The Reason Blockbuster Video is going down: No Competitive Advantage
While I agree with Scott Jagow at Public Radio that Blockbuster is “probably toast,” it doesn’t/didn’t have to be that way.
I rarely rent movies. I dropped Netflix because of all the scratched discs. Otherwise, it was a great service. I’m considering GreenCine (Netflix for film snobs). I usually buy DVDs that I like because I’ll probably want to watch them again. An exception happened the other day when I was looking for a film I wanted to “preview” before buying and couldn’t find adequate clips of it online. So, I went to my local Blockbuster Video to rent It Might Get Loud, a documentary on the electric guitar told via Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (White Stripes). It was a great documentary and I’ll end up buying it. But, the experience at Blockbuster was the intriguing part.
As I walked into the front of Blockbuster Video, I noticed a large banner above the door where they compared themselves to Netflix and Redbox (who are certainly encroaching on their market share). The upshot of the sell was “we’ve got you covered.” Next, I spent way too much time trolling through ramshackle eyes, stepping past posters of the Beatles, toys, small appliances/game systems and everything but videos until I got to the section for Documentary/Music. The film was nowhere to be found. Stubbornly, I looked in a few other sections, confused as to whether the slipcase of the DVD meant it was in stock or not. Finally I asked the employee, who looked it up and found that it was “along the wall somewhere” under New Releases. The film was released last summer. What constitutes a “New Release” then?
Why can’t Blockbuster increase the value proposition by offering a self-serve kiosk, tied in to a remote/iPhone application, to allow customers to see directly into inventory and, importantly, where a film is located within the store? Even better, show the number of rentals/reviews/throughput through all BB stores, etc.
Diddo to this, the things you mention like a self-serve inventory checking kiosk would be very helpful!
Jared Scharpen
May 11, 2010 at 22:18
I have worked in BB stores. I am a hardware technician. Most of the equipment in the stores is about 10 years old or more. They are still running VMS on their in store servers…which are also very old.
Anything new you see will be LCD monitors. That is about it.
This is one of the reasons they are collapsing. Not keeping the technology current. The self-serve and iphone app would be an easy addition to a modern system. They can’t even look at other store inventories from their store! Each store is a separate entity with it’s own database. They do have satellite communications for Interac and IT support, but not to each other.
Unless somebody pulls a rabbit out of the hat, I give BB about 5 years.
Ian
June 22, 2010 at 06:50
VMS! Ha! That’s a blast from the past. No surprise about your comments here, but it’s always interesting to hear from an insider — especially one with tech expertise. This is really too bad because I remember the thrill of going to their stores years ago.
scottrader
June 23, 2010 at 07:42