The Death Of RedBox? (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Collins]

Outerwall, formerly known as CoinStar is the parent company of Redbox, which it acquired back in 2008. Redbox provides 80% of Outerwall's revenue.

Redbox is largely known for their "red boxes" that largely sit outside of convenience and grocery stores and rent a small selection of the latest DVD and Blu-ray optical discs. They also have a streaming service that competes with Netflix and Amazon.

While I do use Redbox to rent Blu-rays, I dropped Netflix back when they had their pricing changes, I have never used their streaming services.

It appears that there are problems inside of Outerwall as the latest CEO, Anne Saunder's, has done an abrupt exodus from the company, leaving Outerwall to fill the postion in the next couple of months. Outerwall will also cut 8.5% of its workforce to save about $22M annually beginning in '14.

What's this mean to Redbox users? Hopefully not much and the layoff's and CEO change are due to Outerwall canning some unsuccessful ventures like Rubi kiosks, Crop Market food kiosks and Start Studio photo booths. Rubi kiosks seemed to have the most traction with agreements with Starbucks to launch 500 kiosks using Seattle's Best Coffee.

I like Redbox, I hope they stick around.

Any of you use Redbox?

 

[RolandL]

Yes I use it. Only for Blu-ray's. There are four 'boxes' less than a mile from my house to select from. I also use Netflix online streaming only for $8 a month. Netflix is looking to add its service to cable companies.

 

[schan1269]

Even in my 3 small town radius...(no more than 10 miles)

There are 7 RedBox(all at grocery and convenience stores).

Still not used it as I typically buy what I want to watch...and most of what I want to watch isn't available for rent or stream.

 

[KeithAP]

I use RedBox from time to time but almost always only when I reserve online first. It seems everytime I go to a store there is someone browsing the kiosk and I have little patience for waiting around.

RedBox really needs a new kiosk design IMHO. One where the part of the device that dispenses the discs is separate from the terminal customers interact with. This way, you could have one machine but several order terminals to feed it. In such a system you could also allow people to do the entire transaction with a smartphone app so you wouldn't need to use their terminal at all.

-Keith

 

[DaveF]

I used it for the first time this summer to rent a movie. I like that it's cheap and convenient. I disliked its poor interface, with an uncalibrated touchscreen giving me flashbacks to when my palm zire needed a recal every power cycle. I also didn't like having to try try multiple machines in the hopes of finding a movie. It doesn't help when I want a slightly older movies: Hunger a Games before seeing the new one in the theater? Nope! But I haven't rented movies in years, and don't see that changing much. A nice option to have. But not something I personally will spend any real money using.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

One was just installed outside Sobey's (grocery store) where I live, about one block away from the nearest video store. When the one was installed at a Walmart near where I work, the same chain video store lasted about 4 months. Haven't tried it yet, but I kind of like the business model.

 

[MattPriceTime]

I'd imagine the group of renters that want physical discs are probably going to be swayed by convenience. The video store in terms of renting is very much a sliver of it's former self, the buying section still doing decent to good though.

However those type stores including their counterparts of book and record stores really are always a gamble. Often they need a lot of space to store stuff and if anything disrupts their usual market, those things can go bottom up over night.

 

[swoosherst]

I used Redbox atleast once a week. Netflix I enjoy using for documentaries, but when I want to watch a new release movie Redbox is the way to go.

 

[DaveF]

Two months later, and I haven't used RedBox again. Redbox would have been amazeballs 15 years ago when I was student. But it doesn't fit my tastes just now. I will go to the nearby Alamo Drafthouse to watch a limited-run older movie instead of going to RedBox to get a recent Blu-ray.

Hopefully it sticks around, since it has its fans.

 

[Ejanss]

If I have to rush out and get a "Friday night movie" with the kids for no other reason than getting a movie on the weekend, we hit the library. There's a lot more to choose from, we get to browse shelves and read cases, there's more old classics they haven't heard of, it's either in stock or it's not, and we get a week to return it. For free.

That's pretty much the only case in which an old-fashioned brick-and-mortar rental (where you have to go back just to return it) still makes sense for us--There aren't too many new-release movies we didn't see in theaters, and if there are, it's usually worth ONE Vudu stream a month.
That's not saying disk is dead, that's saying that the Blockbuster days of seeing nothing but Asylum dinosaur movies left on shelves on a Saturday night pretty much went out with the last Blockbuster.