Posted on 11/27/2006 9:53:08 AM PST by raccoonradio
Left behind by Netflix, DVDs, and on-demand cable service, outlets are dying off; popcorn, tanning salons keep some alive
If it were an old Western movie, this would be the faded boomtown. It's silent save for the buzz of fluorescent lighting and the familiar "swish-clunk" of DVDs slipping through an outside drop-box.
A smattering of customers -- one, maybe two at a time -- stroll in, getting lost in tall stacks filled with dusty gems such as "Divine Trash" and "Cactus Flower." One elderly gentleman passes through a door in the back to a beyond not suitable for children. At the front desk, two Movieworks employees busy themselves with stocking and paperwork, occasionally marking the lazy minutes on a clock featuring the face of comedian Carrot Top.
Once, independent video stores were as plentiful as today's Dunkin' Donuts: There was one in the center of most towns, maybe even on every block. But now that renting is as easy as a mouse click or an "enter" button on a remote control, the store experience has become archaic.
It's not always desolate, said Greg Revill, owner of Movieworks video store in Danvers -- but it's never bustling the way it used to be. "Before, people just poured in -- rainy days were incredible," he said as he stacked copies of the Adam Sandler farce, "Click," on a quiet Sunday afternoon. "It was a steam engine, and I knew how to stoke the coal. Now it's much more challenging businesswise to make it go."
Just try pulling out an old phone book and calling the numbers listed under the video-DVD rental category. Most have been disconnected or changed to personal cellphones. Old storefronts sit vacant; others have been converted into interior design companies, brokerage firms, or cab services.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I work for the post office. We see a lot of Netflix DVDs going through, more and more!
some more:
Ten years ago, there were roughly 140 independent video stores on the North Shore and along the New Hampshire seacoast, according to old phone records. Now there are fewer than two dozen. The ones that remain face extinction with every new Netflix or digital cable subscriber.
To stay relevant in the $7 billion rental market, many have become ambidextrous -- offering online services, low prices, and specialties such as X-rated videos, pizza, or tanning. "The really smart ones, the good ones, can find their niche," said Revill, who also owns Movieworks's sister store in Brookline. "You have to have something strong to still be in business."
Just consider the competition: Netflix has 6 million customers, no late fees, and 65,000 titles. (The average video store, by comparison, has 8,000 titles.) Then there's on-demand, an order-the-latest-movies-through-your-remote service that comes with digital cable. There's also the fact that DVDs retail for less than $20, with older titles going for as little as $5.
Faced with that range of options, Movieworks has lost about 20 percent of its business since 2003, said Revill. Still, the stores have been able to survive thanks to a "good location, luck, and a lot of movies." Obscure stuff, too: Season one of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and John Waters's trashy cult classic, "Pink Flamingos," as well as the crackly VHS favorites slowly evaporating from the market.
Netflix is great. The only sand in the cogs is the post office at times. At some point, bandwidth across the country will get to the point of supporting downloads en masse. I imagine Netflix could transition pretty easily albeit with the DRM hurdle to jump over.
"One elderly gentleman passes through a door in the back to a beyond not suitable for children."
This article is bigoted against the elderly. And also bigoted against what will be found in the "beyond not suitable for children". Goodness, where is their tolerance? Where is their celebration of diversity? Why is the Boston Globe so judgemental about a hidden area, and stereotyping the type of people who go in there?
Yes--we try to isolate them so they don't go through machinery (we have a package sorting area and place them in trays there). Sometimes they do go through machines and the envelope part comes off--very rarely. I think Blockbuster Video and some other companies do similar borrow-through-the-mail
setups. (For awhile there was Clean Films which offered
sanitized versions of movies but copyright/rights attorneys
pretty much shut them down...
(from last July: "Matsch ordered the companies named in the suit — CleanFlicks, Play It clean Video and CleanFilms — to immediately stop producing, creating and renting out the scrubbed films.
"We're disappointed," said Ray Lines, the head of CleanFlicks. "This is a typical case of David vs. Goliath, but in this case, Hollywood rewrote the ending. We're going to continue to fight.")
Someone recently opened a new video-rental store in my town. A fool and his money...
Ray Davies wrote this song on a 90s Kinks album, Think Visual (I think the "one fifty" is pounds not dollars!)
>>The local factory's been pulled down
By an overseas corporation
Now all of my brothers are looking around
For alternative occupation
I was sitting by the telly with my brother, Kenny
When suddenly the penny dropped
While all of my brothers are sitting at home
I've got a bank loan and I've opened up my very own
Video shop
Video shop
At the video shop
I can fly, fly you away
Comedy and tragedy are all sitting on my shelf
And if you've got a fantasy
For a small rental fee
You can set yourself free
At my video shop
At my video shop
At the video shop
I can fly, fly you away
At the video shop
Let me fly, fly you away
From all of the depression in you head
Caused by all the living in the red
I've got a bootleg version of Citizen Kane
A second hand copy of Psycho
I've taped them off the telly so you shouldn't complain
And there's no guarantee you'll get your money back again
From my video shop
My video shop
If you want to escape, I can rent you a tape
To relieve your situation
If you feel a bit low, I got a good peep show
'Cos everybody knows almost anything goes
At my video shop
At my video shop
One fifty a day and I'll fly, fly you away
It's nothing to pay to fly far, far away
I can help you through that lonely night
I've got Technicolour, black and white
I can guide you through those empty days
Make you smile and take your blues away
O let me fly you away
At my video shop
Fly, fly you away
Another factory's been knocked down
But nobody ever complains
And all of my brothers are customers now
We all play video games
I can see it in the eyes of all the lonely wives
If they're bored and they feel like a change
I do sales, rentals, even a swop
And if you feel like a change, well it can all be arranged
At my video shop
At my video shop
At my video shop
At my video shop
Let me fly, fly you away
And everyone who walks in through that door
Has got something that they're looking for
At my video shop
At my video shop
At the video shop
I can fly, fly you away
At the video shop
Let me fly, fly you away
Oh, at the video shop
Oh, at the video shop
Oh, at the video shop
You're right, the problem sometimes is the post office delivery time. I mailed 2 dvds MOnday, hoping I can get 2 new ones Wednesday, before Thanksgiving so I'd have something to watch at my sister's, While Netflix shipped 2 new dvds on Tuesday, they didn't arrive Wednesday.
"In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service."
I wondered how y'all handled them. I don't know if you could answer this, but our post office has two different ship times a day, the first drop off time is 1:00 pm and the second after five when the post office closes. I've noticed that if I drop off my Netflix before the close time of five, most times Netflix receives them the next day. When I drop them off at the post office early for the first ship time at 1:00, Netflix usually does not receive them until two days later.
That seems odd. Why could that be?
I wouldn't know about that--I work at a big sorting center,
nights, not at a smaller post office. I would think they do
mailbox collections (the mailbox in front of your P.O.)
and collections of mail dropped inside the P.O. at these two times and would think they'd do a dispatch then. The sooner it gets to the big sorting center, the sooner the mail is cancelled, "faced" (put in trays in same direction) and then sent to automation--or to manual if it's not machineable...
Can you tell me how netflix knows I've returned a video the morning after I've put it in the box the afternoon before? Does the PO scan them, and contact them? I've been curious about this for a long time.
They must scan them somehow, the same way that the USPS and
UPS scan packages so you can trace them...scanned at arrival
and departure.
I can't wait until Blockbuster goes under...
I've had NETFLIX for a few months and I think I'll let it go after the holidays.
They stiff you if you return the movies promptly and I've gotten broken and chipped disks in the mail. All in all, it's cheaper to rent from a store.
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