WHY BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO IS ALMOST GONE

Blockbuster Video And why it declined. Blockbuster was a ruthless corporation. . When they came along VHS was the home video format. At the time most NEW RELEASES ON VHS would cost (wholesale) about $60.00. Thus that is why "VIDEO STORES" came along. These independent stores would buy 5-10 copies ( a huge investment) and rent them out. When Blockbuster opened up a store they would buy 20-40 copies and charge about $1.00. Once they drove the mom and pop stores broke they would be the only store in town and then they would  raise  rental prices. Movies that were once only $1.00 to rent now were $2.50. Once domination happened in one market BLOCKBUSTER would then open up another store in a new area and repeat their process. This happened everywhere. Once Blockbuster was the #1 Video Chain  they became very stupid on how they would handle the stores that they owned! Like most corporations they went by the "ONE SIZE FITS ALL". This model in reality was its downfall.

I worked at a Blockbuster from 1997 - 1998 and saw this first hand. I worked in an upscale neighbor hood. My customers wanted the "Art Films" and Blockbuster would never buy the films that these customers wanted to see.   I remember BB bought 30 tapes of "Contact". This was a huge waist for this store because every night there were still copies still left on the shelf. In fact the store had about 6 tapes of this film that never rented once! We later sold them off for $12-$14 ea but that was still had a huge write off of $46 each! These films might of rented out all the time at other stores but not at mine. Every store has a different customer base and Blockbuster failed to see this.

They however should of bought copies of the following films that would be hot rentals at my store "Paradise Road" "The Van" "Shall We Dance" &; "Kiss Me Guido". Now not every store would be able to rent out these films however my store would! Now you might not of herd of these films but my customers did. After all this was Woodland Hills Ca and lots of people in this area are not only movie fans but they worked at the major studios. They knew movies! They wanted to see more independent films on the shelves. So my boss let me order films and the films that I ordered (see the titles above) and you know what these films (and many others I ordered) were always rented. In the year I worked at the store I helped drive up the business by 20%. However Blockbuster failed (again) to see how we drove up the rental business for that location. I quit working at BB only because I was tired of working 2 jobs. 2 years after I left this location closed...

Now another reason why BB is going broke was because they kept raising rental prices! Once DVDs came on the market BB cost of good went down by 2/3. The wholesale price on the average DVD was now $15-$20. However BB still kept raising DVD rental prices. I remember having to pay $5 for a new release however REDBOX had the same film for $1. BB kept losing market share to not only REDBOX but NETFLIX as well. There greed did them in.

BB is now  gone. Killed by Cooperate Greed and Ignorance.