This is a great article from Hastings about Redbox devaluing the industry

[VBG-jon]

http://www.thewrap.com/blog-entry/redbox-roulette-gambling-industrys-future-8360

[Hamlin]

This sounds like the pot calling the kettle black....Hastings rents theirs at 3.99 for 7 days...that makes them only .57 per day...who is really "devaluing the industry"?
                   
                                       Just a thought

[twinvid]

It's not the daily rate that devalues it is the transaction amount. I would be willing to bet that a fair amount of their rentals come back a lot sooner than 7 days. It is about the percieved value. The Redbox customer percieves the value to be $1 even if they keep it out for 5 days and pay $5.

Preception is everything.

Bob

[wannabevideostoreowner]

I still am not really understanding why the $1 per night part is such a big issue. Grocery stores in St. Louis, MO, specifically Shop N Save, have been renting movies for $1 a night forever. I am pretty sure that another grocery chain in STL followed suit, but if they didn't match the $1, they had them at like $1.99. This has been going on for more than 20 years now. I definitely remember the $1/night rentals in the 80's on VHS tape. Since I was a kid counting out change all the time, I'd always ask to be taken there to rent something. The stores had both new releases and catalog. (Now the stores have a Redbox machine instead...)

While their shelves usually remained quite empty meaning it was obviously successful, I know of at least one Blockbuster not too far from a Shop N Save store and it seemed to do good business as well even if they were charging $4 or $5 or $6 or whatever Blockbusters complicated scheme is these days.

Meanwhile DirecTv is still charging too much for PPV. Their prices seemed to have gone up since I've had them. Now they are at $4.99 for a movie I think. But I guess people are still paying for this. In fact, I know one of them. My grandmother orders a few movies per month and thinks nothing of it.

I don't think it's the $1/night as much as it is the successful marketing they've done as a national brand. One thing I don't understand tho is why Redbox did go so low with pricing. I don't think it would've hurt their business plan at all to charge $1.49 for example and just clear the extra profit.

[moviecritic202]

I think what the studios don't like the the N/A's going out for just $1 and then coming back the next day.  They would not mind if you had to keep the item for a certain amount of days for $1/day and they'd be especially fine with it if they were a few months old.  They are worried about too many people seeing it for too little $.  My opinion, probably wrong