{"id":1704,"date":"2016-02-18T06:55:19","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T14:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2016-02-18T06:55:19","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T14:55:19","slug":"15-fast-forward-facts-about-blockbuster-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1704","title":{"rendered":"15 Fast-Forward Facts About Blockbuster Video"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0 \u00a0Another sad reminder of how fast things can change in the retail industry. \u00a0They had over 9,000 stores in 2004 and a decade later they’re bankrupt with only 51 franchises left. \u00a0 A fickle bunch us Americans are with our technology–streaming is a lot better than driving to browse shelves in a store. \u00a0(A lazy bunch us Americans are as well.)\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0I also heard over the years that they had a LOT of internal theft. \u00a0A lot of teenage male employees surrounded by videos and video games sure sounds like a recipe for disaster.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0And while this article from Mental Floss says that their sites were in high demand, there is one a couple miles from me that is still vacant. \u00a0You can even see where the paint faded and you can still see the “BLOCKBUSTER” logo on the side of the building. \u00a0 \u00a0And if you’re wondering what came of those 9,000 old Blockbuster signs, check this out.<\/a><\/div>\n
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It wasn\u2019t too long ago that Blockbuster Video was on top of the home video world. More than\u00a09000 stores<\/a> dotted the U.S. in 2004, each offering some 6000 square feet of DVDs, VHS tapes, video games, and candy bars. But the arrival of Netflix and entertainment-on-demand stripped the company to the bone and necessitated bankruptcy: As of January 2014, just 51 Blockbuster franchises<\/a> were left. If you\u2019re feeling nostalgic for a time when it required transportation and human interaction to watch a movie, check out these 15 facts about the rise and fall of America\u2019s onetime video king.<\/em><\/p>\n

1. THE FIRST STORE OPENED BECAUSE OF FALLING OIL PRICES.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Dallas, Texas entrepreneur David Cook was still smarting from a collapsed oil market in 1985 when his wife, Sandy, broached the idea of opening up a video store. Cook had been writing computer programs to manage inventory for big oil businesses, but a market collapse<\/a> led to a stack of unpaid invoices. At the same time, the VHS rental market was exploding, growing from 7000 stores in 1983 to 19,000 in 1986. The Cooks decided the industry could use a mega-store with an inventory larger than independent shops could provide. Sandy came up with the familiar blue-and-yellow color scheme, and Blockbuster was born.<\/em><\/p>\n

2. THEY WERE THE FIRST TO KEEP TAPES ON SHELVES.<\/em><\/h4>\n
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Rental stores of the 1980s had a problem: Patrons who enjoyed movies but didn\u2019t enjoy paying for them had a habit of relieving owners of their inventory. To discourage theft, an empty VHS box would sit on the shelf and an exchange would be made at the counter. But because Blockbuster\u2019s inventory was so vast\u2014the Cooks began with 8000 to 10,000 titles\u2014it would be impossible<\/a> to have a back room for the movies. The tapes stayed on shelves, allowing customers to see what was in stock. The system allowed for quicker customer turnover and an efficient inventory system that could allow them to populate an entire store with stock in a single day. By 1988, the franchise had more than 400 locations<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. THEY ABSTAINED FROM PORN.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Unlike many mom-and-pop shops that had a neon sign and a set of swinging doors that led to an adult selection of titles, the Cooks decided early on that Blockbuster would be a genital-free zone. It wasn\u2019t a moral issue for them: \u201cWe don\u2019t care if people watch pornography,\u201dCook told Business Week<\/a>. \u201cWe just don\u2019t want to sell it to you. A lot of families came to our store only\u2014not because of the selection and not because of the long hours and not because of the convenient check-out and the three-day rentals\u2014they came because they didn’t mind their kids running around the store because they wouldn’t see any garbage.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

4. THEY WERE SUED BY NINTENDO.<\/em><\/h4>\n

It was inevitable that Blockbuster and other video chains would capitalize on the resurgence of video games in the 1980s by renting out popular titles. Mario and Link, however, were not willing to cooperate: Sticking to its reputation for stern business, Nintendo sued the company<\/a>in 1989 for copyright infringement, complaining that stores were photocopying game manuals. (Blockbuster said they were simply compensating for the worn-out originals.) The two wound up settling out of court. By 1994, Nintendo had capitulated on its anti-rental stance, and Blockbuster reported<\/a> that game rentals made up 8 to 10 percent of their revenue.<\/em><\/p>\n

5. THEY MADE A FORTUNE ON LATE FEES.<\/em><\/h4>\n
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It\u2019s difficult to lose money gambling on the over-booked, overworked American consumer, and Blockbuster was no exception. The company profited enormously from late fees, which accrued after the one- or three-day rental term had expired. In 2000, $800 million, or 16 percent of total revenue, came from fines<\/a>. After the company revamped its policies in 2004 to trumpet \u201cno more late fees,\u201d New Jersey state attorney generals cried foul<\/a>: While that may have been technically correct, a movie or game more than eight days late meant the customer was charged the full purchase price. Though Blockbuster’s policy was to reverse the charges within 30 days if the customer returned the item, they were still charged a restocking fee.<\/em><\/p>\n

6. THEY TRIED BECOMING A MINI-AMUSEMENT PARK.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Though he eventually turned the company over to other investors, Cook anticipated the idea that Blockbuster could become more than just a rental outfit when he named the company Blockbuster Entertainment in 1985. In 1994, executives tried to make good on the label byopening<\/a> a center dubbed the Blockbuster Block Party in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Spread over 60,000 square feet, the \u201cadult amusement park\u201d featured laser tag, mazes, and motion simulator rides. The press referred to it<\/a> as a \u201cminiature Disneyland on steroids,\u201d but the concept never caught on.<\/em><\/p>\n

7. ITS MUSIC STORES BANNED MALE EMPLOYEES FROM HAVING LONG HAIR.<\/em><\/h4>\n
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Starting in 1994, male employees working for the Blockbuster Music spin-off stores were told that long hair and earrings were banned. (According to Billboard magazine<\/a>, their hair could be “no more than 2 inches past their collars.”) A number of workers who refused to comply and were terminated wound up suing; the case was lost<\/a> on appeal in 1998.<\/em><\/p>\n

8. THEY GOT EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO SOME MOVIES.<\/em><\/h4>\n

In the 1990s, some titles, like Lolita (1997), were exclusive<\/a> to the chain, leaving smaller shops unable to secure them for their own inventory and prompting some to buy from wholesalers who ignored the exclusivity rules.<\/em><\/p>\n

9. THEY ADVERTISED ON DRY CLEANING HANGERS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Sensing a missed opportunity to capture the attention of dry-cleaning customers, Blockbuster and several other businesses placed advertisements<\/a> on bags and clothes hangers in 1998. Coupons were also stapled to the supplies.<\/em><\/p>\n

10. THEY TURNED DOWN NETFLIX …<\/em><\/h4>\n
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Netflix was just beginning its ascension into a DVD-by-mail and streaming giant when CEO Reed Hastings met with Blockbuster in 2000 to pitch the possibility of his company handling Blockbuster\u2019s online efforts. At the time, Blockbuster couldn\u2019t conceive of how Hastings could add any value to their enormously successful enterprise; according to Forbes<\/a>, Hastings was \u201claughed out of the room.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

11. \u2026 AND LATER MAILED THEM A KITCHEN SINK.<\/em><\/h4>\n

After feeling the pressure from both Netflix and Redbox rental kiosks, Blockbuster developed its own mail rental service in 2004. According to Fast Company<\/a>, when Hastings told listeners on a conference call that the company had \u201cthrown everything but the kitchen sink\u201d at Netflix in an attempt to be competitive, he received a kitchen sink in the mail from Blockbuster the following day.<\/em><\/p>\n

12. THEY TRIED TO BUY CIRCUIT CITY.<\/em><\/h4>\n

With Circuit City ailing, Blockbuster tried to arrange a buyout worth $1 billion in 2008\u2014but the electronics franchise went bankrupt the following year. Blockbuster wound up losing a billion all by itself in 2010, forcing it<\/a> into bankruptcy.<\/em><\/p>\n

13. THEIR VACANT STORES WERE IN HIGH DEMAND.<\/em><\/h4>\n
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Consumerist Via Flickr<\/a> \/\/ CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

When Blockbuster began to vacate their locations, there was some small consolation: the storefronts were in high demand<\/a> by strip mall occupants. A pawn shop franchise bought several locations in Florida and Puerto Rico; cell phone stores took up other locations. Business owners attributed their appeal to being in prime foot-traffic spots.<\/em><\/p>\n

14. YOU CAN STILL VISIT BLOCKBUSTER … IN ALASKA.<\/em><\/h4>\n

The dissolution of Blockbuster\u2019s stores has left only a small number of the familiar torn-ticket awnings still operating: the owners that license the Blockbuster name for its brand recognition. Found mainly in rural areas, the company also has a footprint in Alaska<\/a>, where several stores see a steady stream of traffic coming in during the weekends. New movies can be rented for $5, while catalog titles are as low as 49 cents a day. The most popular titles, though, are DVDs of premium cable shows: broadband service is expensive in Alaska, and binging doesn\u2019t come cheaply.<\/em><\/p>\n

15. SOMEONE NOTICED THE TITLE OF THE LAST MOVIE RENTED THERE.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Aside from the independently-owned, in-name-only stores, the last official Blockbuster Video location closed<\/a> in November 2013. The last title rented? Seth Rogen\u2019s 2013 apocalyptic comedy This Is the End. The company posted a photo of the moment on its Twitter page. And yes, the customer still had to return it.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Another sad reminder of how fast things can change in the retail industry. \u00a0They had over 9,000 stores in 2004 and a decade later they’re bankrupt with only 51 franchises left. \u00a0 A fickle bunch us Americans are with our technology–streaming is a lot better than driving to browse shelves in a store. \u00a0(A Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retail-companies","category-retail-trends"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1714,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions\/1714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}