News: The Washington Post: Blockbuster seeks Chapter 11 protection
In the last thirteen years I’ve set foot in a Blockbuster store maybe twice. In the late 80’s and early 90’s it was at least three times a week. Sometimes twice in one day. I don’t recall visiting Blockbuster to be an overly pleasant experience. The stores were bright (too bright), there’d be some movie running on the TVs turned up too loud, and it was crowded. The message was, “Find your movie, pay your money, and get out.”
But I could live with that part of it. Ultimately, it was the pricing model that turned me off to the whole thing. It’s shady saying that rentals are only $1 a night if you require the customer to pay for no less than a 5 night rental. I don’t remember exactly, but I feel like at one point it was $6+tax to rent a single movie.
So none of it was catered to the customer experience, and I truly feel this arrogance or disdain led them to be supremely overconfident. That, in turn, led them to ignore changing technology and consumer preferences. They’re way too far behind to catch up with technology now, and they’re bleeding like an uncapped oil well. One proposal would be to liquidate everything — they’re probably sitting on some decent real estate — and pass that on to creditors and shareholders.
It’s an interesting business case, for sure.
Originally published at bbhart.com on September 24, 2010.