What Stores Buy Dvds
Streaming is a popular way to consume media these days, and DVD sales have declined by 86% since 2008. Curiously, many stores fill their shelves with DVDs and Blu-rays, and Technicolor Home Entertainment Services plans to ship as many as 750 million discs in 2022.
what stores buy dvds
Blockbuster LLC, formerly known as Blockbuster Video,[5] was an American-based provider of home video and video game rental services established in 1985 by David Cook. During its heyday, Blockbuster offered primarily at video rental shops, but later alternatives included DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and cinema theater.[6] Previously operated by Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc.,[7] the company expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster consisted of 9,094 stores and employed approximately 84,300 people: 58,500 in the United States and 25,800 in other countries.
Poor management and the Great Recession were major factors causing Blockbuster's decline, as was the increasing competition from Netflix's mail-order service, video on demand, and Redbox automated kiosks. Significant loss of revenue occurred during the late 2000s, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010.[8][9] The next year, its remaining 1,700 stores were bought by satellite television provider Dish Network,[10][11] and by 2014, the last 300 company-owned stores were closed.[12] Although corporate support for the brand ended, Dish retained a small number of franchise agreements, enabling some privately owned franchises to remain open. Following a series of further closures in 2019, only one franchised store remains open, located in Bend, Oregon, United States.[13][14][15][16][17][18]
The first Blockbuster store opened on October 19, 1985, in Dallas, Texas, with an inventory of 8,000 VHS and 2,000 Beta tapes.[24][25][26] The chain's name is derived from the term blockbuster, a Hollywood term for a successful film. Cook's experience with managing huge databases proved helpful in driving innovation within the industry.[3] Following early success from the company's first stores, Cook built a $6-million warehouse in Garland, Texas, to help sustain and support future growth that allowed new stores to open quickly.[3] Blockbuster would often custom-tailor a store's inventory to its neighborhood, based on local demographics.[3]
In 1987, Waste Management co-founder Wayne Huizenga, who originally had reservations about entering the video rental industry, agreed to acquire several Blockbuster stores.[27] At that time, there were 19 stores, attracting Huizenga's associate John Melk's attention due to its efficiency, family-friendly no porn image and business model. Huizenga and Melk utilized techniques from their waste business and Ray Kroc's model of expansion to rapidly expand Blockbuster, and soon they were opening a new store every 24 hours.[28][29] They took over many of the existing Blockbuster franchise stores, and Huizenga spent much of the late 1980s acquiring several of Blockbuster's rivals, including Major Video. In 1989, Nintendo attempted to halt Blockbuster's ability to rent video games, filing multiple lawsuits and lobbying the U.S. Congress to ban the practice.[30] Nintendo ultimately lost the battle, which paved the way for future video game rental.[30][31]
In 1990, Blockbuster bought mid-Atlantic rival Erol's which had more than 250 stores.[32] In 1992, Blockbuster acquired the Sound Warehouse and Music Plus music retail chains and created Blockbuster Music.[33][34] In October 1993, Blockbuster took a controlling interest in Spelling Entertainment Group, a media company run by television producer Aaron Spelling.[35] Blockbuster purchased Super Club Retail Entertainment Corp. on November 22, 1993, from Philips Electronics, N.V. for 5.2 million shares of Blockbuster stock. This brought approximately 270 Record Bar, Tracks, Turtles and Rhythm and Views music stores and approximately 160 video retail superstores into the corporation.[36] It also owned 35% of Republic Pictures; that company merged with Spelling in April 1994.[37]
The original Blockbuster company, Blockbuster Video Inc., was merged into the parent company Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. which had earlier replaced the Blockbuster Entertainment Company. In 1996, Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. merged into a new Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation[7] and the retail stores, then called Blockbuster Video, were renamed Blockbuster. The logo changed slightly, but retained the ITC Machine font.[48] In November 1996 Blockbuster confirmed that it was moving its headquarters from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to the Renaissance Tower in downtown Dallas.[49] Most of the workers at the Florida headquarters did not want to relocate, so Blockbuster planned to hire around 500 to 600 new employees for its Dallas headquarters. The company had offered various relocation packages to all of its Fort Lauderdale staff.[50] The second Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation was later merged into Blockbuster, Inc.[citation needed]
In June 1997, Taco Bell president John Antioco resigned from the company to become CEO of Blockbuster.[51] Also that year, Warner Bros. offered Antioco an exclusive rental deal, seeing as DVDs were emerging as the new home video medium. Blockbuster was to have rights to rent new DVD releases for a period of time before they went on sale to the general public. The studio was to receive 40% of rental revenues in return, which was the same deal already in place for VHS rentals. Blockbuster turned the offer down, and the studio responded by lowering its DVD wholesale price in order to compete with the rental industry. Walmart seized the opportunity and in a few years surpassed Blockbuster as the studios' single largest source of revenue. Other mass retailers soon followed suit. Many began selling DVDs below wholesale price in hopes of selling more items with better profit margins as a result of the additional foot traffic in their stores. Unable to match prices, Blockbuster's business model was severely affected.[52]
In 1998, Blockbuster created DEJ Productions, which acquired 225 films primarily to provide exclusive content to its Blockbuster stores prior to being sold off to First Look Studios in 2005.[53] During that same year, Blockbuster bought the Irish video rental store Xtra-vision, with over 200 stores in Ireland and the UK. In 2009, Blockbuster sold off its Irish operations to Birchall Investments, with the few Xtra-vision stores in the UK being rebranded as Blockbuster.
On or around October 14, 2004, Blockbuster was spun-off from Viacom. Online DVD subscriptions were introduced on Blockbuster.com, also known as Blockbuster Online.[61] Blockbuster also rolled out its "Game Rush" store-in-store concept to approximately 450 domestic company-operated stores. Blockbuster began game and DVD trading in selected U.S. stores.[62]
At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had more than 9,000 stores worldwide.[14] In December 2004, Blockbuster announced its intention to pursue a hostile takeover of Hollywood Video, its major U.S. competitor.[63] After several extensions of the tender offer, Blockbuster withdrew due to FTC opposition.[64] To counter the Blockbuster offer, Hollywood Video agreed to a buyout in January 2005 by a smaller competitor, the Dothan, Alabama-based Movie Gallery. Since then, Movie Gallery has filed for bankruptcy twice and its entire chain of stores has been liquidated.
On June 19, 2007, after a pilot program launched in late 2006, Blockbuster announced that it had chosen Blu-ray over HD DVD format to rent in a majority of its stores. In the pilot program, Blockbuster offered selected titles for rental and sale in 250 stores. Blockbuster stocked Blu-ray titles in almost 5,000 stores across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Australia.[71]
On July 2, 2007, the company named James W. Keyes, former president and CEO of 7-Eleven, as the new chairman and CEO. He introduced a new business strategy that included enhancements to existing stores. The following month in August, Blockbuster acquired Movielink for $6.6 million, forecasting a shift to streaming video.[72] Movielink was an online video service that allowed customers to download movie rentals from a library of over 6,000 films, created in 2002 by five major studios including Warner Bros, MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Universal Studios.[73] The move gave Blockbuster the opportunity to move away from the unprofitable Total Access (DVD-by-mail) service in favor of online streaming. Despite growing competition from Netflix and Redbox, the company downplayed the threat, choosing instead to focus on Apple and Walmart as their primary competition.[74]
On September 14, 2007, Blockbuster GB Ltd bought a number of retail stores from ChoicesUK plc. ChoicesUK is an AIM-listed multi-channel distributor and retailer of DVDs, computer games, and CDs. The sale secured employment for approximately 450 employees across 59 stores in the UK. As part of the transaction, Blockbuster GB rebranded the stores as Blockbuster.[citation needed]
On February 17, 2008, Blockbuster proposed a buyout of struggling Circuit City. However, after a due diligence review of Circuit City's financial books, Blockbuster withdrew its offer in July 2008. Analysts were not favorable to the proposed deal, viewing it as a desperate effort to save two struggling retailers rather than a bold turnaround initiative.[75] Subsequently, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy on November 10, 2008, and, after liquidating all of its stores, ceased operations on March 8, 2009.[76]
In March 2010, Blockbuster began "Additional Daily Rates", or "ADRs", for rentals not returned by their due date in the United States, having already used this procedure in other countries such as the UK for many years. An ADR was charged for each day a member kept the rental beyond the rental terms. On March 12, 2010, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Blockbuster's independent registered public accounting firm, issued its audit opinion disclosing substantial doubt about Blockbuster's ability to continue as a going concern. This report was included in Blockbusters's 10-K SEC filing. On March 17, 2010, Blockbuster issued a bankruptcy warning after continued drops in revenue threatened its ability to service its nearly $1 billion debt load. By April 1, 2010, Carl Icahn had resigned from Blockbuster's board of directors and sold nearly all his remaining Blockbuster stock.[82] Blockbuster paired up with Time Warner to have Warner Bros. movies made available in Blockbuster stores on the DVD release date and not be subject to a four-week delay.[citation needed] Similar agreements were also made with Universal and 20th Century Fox. 041b061a72