going back to 2002. Antiocco (then CEO) never even included digital distribution or the per month rental business model in the company's 10-k. Even Michael Pachter (the famous game analyst for Wedbush) was on the side of Blockbuster.

When I spoke with Michael in 2005, he stated that Blockbuster already had a bricks-n-mortars business that could easily adapt to a monthly rent-by-mail business. I asked him if he had considered that Blockbuster would not take this action (despite it being such an obvious strategy) based on the stupidity of the executive management at the time. He, very politely, indicated that he didn't agree with my thinking...

-Rob

The first lesson you learn in business is it is much easier and more cost effective to keep your customers happy and grow your business than to constantly have to get new business to replace the businees you lost. You can only screw over your customers with inflated and penny ante charges (fuel surcharges, late fees ect.)for a time. Your cusomer base will stay with you until an alternative is created and they will walk away and never look back. Don't believe me just watch the credit card companies. There is no justification for charging 32.99%.

Forget Netflix. Recently, after a long time since we had been there, we stopped at the local Blockbuster store to rent a movie. We were charged over $4.00 for a ONE NIGHT rental! I was stunned. Almost every supermarket in our area has a Red Box machine where you can get the same movie for $1 a night! Why on Earth would anyone pay a Blockbuster store that much for one film rental when you can use a mail DVD service (Blockbuster's own or Netflix) or go to a Red Box for a faction of the cost??

Blockbuster is vastly superior to Netflix; Blockbuster has the same online netflix-style mail service PLUS you can go to their brick and mortar store and get FREE movies while you wait for the next movie to be mailed to you. NETFLIX WILL AND SHOULD GO extinct. It cannot compete and has been losing market share to Blockbuster. This article is a scam to boost Netflix.

I can only speak for my Blockbuster in Richmond, VA(Gayton Rd.) but they have never been anything less than professional and a pleasure. I dropped my HBO and got the unlimited plan 3 out at a time and have never had a problem. HBO has all old movies now and for $3 more I get what I want instead. If Blockbuster wants to survive though they do need some changes. It is time to concentrate on the Video Game market while the competition is low and make movies a secondary aspect. The game rental prices are rediculous. They aren't bad if you have a game pass like I have for my son, but the selection is rather poor and having the games behind the counter is slow and often confusing for the employees. They need to beef up the supply of older games to be used for cheaper rentals.

I have no idea how netflix is any better than blockbuster. I use the blockbuster online service and the only time I ever go to the store is when I want something right now. But I can just take the one from mail order I may have sitting in my house and just trade it to get one in the store. you cant do that with Netflix at all so I dont see the competitive edge since Netflix solely works through mail order only. I keep 4 movies out at a time and when I dont have time to stop in the store I just put it in the queue online and get it overnighted to me the next day. No issues at all.

Here in So Florida, Blockbuster's store service is awful. I had an issue where they refused to give me a credit for a film where the words on the box that said "disc 2" were covered by the Blocbuster bar code. I didn't know there were 2 discs,and so hadn't seen disc 1.No satisfaction from local store, so I called Florida district office. They couldn't have cared less. So , the folowing week, I signed up for Netflix.It's been terrific.Mail one on Monday, new one received Wednesday. And no late fee scams.

i just recently seperated from the blockbuster company after working there this past summer. my experience at the particular store i worked at was not a good one - but i think the company did dig its own grave by pushing its online service perhaps too much. they were so gung ho about putting netflix out of business they may have just put themselves out of business. times are changing and blocksbuster will still be around (longer than hollywood i might add which went bankrupt and then movie gallery bought it and now they are going bankrupt) but they just won't be as important as they used to be....

For movies you don't care about rushing out to the theatre to see, you can likely get them when they're released on DVD at you local library.
That way you save on rentals and cable tv. DVD's are FREE at the library and are on loan for 2 weeks or longer. They may be a little slower to arrive at the library than a rental place, but you can borrow other titles while you wait. Check it out and save big $$$$.

Here's a nifty idea. Maybe Blockbuster should shift their focus onto the consumer and customer service ... hmm, what a crazy concept. I canceled my Blockbuster service because the majority of the DVD's I'd put in my Quere never arrived in the mail and I would get notifications in my email saying that my DVD had been checked back in ... on the same day that they shipped it out to me ... and I had never even gotten them. After being on hold for 45 minutes with them, they sent me a bunch of coupons to go pick up free movies from my local blockbuster ... great in theory, but the whole point was that i didn't want to have to go into my local blockbuster. I canceled them.

To agree with what Marc said, but expand. Hes right without competition Netflix service will downgrade too. Competition keeps the market healthy and the prices low ... without it, we'll all be paying $10/movie after a while because we'll have no other option.

DAMN, I HOPE NOT!!! I USE BLOCKBUSTER FREQUENTLY........THE SERVICE IS GREAT AND THEY HAVE MANY MANY OPTIONS TO CHOSE FROM.

Just goes to show, Blocksucker was so bad, that even their attempt to dominate the licensing of the hot new releases & to try to stamp out the good guys & competition with Hollywood, an excellent movie rental company with NICE people & good prices & contracts, still didn't camoflague their demise.

Good Riddance.

Hoorah! to Hollywood Video...thanks for being so nice....You gave them enough rope & sure enough they hung themselves.

Um, yeah. We got 3 movies from Blockbuster. Two of them were scratched so badly they were unusable. We were still charged.

Bye bye, Blockbuster.

How about everyone just goes back to reading books? =[

They are closing down our local Blockbuster as I type. Advertising a "Store Closing" sale. I'm glad. Where I live you can get movies for $1.00 a night at the Movie Cube in Kroger or the Red Box at McDonald's. I've rarely had to come back for a movie that was out of stock at either one of those. The last three times I went to Blockbuster for a movie I wanted, it was still out! They tried to charge me for a Spiderman game that I returned to the store, saying I never did when I know I did.I still haven't paid for it and that was a year ago.

Blockbuster has not received any of my money in about 8 years now. I rented a DVD and returned it on time. I placed the movie in the drop box outside. I received a letter in the mail stating that I never returned the DVD. I contacted the store manager and he told me that he had been having problems with employees stealing movies from the drop box after hours. He suggested that I just pay for the movie and end the threat of damaging my credit. What a joke! Never again!

Blockbuster was going great guns until about 3 months ago. They had a 2 at a time online rental program for $14.99 + tax, per month, that you could return movies you got in the mail to a Blockbuster store for 2 more movies. It was possible to get 20+ movies a month. Then, beause it was so popular, they raised the price to $21.99 per month and killed it. Those people running Blockbuster are Super Stupid.

I have read some of the commentary and although I agree that Netflix has put a chink in the armor it appears to me that the ability to rent movies via cable's, fiber opitics' and satellite's on-demand video libraries has done a considerable amount of damage. Incidentally, although I do use BlockBuster, Hollywood Video is my movie rental business of choice and has been for many years (they have been giving everyone five days of rental time per video/dvd for as long as I can remember).