Forum - View topicNEWS: Blockbuster Near Bankrupt
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Starwind Amada
Posts: 981 Location: Easton, PA, USA |
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The idiot probably got caught smoking weed or something at one point, but he probably got to keep his job because they were low on staff or something. This being yet another offense is probably what got him fired. And I seriously doubt the manager was an anime fan. Then again, he did say "I read the back of this as I was bringing it over here and it sounds pretty cool for an animated feature." Who knows, I might've turned a Blockbuster manager into a raging otaku. 
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1558 |
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I would rate that as excellent customer service on the part of management, though-they went out of their way to make you happy, even giving you a free movie. I worked for Blockbuster for four years, and they are not obligated to give you anything free even if an employee is rude to you-besides, Blockbuster has to pay three or four times the retail price for every film they have, so that movie you got for nothing probably cost them about a hundred bucks. That store had a good manager. The real problem with Blockbuster was that they did nothing about Netflix for years. If they had really wanted to, they could have nipped them in the bud, but upper management kept ignoring them, assuming they were just another flash-in-the-pan internet company like pets.com. I remember as early as 2001, hearing from my boss how "we're going to need to do something about these new online rental places soon," but three years later when I quit, they still were only begining to address the problem. If Blockbuster goes under, it'll be their own fault for being stupid and ignoring a potentially major competitor for so long. Their online service IS better, but most people don't know it even exists-people associate them with old-school rentals, and Netflix with the future. Not a good sign for Blockbuster. I think customer service problems are mostly different from store to store. Most stores are pretty much run by the store manager because the corperate higher-ups harldy ever visit stores, so there's almost no accountability if the manager does things his own way. At the one I worked at, everyone was nice to customers, because the employees that weren't usually didn't last two weeks. But every now and then they'd send me to another store to sub for someone, and at that store, people couldn't be bothered to help customers or say thank you or try to work out late fee problems. Our store typically erased about half the late fees that were aquired because we wanted our customers to come back. In fact, the unwritten rule was that if it's less than six bucks and the customer objects, go ahead and erase it without asking questions (unless the customer's being a major jerk) even if it's the customer's fault. At that other store, you could actually get in trouble for erasing any late fees unless there was proof Blockbuster had screwed up. That was against company code, but it's what that store's manager wanted-it was his way of inflating profits because less people came to that store, which was probably a direct result of him refusing to erase late fees. ^^;; If Blockbuster does file for bankruptcy, I'm willing to bet that that store will be closed down, and my old store won't. ^^ As for the mom and pop video rental stores, that's true, they shut a lot of them down, but Blockbuster has actually been far more merciful to the small stores than most big chains in other industries, because they left them a lifeline: Porn. Blockbuster does not rent out porn. Any small store that wants to compete with the local Blockbuster just has to have a decent porn section and they'll usually stay in bussiness. |
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Captainkhyron
Posts: 3 |
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I'm a blockbuster employee, I saw this coming since last summer. Especially with them getting into a fight with universal studios... all I could say "Stupid blockbuster is burning it's bridges. It's gonna go under by the end of the year." and wow I was right. Good thing I already told my manager way back in August that I'm leaving in December.
There's also a lot of mis-information in this thread as well. Blockbuster does not treat it's customers like crap. Blockbuster treats it's EMPLOYEES like crap as of late though. Each store and situation is the responsibility of the employees in it. If you're mistreated by an employee, that's their fault, not the rest of the company's. I agree they're respresenting the company, but my store (like the guy who posted above me) is probably the nicest store in town. We have had the same (minus 1 person) employees for the last 2 and a half years which is a pretty good turnover rate. We moved to a different location (the manager, and 2 of us assistant managers) so we can get this new store in order, and what happened? Most of the customers that lived by the old store came out of their way to come to our store, because they didn't like the new employees at the other store. Blockbuster used to give it's employees bi-annual raises every year. They've cut BOTH of those raises this year just days before employees were supposed to recieve them. This made for a lot of unhappy employees. They've laid off about 40% (from what I hear) of their distribution staff that prepares and ships movies from their center in Texas to each store. Not to mention, many of the employees from around our area have quit working because of the workload they've added on. They've cut about 35% of the work hours from each store and possibly doubled the amount they have to do each shift. Customers are also a little rude/ungrateful for the new "No More Late Fees" policy. It's very simple: "You have 7 days after a movie is due to return it. After those extra 7 days, the movie will be charged onto your account and you will have 30 days in which to return it and you will be credited the amount of the rental item minus $1.25 per item." Now, if you can understand that, that's a VERY good deal compared to the old way of charging you and extra $4.33 per 2-day movie every 2 days. And people will STILL complain "It's still a late fee." Well, we have to get our movies back sometime. I've also had people ask me "I know what it says on the reciept, but when is it REALLY due back." I've also seen those same people come back the next day and complain about how new policy is stupid because a movie they wanted to rent is past due on someone else's account. (Aka, they do the same thing and they're criticizing someone else for it.) Blockbuster is losing so much money that they have increased the price of rentals by $.30 in August in my area. I beg people when they complain about it to think back of how much late fees used to be whenever they complain about the new system. Now, Blockbuster is also losing money because of the amount of money they dumped into "GameRush". If you're not familiar with what that is, it's in certain stores where a different part of the store is sectioned off specifically for games/trading. They dumped a lot of money into it. Also, they lost so much money because of the crazy deals they ran. An analyst for the company showed us in a meeting how you can make $10,000 in 30 days by legally ripping off the company. (I'm not going to share that info so dont ask me.  )
Also forgot to mention NETFLIX. If you read up on the video business news when blockbuster first broke into online, Netflix was in some deep water when blockbuster hit the scene. So many were cancelling their accounts, Netflix postponed their expansion by 2 years. As far as price, John Antiaco (the CEO of the company) was very upset at the Netflix statement when they first came out. Netflix: "We intend to put blockbuster out of business." Well, he was very upset at this, so it started a childhood war. Netflix was $19.99... Blockbuster turned to $17.99. Netflix turned to $16.99. Blockbuster turned to $15.99. Netflix turned to $14.99. Blockbuster turned to $14.49. They both decided that it was getting them nowhere, so blockbuster is now standing at $17.99 for good. ...but yeah...I called it about blockbuster going under so... Go me! |
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Starwind Amada
Posts: 981 Location: Easton, PA, USA |
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Sounds llike there's not so much block-busting going on anymore.
Sorry.  That was bad. I should've said "There's a lot of net-flicking goin' on."
Or not. I'll shut up now. |
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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from my experience last year when i had blockbuster online... i found it strange that the shipping was fast (3 days to come) when i was on the trial version, but once it was over, and i decided to continue, the shipping was sooooo slow! it took like 6 or more days for it to come! i'm not sure if this is a coincidence with the postal service or something..
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Tenka-Ichi
 Posts: 17 Location: Winnipeg, MB, Canada |
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Wow, I really didn't see this coming. Especially since they're just building a new one by my house right now.
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Shii
 Posts: 110 |
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Hip hip hooray! Blockbuster has been nothing but trouble since they started their war on Netflix. By the way, their selection is total crap, but usually they're the only video store their customers have ever known so it's hard to tell.
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Haru to Ashura
 Posts: 617 Location: Termina |
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But that lifeline is useless in 3/4ths of the cases. Because mom and pop shops are run by moms and pops - parents who want to provide wholesome entertainment and show their children that they have upstanding, moral careers. Even during financial troubles, I'm sure some of these people would be too proud to sell porn. (And I applaud the action. :) ) I know that the few mom and pop shops left in our city a few years ago were able to stay in business because their stores were more family friendly than Blockbusters or Hollywood Video. Independent-run video stores would sell edited versions of pg-13 and R movies, so families could watch movies without graphic nudity or violence intact. I'm not sure if that sort of editing is still legal...but either way, that's what helped them compete with Blockbuster, not ponrography. |
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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I dunno where you live, but the Video rentals around me do rent out Porno. So do the Sex Shops. But their too cheap to rent out Hentai. |
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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maybe the question is where are you living? o_o i've never seen any porn in the local video rental stores near me... |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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We have 2 in Basingstoke and neither have any anime other than Pokémon, YuGiOh, aand Digimon movies. I asked why and the response was "no interest in it" , so no loss to me should they close down here
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.Sy
Posts: 1266 |
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No surprise really. Netflix has a large portion of the market now, and so does BT, like Bamboo said.
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Jgobats81886
 Posts: 113 |
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This news kinda scares me. I'm a MOD (Manager on Duty-fancy way of saying shift manger) at the a MN Blockbuster. I guess all of your complaints are vald, but if I can, I will explane restocking fees.
You rent your movie. You still have a due date. However, you can be up to 7 days past your due date withour beaing charged a thing. After that, you are charged the selling price of the product, minus the rentle cost. You can still return it within 30 days of that and only pay a 1.25 restocking fee, or you can pay full price for it and its yours to keep. However, we just changed the policy for game. Nobody is bringing there games back, so we put in a 1.99 late charge per day its late. Is it sort of false advertisin? Yes, but its not my choice. Most of the time, all take care of it so they dont even notice. Our busniess has been goind down ever since last year. That sort of hast to do with the fact that the store owner (I work for a franchised store) has 3 stores all on the same road in a 25-30 mile stretch. Some of the bad custmor service stories I read make me sick. I treat all custmors with respect and try to help tham find what they are looking for right away. That beaing said, I do feel bad about pushing the little stores out of busniss. Well, I'm looking for another job anyway. I was promised the Assistent Manger position, but the owner decided to give it to his wife's best friend. It's total BS. And wow, some other store actually have a anime section. We have Spirted Away, Animatrix, and DBZ Fusion saga. |
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) I know that the few mom and pop shops left in our city a few years ago were able to stay in business because their stores were more family friendly than Blockbusters or Hollywood Video. Independent-run video stores would sell edited versions of pg-13 and R movies, so families could watch movies without graphic nudity or violence intact. I'm not sure if that sort of editing is still legal...but either way, that's what helped them compete with Blockbuster, not ponrography.  |
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