Umm, well...an opinion really...but without a snappy title. (Blockbuster)

Member Name: Thing

Product:	Blockbuster
Date:	17/04/02 (205 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Flashy logo, Convenient outlet

Disadvantages: Inflexible, Not customer-friendly, Not such a wide-ranging choice

I am always suspicious of large corporations and conglomerates that corner the market in their particular product. I am not sure if they are giving value for money, quality, service or choice because there comes a point when there is little or no competition.

This I have found to be the case with Blockbuster. I live in a small town that had two small independent video rental stores and what you could not find in the one you could generally find in the other, and in both there was the offer of ordering a rental copy of what they didn't have in stock. We now have one small branch of Blockbuster and that is it.

Blockbuster have been clever enough to cash in on people's laziness and set themselves up in the most easily accessible part of town, where it is most convenient to park your car for dropping off and picking up videos. And that is fine if all you want to do is rent the latest smash hit or epic, or a reasonably recent sci-fi, horror or action movie, playstation game, or buy a tub of popcorn or a box of maltesers. Or, of course, if you live in a large town or city, where the store is larger and carries a wider product. But, in our store, if you fancy watching a favourite oldie, a foreign language film, a television series (other than Friends), a documentary, or something a little out of the ordinary, then forget it.

For such a sizeable company, Blockbuster don't seem to have the capability to order what you want and have it sent from one of their other, larger stores that has a more varied library of films. So the only way to watch what you want is to either buy a copy or loan it from your local library. Buying it often works out at two or three times the cost of renting and, very often, local library copies are not in particularly good nick and you, again, have the problem of choice and availability.

Such a large company as Blockbuster surely has the means to be so efficiently computerized, wired-up, t
uned-in, and on the ball that it redeems itself from having put other, smaller, independent companies out of business by being more highly developed and customer-friendly. It should be at the cutting-edge of video rental, more innovative and superior to its smaller competitors. It should have the means to be able to lay its hands on just about any video/DVD/computer game that is out there to rent AND have the ability and expertise to make it available to their customers in a reasonably short space of time. It should have capitalized on eating up the competition but it has not. Instead of being more radical and innovative than its smaller competitors, in our town the only difference they have been able to offer is a bright flashy logo and a more convenient position in town.

Summary: