Does that include all rentals? New releases? DVDs? Every day of the week? Sometimes, they have specials just to get people in the store, but then you find out that the specials have limitations.
In our area, we have a lot of competition. BB, HV, and several Independents. Most people pick a video store because its the one closest to them. Price doesn't really matter much to most customers. For those where price do matter to them, they aren't the most loyal customers anyway because they will go where the price is cheapest.
I actually think that the worst thing for video stores isn't having to compete with other video stores. It's having to compete with cable/satellite, bootlegs... and now, Walmart.
I've overheard a few customers saying how they've already seen a movie from a friend who had a 'burned' copy so they've decided not to go with that certain movie. They either get them from a guy on a bicycle with a large trashbag filled with bootlegs or from the swap meet or from a friend who downloaded it from the internet.
You read all these articles online and in magazines about how piracy is affecting the movie industry. Well, in a way, we are part of the movie industry because as they are losing customers who could've paid to watch the movies in the theatres, we are losing customers who could've rented those same movies from us.
I think BB's 2-days for $2 isn't directly targeted at other rental stores. It's probably their way of having to cope with the same problems we're having with piracy and people's tendency to get cable or satellite programming... whether legally or illegally.
As for us "feeling it"... I would say no, because their 'special' prices is close enough to our daily/regular prices that our customers aren't going to run out of our store just to go to blockbuster a few minutes away to save a few cents. Usually, the only time they would go to blockbuster is if we're out of copies of a certain movie.
