Movie Rentals Go Digital
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As technology has advanced, so has the movie rental market. Today we have many more options than just the video store. I'm sure you’ve heard of the mail delivery systems from Blockbuster and Netflix, but it goes well beyond that. In this article, we’ll take a look at some other great ways to rent a video and also at where the technology is heading.
Ten years ago, if you wanted to watch the latest released movie, you probably went to your local movie rental store and rented it. It wasn’t very hard, unless they were all sold out of the movie you wanted, which was typical when it was a new release. If you were renting a video game, it was even harder to try to rent the game. I waited over a month for the new Madden at one time. To add to the frustration, sometimes you could only rent the new releases for a day or two. To have two or three hours to sit down and watch a movie might be hard for some people. If you decided to hold the movie past the rental day limit, you had to pay late fees -- just to watch that movie.
I’m sure you’ve heard about Netflix or Blockbuster Total Access, but if you haven’t, I’ll explain what they are real quick. You log onto the web site and create a list of movies you want to see. Depending on your plan, they will send you 1, 2 or 3 movies at a time. Once you watch a movie you can send it back and they will send you a new movie from your list. Blockbuster also offers in-store exchanges. You can bring the movie back to a Blockbuster store, rent one while you're there, and then they will also send you one in the mail. There are no due dates or late fees, which is a big perk for busy people.
There are a few drawbacks for online rental. First, you have to wait 1-2 business days to get your movie. The second issue is from the retailer's end; it’s the shipping costs. It’s 82 cents per movie rental, and it adds up fast. And that doesn't even take any postal hikes into consideration! Say you have the most popular plan of three at a time and you return them once a week. That’s 3 movies per week times 4 weeks in a month times 82 cents per movie. That’s 9.84 in just shipping costs for Blockbuster or Netflix. That plan I stated is roughly $15 per month. The profit margin isn’t going to be really high for people who rent lots of movies.
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