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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  Blockbuster « previous next »
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Author Topic: Blockbuster  (Read 7937 times)
Menard
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« Reply #15 on: December 30, 2004, 06:37:44 PM »

You know; it's almost like being told their ain't no Santa Claus   ) :

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JohnL
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« Reply #16 on: December 30, 2004, 09:09:16 PM »

Strange that I read this now as earlier today, I learned that a large local, family-run store specializing in plants and which was basically a giant greenhouse attached to a large building, closed over the weekend. Around the holidays, they had a huge Christmas display with dozens of decorated trees on display (and for sale as well), in a darkened area with animatronic elves and such. If you needed any plants, flowers or anything for the garden (or anything for Christmas around the holidays), this store, Gloria's, would have it. The owner said that he could no longer compete with the chain stores like Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot. :(

I hadn't been there in several years, but when I was younger, every Christmas usually included at least one trip to Gloria's. I loved walking through the darkened section with all the trees on display, lit only by the various multi-colored lights. In later years, they also had "Chrissy, the talking Christmas Tree", which was basically a tree with a hidden camera and a speaker so that a hidden operator could talk to the kids. The article said that they're looking for some non-profit place to host it from now on.
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Menard
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« Reply #17 on: December 30, 2004, 10:53:53 PM »

One of the things I am fairly certain is putting a dent in the video stores business (and I meant that as a plural) is the lower cost to buy videos and DVDs. In the early eighties, the cost to rent a video in my area was around $4.00 for 1 day and the videos themselves would set you back anywhere from $39.99 to 99.99 (rough estimate). I remember buying a video on the Warner label for the budget price of $29.99. This time frame was ideal for those into horror, cult, and obscure movies. Even though there were some mainstream releases, a lot of what was available on video at that time were independent, import, and low-budget movies. I don't miss the prices, but I do miss a lot of those titles.

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AndyC
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« Reply #18 on: December 31, 2004, 05:34:00 AM »

I agree that eBay doesn't do a whole lot for buyers, but it is the sellers who are eBay's real customers, and the sellers serve the buyers. That said, eBay is treating its sellers like crap, and the reason is that there is really no other game in town. I looked at alternative auction sites, and there are no good ones left. Not only does eBay want a cut of your sale price, which is fair, they've continued to jack up the listing fee, so they get well paid whether your item sells or not. This has had the effect of making it hard to make a decent profit on anything, and pointless to sell cheap items worth a few dollars. Between eBay fees and PayPal fees, we're giving up a couple of dollars on every ten-dollar dog collar we sell. That's a big bite for a company that doesn't essentially do anything but provide a few K of server space. For the buyer, this can also mean higher shipping fees, as sellers try to recover their costs. And to protect its cut, eBay has a lot of rules. You can no longer link to your outside web site, for example. To me, that is like a show telling vendors they can't have business cards on the table. If you want to offer a choice of colours on a product, eBay calls it a dutch auction, even if you're only selling one. They want you to list all the colours, and pay for that many. These are just a couple of the really loosely defined rules, which they enforce on a complaint basis. Essentially, your competitors are given the power to kill your listings. If eBay gets a complaint, they summarily axe the listing, ask no questions and grant no appeal. The only sellers who seem to be able to break the rules with impunity are the big ones, who are the biggest offenders, yet never seem to suffer any consequences.

Ebay does this because they've cornered the market, and sellers have nowhere else to go. If you want to play the game, you play by eBay's rules.

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Menard
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« Reply #19 on: December 31, 2004, 08:57:35 AM »

eBay will certainly find a way to, at the very least, annoy the heck out of you. Their reaction to a single complaint against a listing is seriously irksome. They had a real bad habit for a long time of trying to get a credit card number for just about anything you did; change your e-mail address, change account info, and a couple of years ago they tried to get your credit card number if you used the buy-it-now option. Although there are other online auctions they probably combined make up only a single digit percentage point. eBay is part of the growing disease...er scuse me, I meant to say conglomerate of AOL/eBay/Paypal/half.com/etc. in which each part of that conglomerate has miserably low customer service ratings and does not care. Then again, this is par for course for the internet in general. As sights are becomming more loaded with content and are becoming much larger downloads, eBay for example, those who cannot afford to constantly upgrade are being left behind; but then, that's the point, weed out the people who can't afford to be a customer. Overstock.com has started an auction site that is picking up bit by bit. Although they have some of the same problems as other online auctions, they are slowly making an attempt to prevent some of the problems eBay has just simply closed their eyes to. Overstock for one has barred the selling of wholesale lists and urls. I will not be impressed with them however until they bar sellers from only accepting Paypal as payment. The practice is unfriendly and elitist. Sorry about meandering. I sometimes reply to posts and then realize I had no train of thought throughout the post. Frankly, I think I just bored myself ( :

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AndyC
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« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2004, 10:38:13 AM »

Haven't looked at overstock.com yet. I suspect if they ever become successful enough to compete, eBay will simply buy them out. Wouldn't be surprised if the owners are hoping for that. Just build it so far, then reap a huge payday just for getting out of the business. That is, of course, the other side of the coin. How many of the little guys really believe enough in what they're doing to hold out against corporate domination? Judging by how quickly the opponents were bought off in the local Wal-Mart debate, I'd say very few. I came out of that fight seriously disillusioned for a lot of reasons.

I think it comes down to a lack of values on all sides. Nobody considers the long-term effects of their actions on society.

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Susan
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« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2004, 11:55:18 AM »

Whatever mom and pop shops are left here (and there are a very scarce few) they are being kept alive soley by increasing the size of their porno rooms. In the city I live in, i do not know of any local video stores, they are all blockbuster.

Walmart single handedly managed to drive out those smaller shops across america. The small town america feel has been driven out by these corporate giants, walmart has to have a store  within a one mile radius of another store - it's sickening. It's not like you're going to say well, it's just a walmart. I can throw a rock in any direction and hit a walmart, everyone in my city protests when walmart tries to open up yet another store, it becomes harder and harder to fight. I have 3 stores within one mile of me. Is that crazy?? They are parasites! Taking away the business from locals on every section of the city they can.

I don't mind the idea of walmart with large selection and cheap prices, i just don't like the reality of what it's done - what companies like this have done. Walmart pops into a small town, many people protest it but soon they give into it. But they sacrifice something much more historic, sentimental - the small town feel. And often they don't know it until it's gone.

Smaller shops, grocers,  and companies fold, somehow walmart moves. And usually you notice that it's the small towns who are the ones putting up a fight, my mother is very nostalgic about what it was like before the walmart giants moved into small town America. Here's a good article

STORE WARS



Post Edited (12-31-04 11:03)
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Menard
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« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2004, 01:06:30 PM »

Wal-mart definitely used an interesting if not creative growth pattern. When I first became familiar with Wal-mart over twenty years ago, they were that interesting department store over in the other town. They targeted smaller communities the larger stores did not want. Although they presented this approach as being community friendly, it was essentially preying on the weak. As their tactics put small shops out of business and they grew, they moved to even larger communities and used an even more disgusting tactic of advertising the products they carried as 'Made in America' and the consumer would be supporting American workers by shopping there. When in reality Wal-mart has maintained cheap prices with cheap imports and forcing companies to take a cut on their prices or not be able to sell their products and subsequently putting more american workers out of jobs than any other company (this is opinion). Wal-mart has moved into the large cities and been there for a while. They have not created the stranglehold in many large cities that they would like because healthy competition still exists in the large cities where in the small communities it was primarily mom and pop businesses. Even though Wal-mart in some small communities probably bought out some of the competition to make them the only game in town, consumer greed (in my opinion) is at the heart of Wal-mart's success as the consumer flocked to Wal-mart to get cheap prices and left behind the shops that had been there for years. When they went back to those shops, they were not there. Of course other retailers started copying Wal-mart's strategy and placing their stores, such as video stores, in these communities. In our town, although overtaken by Wal-mart and Kroger, our video store which been here for years is still here and flourishing in a town where Blockbuster came and went. Of course the chain stores will just keep trying until they succeed because they know consumer loyalty is for sale and it is cheap.

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Menard
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« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2004, 01:12:21 PM »

I agree with you on both points and you make an astute observation in pointing out the lack of future forward thinking.

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AndyC
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« Reply #24 on: December 31, 2004, 01:56:20 PM »

I can remember the time, maybe 25 years ago, when there were more than half a dozen department store chains in my area, many private corner stores, several supermarket chains and independent grocers, drug stores, and specialty stores for just about everything. Each was distinctive. Now, there are basically two department store chains, two supermarkets (under various names), one drug store, and so on. Actually, the idea of department stores, supermarkets and drug stores has gone out the window, since everybody started trying to sell everything. One-stop shopping is no blessing when selection is cut back to free up display space, or when stores find their customers are being taken by someone they never thought of as a competitor, or when you have to walk past aisle after aisle of crap to find food in a grocery store. I've felt for some time that zoning regulations need to be revamped to narrow the permitted uses in a particular commercial zone. This is really getting out of control.

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Menard
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« Reply #25 on: December 31, 2004, 02:25:18 PM »

It got out of control before now. In addition to consumer loyalty being for sale, so is a city councilperson's vote.

 The department stores, as indicated by their name, have used a successful strategy for years which reduces their overhead while allowing variety , selection and lower costs to them and the consumer. They use vendors which are outside companies which provides the inventory and a percentage of the sales for the floor space. Depending on the department store they could have less than 20% of the inventory that is actually theirs. There is nothing wrong with this business strategy as it has been used for years as a cost effective way to provide goods at a reasonable price. Where this has been taken advantage of is by companies like Wal-mart which have used the cost sharing not available, to a degree, to the smaller stores to put them out of business, and in Wal-mart's case, to either force an exclusivity agreement with these vendors or absorbing them; either way reducing the availability of cost sharing to others.

If that were not enough, over the years smaller vendors have been put out of business or absorbed by larger vendors as the retailers and vendors pushed for packaging and labelling requirements the smallers companies could not afford and stay competitive; such as the now standard UPC system which, although convenient, hurt many smaller companies that could not afford it and many retailers would not accept  products without it. It has become large company supporting large company; not in healthy competition, but to prevent it.



Post Edited (12-31-04 13:39)
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JohnL
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« Reply #26 on: December 31, 2004, 03:42:05 PM »

I've never sold anything on eBay, but I have bought several things. I've never used PayPal and I don't even have a PayPal account. A while back, eBay decided that it was in everyone's best interest to change any ID that included the user's email address to something randomly generated. Frankly, I think they did it solely to prevent anyone from contacting any other eBay user without going through their system. I guess they want to be able to snoop on "private" messages to make sure nobody is talking about anything they disapprove of. :-P
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nshumate
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« Reply #27 on: December 31, 2004, 03:51:25 PM »

I think a very big concern was also to keep email addresses from being harvested by automated crawlers compiling addresses for spammers.

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Nathan Shumate
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Menard
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« Reply #28 on: December 31, 2004, 04:36:49 PM »

It is rather difficult to trust a service which has a policy of hiding any easy way to contact them. You literally have to jump through hoops to contact anything resembling customer service. If eBay made the decision to prevent users from using their e-mail address as a user name to prevent spamming would actually surprise me that they would do something that may benefit their customers. I used to get spam in the form of a phony eBay e-mail with a link requesting that you re-enter your user information and credit card for security purposes (scam). It is interesting that at the time, eBay was offering a software program to supposedly prevent this type of spam. I just wondered if eBay was providing the e-mail addresses.

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AndyC
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« Reply #29 on: January 01, 2005, 12:25:21 PM »

We also can't forget the practice of predatory pricing, which, to my knowledge, is illegal but not very well policed. Large chain stores like Wal-Mart have, in some situations, used their vast resources to run a store at a loss as it undercuts all local competitors. When the competition is gone, the prices go back up.

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