Blockbuster goes under.... again
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24730726
Blockbuster in administration again so look out for the firesales and pick up some bargains.
Blockbuster in administration again so look out for the firesales and pick up some bargains.
Post edited by ADJB on
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highly doubtful they'll be that cheap , as someone probably has offered/made a deal to take their stock by now.. if other companies like DV and turnkey etc are anything to go by.. sure ex rental dvd's ? but are they allowed to flog them..
as the only "worth" the company has is the stock and the name, and not sure how it works with the shop lease, if they have to pay that off. HMV or even someone like music magpie etc would probably buy all the stock in bulk, no point in faffing around in 1 or 2 items.
the staff will just turn up for work one morning to be greeted by ballifs.. or in lunch break like they did with imagine v1... off key, but thats how they work, to stop staff taking their wages owed in stock.
Never went back.
every BB I went in had the most pants selection of stock anyway. I'm not some hardcore film geek but sometimes I like to see stuff made before 2005 that doesn't star Jennifer Anniston or Adam Sandler
They are suffering from a touch of the HMV syndrome.
Same thing happened to me.
I argued the point and they admitted it was a computer 'glitch.'
Nah the time it happened to me I knew the kid who worked behind the counter, and he knew me, and the little sh*t had already grassed me up at a party for things I didn't do, but he did. Like for instance the little c*nt pissed in the cooker and stuffed a potted plant in the ghetto blaster that was in the kitchen.
When one of the people at the house who actually lived there asked him WTF was going on he said talk to the guy in the blue hat, I was wearing a blue hat at the time so I had a bunch of angry people surround me demanding answers.
....I'm still pretty convinced since that little c*nt was working at Blockbuster at the time he took home my rental when I handed it in and it was still out on my card, and didn't return it until after.
I made this pretty well known as he was standing behind the counter at the time, and I may have made a passing comment about smashing his face in as well, he got fired days after that, but I still didn't get my fine withdrawn....f**k em' it's a sh*t vid shop anyway I hope they vanish for good!
Even though it happened years and years ago I'd still smash his face in if I saw him, him and his brother (who he threatened me with at one point, his brother is about a foot shorter than me, and I've met him, he won't be a problem....ever! :evil:).
Jeez, I thought I had met some odd folk in shops.
That's incredible.
Mind you, as companies get more and more desperate, they hire all sorts of scumbags, at least seems that way to me...
I was a member but hardly ever went there most of the time our local store was open.. There was an indie place called Movie Village which had tons of movies and did deals like 6 regular movies (not new releases) for a week for $10 - and you could swap them out any time during the week once you'd watched them.. Blockbuster only ever did single movies with one and two night rentals at stupid prices.
When the crap started to hit the fan for them, Blockbuster started to shift on their deals, first eliminating late fees and then when they were really on the ropes, they started doing a similar deal to Movie Village with a monthly pass for about $15 letting you borrow and switch out any 3 regular movies they had including blu-rays.
We did that for a couple of months and it was worth it as it was only 2 minutes away in the car, (whereas Movie Village was about half an hour each way), so we saw lots of movies that way.
Eventually Blockbuster just declared its Canadian operations unprofitable and shut them all down in the space of about a week. They left it too long and lost out to Netflix, and the local cable companies started putting out Video On Demand, which was the final nail in the coffin. (Our old store is now a barbeque restaurant and bar, which is an improvement IMHO! ;) )
If you want to get physical disc rentals here now, you either have to go to the Library - which has a pretty decent selection, and charges about $1.50 a rental for a "wear and tear fee", although all their kids and young adult movies are free - or there's some machines called 'RedBox' in supermarkets where you choose a movie to watch off a computer screen and it spits the disc out for you. It's only about $2 per night, but you have to pay with your credit card, so if you don't bring the disk back it'll charge you rental fees each day up to the value of the movie (Which is probably grossly overestimated).
They said piracy was to blame, but the real reason was their extremely high prices: 3.50 euros/day when you could find some retail movies at 6 euros, and many other smaller rental stores starting at 1.20 euros back then.
However, 7 years later, most DVD rental stores have disappeared. You can find some automatic machines in some places, but in my neighbourhood (200,000 people) there aren't any at all. Many closed without prior notice... I lost 20 euros in my prepaid card that way.
Ah yes good ol' Redbox, the destroyer of Moviecube :D
Redbox may work differently up there (although I assume the principal in Canada is the same as the states?)? But me and the wife get free rental codes texted to us almost daily, and as long as you take the movie back the same day you get charged nothing, we haven't payed for a redbox rental in years. It's $1 with the code if you want Blu-Ray though.
I go to the local vidshop for game rentals though, as they let you have them for about 5 days I think? For about $3 which is quite reasonable, as often they'll throw in a free 99c rental game or movie with a newer title, sometimes they'll even give you 2 99c rentals with a newer game.
This vidshop killed the other indie vidshop a few blocks away and got rid of the local Blockbuster about 3 years ago, but Redbox and Netflix have taken a toll on this store now, and I think that's why their deals are so out there at times.
Sometimes they'll have one of those signs with the stick on letters outside saying crazy stuff like Rent a game for a week get 15 movies as well $5 :lol:
Yeah, I think physical media is dying out pretty quickly.. The shops seem to be done, anyway. Those RedBox machines are about the size of an ATM and they can do pretty much what a regular video store used to do without having to pay staff.
(I'm sure we would get coupons if we still received their e-mails.. I asked for a receipt once and it started e-mailing us every day with "what's new at RedBox" crap, and my wife got mad and unsubscribed us from the feed or set it to go to the spam tray.)
The ironic thing is that when you're using the RedBox closest to us in the supermarket, you can see the still empty premises where the local video store used to be across the parking lot..
Actually, that Movie Village place I mentioned is still hanging on by the skin of its teeth. They have another small store called Music Trader that does the same thing with CDs that Movie Village did with movies (they would buy movies second-hand from patrons and you could buy as well as rent from them, but I think you could just buy and sell the CDs). When Movie Village closed the main store, they shifted the remainder of the stock into Music Trader.. Can't see it lasting much longer, but it's still going right now.
There's also another place I've found that seems to be selling off ex-RedBox titles.. Doesn't say that's what they are, but the discs are all in really good condition and they have a sticker that says 'previously viewed movie' on them.. Their 'new releases' all seem 6-12 months old as well, so it seems to fit the profile.
My guess is that RedBox (or whichever automated movie lender it is) puts a bunch of copies of new releases in the machines to deal with the high demand, but once the popularity starts to drop off, they kick a few copies out to make room for the next 'hit' and these people have some deal to pick up these discs.. Seems like a sweet deal for them, and their prices are pretty good.
You can see the old Blockbuster from the window of the place I work which just happens to have a Redbox in the foyer as you walk in. So you can look at Blockbuster while you hire a vid from a machine :lol:
The blockbuster still has remnants of the sign on the building it's a gym now that opened up directly across the road from 2 other gyms, or maybe it folded a while ago as well? I think they sell ovens or washing machines out of that place now actually? :lol:
There's also another Redbox a few streets away and one handy thing is you can get a disc out of one Redbox and put it back into a different one without any charges.
It was the only rental place in town but they took a good 4 months to re-open and by that time a lot of the customers who had turned to online rental/ streaming didn't bother returning.
It shut down a few months later and is now the towns 5th mobile phone shop.
did they have one where you are ?
they closed our local down our "bockbuster" (sign never worked) about hhm 4-5 years ago.. and the nearest local was 10 minute drive/no parking etc.
christmas time this year, maybe more companies will go under... as well it is make or break for many of them. A lot of the problem is having expensive items in stock that aren't shifting.
Digital Village went under, which suprised me but they got taken over by a german company soon after..just all their local shops shut, which was a pity.
Funny you should say that.. One of the huge Blockbuster stores they had here is now a 'Curves' gym.
Another - which is in the grounds of a hotel complex and I think is owned by the hotel - is still a Blockbuster.. The livery is all still up - including the huge 'movie ticket' sign - and there's a 'Commercial Property To Let' sign in the window, but other than that look just like it ever did.. I guess the hotel couldn't be bothered to strip it all down and are going to dump that on the new tenant - if they ever get one. At this rate, they may be better off levelling it for more parking space! :lol:
...and even weirder that you say that as one of the gyms opposite the old Blockbusters is a Curves as well :o
The other one is an independent place that still has all the rowing, jogging, weight machines and stuff in there, but it's closed and I think It relocated somewhere else nearby?