DVD Rental Wars
I was in one of my local supermarkets this weekend when I noticed a Blockbuster DVD/BlueRay rental vending machine. For the last 2 years, I have mostly rented movies from the Redbox vending machines machines also found in some of the supermarkets.
Instead of paying $5 for unlimited DVD rentals, I normally rent the DVDs for up to 2 days for $1 per day. I usually select my movies online and pick them up on my way home from work. We watch the movies either on Friday night or Saturday afternoon and then drop it back in the evening.
On the blockbuster website, there is no mention of the rental kiosks. Which means that you can't select the movies online unlike Redbox. I like the online feature, because I first select the movie that we want to watch and then pick it up from one of the many locations nearby. Owing to the limited availability of movies in the vending kiosks, the online feature makes the service convenient to use.I'm not sure why Blockbuster is coming up with this service because next door to the supermarket there is a Blockbuster store. I would rather they instituted this service in their stores instead of investing in the kiosks.
I would gladly pay half of what they charge for a 2 day rental instead of paying $5 for unlimited movie rentals. In most cases, we watch the movies once before returning them. If I like the movie enough to watch it again, I buy the DVD. In essence, the $1 deal allows me to screen movies before we buy them.
I'm yet to try the Blockbuster kiosk but I will probably give it a try next weekend. I hope that they have a better selection of movies than Redbox, if not I'll stick to Redbox because of the convenience of selecting the movie online.
5 comments:
The shopping in US is really easy. You guys can buy online or buy from the vending machine. Unlike us, we have to go to the shop to buy. Those facilities are not really available here.
in kenya we pirate then without mercy. Most of the new movies are on the streets. In campus the only thing you need is a flash discto get a blockbuster from a friend. Its a bad world
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Redbox operators have been on this for a while now and claim it's been working pretty well for them. Their sales have been going up. That's probably why Blockbuster decided to try it. But they are doing it with the latest movies, which threatens to lower the sales in DVD, we might as well all wait and get it for a dollar.
I was in Dar once, catching a pint and a DVD vending machine walked up to me and offered 30 block buster movies in one DVD for $2.
At that moment I wondered - is alcohol induced insanity a defense for possesing pirated goods?
Though I resisted the temptation, it's not hard to see the USP of piracy.
Whoever can invent a licensed piracy blocker will be a very very very rich person (as in generations after genrations).
Willie, I'm interested in finding out the level of e-commerce in Malaysia.
Moses, Piracy in Kenya is at another level. There is nothing you cannot buy.
Wham, I think Redbox has been successful because they are partly owned by McDonalds which own a lot of high traffic location.
Maishinski, the problem with those DVDs is their poor quality. Though DVDs are encrypted, it's not that hard to duplicate them.
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