http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/23/new..._bankruptcy/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin Netflix really took over in such a short amount of time.
Bankruptcy doesn't mean they're gone. It been known for a while that they would file for Chapter 11 sometime this year.
I would say they're on their way out, at least at the store level anyways unless they make some major changes. Their prices arn't as competitive and suddenly it's not as convenient to drive to Blockbuster as it was compared to say 5 years ago.
redbox didnt help either. Ive noticed that 3 of the hollywood videos in The Woodlands have closed up shop in recent months.
Used to work at a Blockbuster fresh out of high school, nice play to work at first but it got old really quick. I enjoyed the movie privileges but eventually retail wears on you.
should have bought some netflicks stock back in feb when it was $40 a share. Now it's a whopping $160. How's that song go ," the internet kill the videoooo store".
Hollywood Video is gone. All their stores shut down. I can't say I'm sorry to see Blockbuster go. They were always kind of prickish and got fined big time for ganking customers with bogus late fees. Their first major snafu was failing to get DVD's into their stores in a timely fashion. That was followed up by taking way too long to roll out some kind of mail order or kiosk solution. Their management had talked about the same things that Netflix and Redbox did, but they delayed rollout and the company is now pretty much irrelevant.
Blockbuster is an excellent example of a company that has failed because of its internal failure to evolve its business model as technology advanced. key points of note: Inception: BB got huge very quickly as the first and largest national chain to provide video rental service. but soon they had customer satisfaction problems... they wanted their BB card to work at any location, instead of having to re-apply for a new card at teach location and carry multiple cards around with them. They wanted to return tapes at any BB location They didn't want to have to pay late fees They didn't want to get hassled about not rewinding their tapes BB was very, very slow to adopt DVD technologies. Hollywood came around and offered better services and pricing while BB focused on adding candy racks to their checkout lines. Then BB went into "catch up" mode. Redbox came around with their automated kiosks, completely destroying BB stores everywhere. Netflix came around with the innovative idea of mail-order movies and streaming films over the "internet" BB should have led the industry in DVD store rentals BB should have built a mail-order model BB should have been the ones to come out with kiosks BB should have led the industry into video streaming BB lost their innovation, developed improper focus in their business model, and allowed themselves to fall far behind competitors.
I actually dont think Netflix or RBox had much to do with it, atleast financially. I noticed BB's spending on actual retail product (I dont have the numbers right now but I did see their stock report a few days back) like DVDs, BRays, and Games has stayed relatively consistent through the last 5 years or so, while their number of rentals have gone down... For a company experiencing a loss of sales, one would be inclined to match the decline in growth with an equal decline in product offerings...so margins stay similar. Blockbuster on the other hand continued to spend as if they were up 30% in customers yet they were down 30% instead, if they were smart (which they arent) the brass up top would have decreased over all orders for DVDs Games and MISC products like candy, while having a sharp downsize in the brick and mortar stores. I believe in the end BB would have come out on top if they focused on pushing for smaller cost to revenue ratio, but they kept spending...
Wow I think I'm the only one that likes Blockbuster. I have their unlimited plan and get 3 items out at a time with no late charges. Since I'm somewhat of a gamer I can have a combination of movies and PS3 games out with no late charges and whenever I feel the itch for a movie right away I can just go to the store and exchange one of my mailed movies in for a new movie. I do like the netflix streaming. I'm enjoying a free trial at the moment and watching some TV shows that I haven't watched before.
Exactly. Hollywood has been gone. They tried selling me a display tv. I got Beatles rockband for half price.
Until Netflix comes up with game rentals too then I'll stick to my 8.99/month of games/movies 1 at a time... Has anyone tried the hulu plus thing yet?? I think it kind of sucks donkey balls because it cost me 10/monthly and some of the tv shows you can get on netflix and the ones they have showing now sucks mouse balls!!!
I disagree with one aspect of this statement: BB didn't lose their innovation. They never had it to begin with. BB didn't invent video rental. It was around for years and year before they ever went public. They didn't invent video game rental, either. Their great "innovation" was: stock a cr@pload of product. Not exactly rocket science. They profited for years off of one simple concept: we've got more videos than the other guy. Everything else was just window dressing. So, of course, when the time to innovate came, they came up empty. Because, let's face it: they never did it before, why would they come through now?
Those mom and pop video stores were the best like Video Joe... I was able to rent the complete series of Faces Of Death.. I'm pretty sure BB video didn't have that on shelves...
