Blockbuster has been quietly piloting a program in Colorado Springs, allowing online rental members to return mailed discs to stores, thus eliminating the wait for a next batch of movies to arrive via the postal service. Essentially, if you turn in three movies, you can pick out three more at the store, including new releases and Blockbuster then mails back your returns for you. The other big advantage of this program, is that you are no longer completely at the mercy of supplies in their mail order system, giving you much more control of your online movie queue.
Often, your first picks are passed over due to availability and you receive instead, movies that you want, but ones that are further down your queue. The reason being, that Blockbuster wants to make sure you get your next movies within 2 or 3 days.
Now, you can take any you do receive and hand pick from your local Blockbuster the ones you really want, then go home and remove them from your queue. This plan will make the Blockbuster program even more attractive than ever, by leveraging their brick and mortar stores, that at one time, seemed like a disadvantage of overhead in the tight movie rental market. Below, we can read that Blockbuster is re-juggling their subscription models as well. They have dropped the two lowest plans of $5.99 and $7.99.
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Blockbuster also has a $14.99 plan for two movies at a time and $17.99 for three movies, and all plans include coupons for free in-store rentals. 'Our most popular plan continues to be the $17.99 three-movies-out plan," according to the Blockbuster spokeswoman. |
This is a tough program for Netflix or any movie rental outfit to beat. With the 3 at a time model, you even get one free in-store movie or game each week, via an online printable coupon.
18 dollars a month, 3 movies out at a time, store return and trade for new movies, plus you get a free new release coupon each week. At a normal price of 4 dollars for a rental from Blockbuster, it takes only a moment to see this is quite a savings.
The program is supposed to launch sometime next week under the name of "Total Access". Wonder if this return program will work for the HD DVD and Blu-ray titles they offer online? Right now, they have 107 HD DVDs and around 76 Blu-ray titles. ;)
Source: Video Business
i prefer the dvd ATM at 1dollar a day.
That McDonald's kiosk? I just read that they own the company that has the Kiosks, which caught me by surprise.
BB seriously needed to do this, as their warehouse distribution was way too slow and had not improved despite their advertising of 'more centers' opened since the first time I joined (over 1 year between rejoining, only after they claimed they had more distribution centers). This will help them gain ground on Netflix, which is too concerned about 'throttling back' frequent users on their 3-out at a time from 'unlimited' to around 12-14/mo. (when one could get 22-24 when one first signs up). It's the fact Netflix refuses to let someone do the equivalent (what I suggested to them long ago) of letting people see the stock available at the closest warehouse center to them and therefore order their picks accordingly so they got the releases they wanted a.s.a.p. But Netflix is obviously too into obfuscation and wants control so badly it will not invest in doing this. Instead, they waste their time on meaningless contests ($1 million for someone to create for them a better 'selected movies' for users who rate their returns--something that can't be improved upon by statisticians that told Netflix this) and otherwise getting free publicity by uninformed statements by Hastings (the CEO) which only makes Netflix seem equally out of touch with the consumer and reality, not unlike how out-of-touch the MPAA/RIAA with using DRM that increases piracy anyway.
The big advantage to BB's program will be having the tons of new releases available to choose from. However, it will not be as much of an advantage since BB stocks up on new releases, but limits its space for things like Foreign language rentals, and has limited copies of those. So, the amount of 'advantage' will depend on each user's movie tastes. However, even those liking some new releases but not all will also be at a disadvantage, since many express reluctance over Hollywood releases these days.
Either way, this is a major step in the right direction for BB and will seriously help them in their distribution program--IF they stick to it and expand it to all stores. If they chicken out because they're not seeing a super, huge profit margin, then that will hurt them greatly. If BB aspires to be the Grizzly among the bears, it had better make sure it commits and sticks to it.Top news
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