Some movie rental stores have a hard time competing with Netflix and Redbox, especially in a college town where students sometimes prefer a quicker and more convenient option when renting movies.
For Family Video on South Main Street, its competitive edge comes from customer interaction.
Customer service is key to keeping a business alive, said Kevin Pasch, district manager of Family Video.
Family Video opened in July, where Blockbuster used to be located. Family Video’s different business tactics will be what keeps it from avoiding the same fate as the previous Blockbuster store. Pasch said.
“Blockbuster made financial mistakes and had promotional problems,” Pasch said. “It really comes down to prices and customer service, which we offer.”
What makes places like Family Video successful is its customer service, said Dwayne Gremler, University professor of marketing.
“One of the appealing things for Family Video is its success at the local level,” Gremler said. “Acting local gives advantages like personalized service, friendliness and specific recommendations of movies. Blockbuster may have lost sight of that when it tried to compete with Netflix.”
Gremler said Blockbuster focused on online movie selections, which gave it a large volume of movies and better cost efficiency, but customer service may have been cut out.
Movie rental stores may also still prove to be successful with a lot of the competition shifting to an online-only audience.
“There’s an element of society that is still not ready for the 21st century,” Gremler said. “Many households can use Netflix and stream, but people still like going out the old-fashioned way and buying a movie.”
The experience of shopping and interacting with people is appealing to an audience, but with the new generation being brought up, businesses might have to change their approach, Gremler said.
Besides customer interaction, Pasch said a wider selection and access to new releases gives some stores like Family Video an advantage against Redbox and Netflix.
With the holiday season here, new releases with a lot of anticipation like Ted will help stores out too, Pasch said.
Senior Alex Bockey, a film production major, said while he prefers Netflix, he goes to rental stores for new movies.
“You find at movie stores what you won’t find on Netflix or Redbox,” Bockey said. “I can also interact with people in the stores whether they point me in the right direction of a movie or give me good suggestions.”
Bockey said Netflix tries to cater to a person’s interests, but it doesn’t do that good of job and Redbox may have three movies of interest out of the whole selection, Bockey said.
There is also the novelty of finding random movies that are so bad they are good at rental stores, Bockey said.
In order to retain customers, Pasch said Family Video is also constantly offering promotions as well as a membership deal that allows for 50 percent discounts, which can be refilled for $7 a month.
“Business has been amazing and we have gotten a really good response from Bowling Green,” he said.
