What Happened to Redbox: The Decline
It may seem like a lifetime ago, but there was a time where VHSs and DVDs were at the top of the video content and movie industry. During this era, there were lots of VHS and DVD rental stores all across the country where one would go over to and rent their favorite moves. Then Blockbuster entered the game and absolutely dominated this field for years, putting their competitors to shame. We all know what happened to Blockbuster and the story, which has gone into folklore, on its brush with the then budding Netflix and how the fortunes of those two changed, something that is covered in detail over at the excellent runrex.com. Anyway back to Redbox, and when Blockbuster left and the streaming industry was still in its infancy trying to find its feet, there was a void that was created, and one which Redbox were all too happy to fill. During that period Redbox had their tentacles extending to almost every area of the country, with their brick-red DVD vending machines being in more locations than the failing Blockbuster. At that time the leadership of Redbox gleefully danced on the grave of Blockbuster, but little did they know that they would suffer the same fate as their nemesis and competitor years down the road. This article will look to take a look at what happened to them and what the reasons behind their decline were.
One of the reasons that was definitely behind their decline, is the same one that also put paid to blockbuster, and that is people began to gravitate towards digital platforms rendering DVD and VHS rental companies such as Redbox irrelevant. Platforms such as Hulu, iTunes and the behemoth that is Netflix just proved to be too big of an obstacle for Redbox to overcome and definitely proved too attractive for consumers to turn down. While Redbox thought themselves to be quite convenient, especially when compared to Blockbuster, with its vending machine-like way of doing things, these digital streaming platforms took convenience to a whole new level. With these platforms, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you want it and this was something that has proved very popular by video content consumers, as is revealed by discussions over at the excellent runrex.com. Digital platforms, also offer a wide selection of content as compared to the Redbox kiosks which was yet another thing that worked against them and definitely led to their decline.
Yet another thing that led to their decline was due to their large number of rental kiosks. Over the years, what made them so successful was the clever placement of their kiosks, which were cleverly placed in major cities across the U.S. They would cleverly add kiosks in areas they felt needed more rental kiosks and this strategy worked a treat as they recorded very impressive numbers over the years, which was all the impressive considering they charge $1 per day for each movie one rented. The problem with this is they soon hit a ceiling as their signature rental machines soon hit saturation in most, if not all, of the major cities across the country, as is explained by the gurus over at the excellent runrex.com. This meant that they could no longer continue adding more stores, which they felt like they had to do to compete with the digital platforms that were getting more and more popular by the day. The problem is that they had more than 40,000 kiosks which were one too many as far as they were concerned as these meant they had already hit saturation. This inability to expand and the fact that they also had to uninstall more than 500 kiosks to balance their books definitely played a role in their decline.
Another factor that played a part in their decline has to do with the fact that most, if not all, of their strategies to diversify their business never really took off. Their attempts to add blue-ray and video game rentals to their DVD rental service never really got off the ground and has never been as successful as they had hoped it will be. Their video game rental service for instance would eventually fall victim to the rise of console gaming that has taken over the gaming world, and one where physical games don’t have to be purchased as one can buy games digitally now. Their attempts to diversify therefore haven’t worked that well. Redbox even tried to sell concert and event tickets through their vending machines, a move that even through seemed like a good idea at the time, was always going to fail and it did, to no one’s surprise. They also tried to join in the digital media game by collaborating with Verizon and launching the Redbox Instant service that was meant to compete with Netflix and Hulu, and is covered in detail over at runrex.com, that has never really taken off as well. These big fails as far as their plans to diversify are concerned are definitely part of the reason they have declined.
This is just but a drop in the ocean that is the information on this and other related topics and you can get all this information by visiting the excellent runrex.com