Netflix vs. Blockbuster vs. Redbox

In the brick and mortar movie rental industry, Blockbuster is clearly the leader. With the merger of Hollywood Video and

The movie rental industry is a living industry; there are constant changes with advances in technology, rights management, and the slow, but steady, move away from physical Media. Companies such as Netflix, Hulu, RedBox, and Blockbuster are being forced to look at new business models and try to keep up with these changes.

Blockbuster implemented a new strategy for customers to access their rentals in “five channels of distribution: in-store, by mail, through vending machines and kiosks, online, and at home (direct to the TV)” (DATAMONITOR, 2009). However, this strategy was a reactive approach to the problem produced ten years behind schedule. Wooldridge et al., (2007) stated that Blockbuster should select and adapt their strategy to respond to the fast changing market and maintain a competitive position. This was an obvious failure for Blockbuster. The changes in the market produced a decline in profit at a faster pace than the strategies that Blockbuster implemented to combat these losses.

Netflix is first provider of delivered DVDs by mail that became common way and convenience for customer. Netflix offers DVDs to customers with quick delivery, which is mostly within one day (Willy Shih, Stephen Kaufman & David Spinola, 2007). In addition, customers utilize good recommendation system provided by Netflix (Scoot Merrill, 2009). Besides, customers are able to be given good customer service support (Katie Hafner, 2009).

Another reason Netflix is way better than Netflix, is that they do not have commercials/ads. People can sit around at home and binge watch their show without any interruptions. When a person is watching their favorite show and getting really into it, they do not have to be interrupted by a commercial for baby’s diapers. They do not have to wait two minutes of the same commercial playing over and over every commercial break.

While Redbox is one of our biggest competitors for viewers, it seems that the DVD rental market is on a downward trend. Therefore it is probably best to focus on companies that are intent on delivering video streaming. One recent player in the market is Sling TV, which is a subsidiary of Direct TV, and they have an offering of content that covers an area of entertainment that we have not been able to crack into (Katzmaier, 2015). They stream live cable programs such as AMC, TNT, TBS, Disney, HGTV, Cartoon Network, and ESPN to users for twenty dollars a month. While they are still subject to commercials and do not offer the ability to fast forward on certain channels, their product offering is one that differs enough from Netflix to cause

Blockbuster used to have so much power in the movie rental industry until Redbox and Netflix have come to the market. One of Porter’s five forces

The third issue affecting Netflix is the age of movies that they offer to their customers. Netflix cannot deliver the newest movie titles online because they are not offered through VOD for at least a month after they come out on DVD. This is a huge disadvantage to their customers that exclusively use Netflix’s online service. This is the only advantage that Blockbuster still has over Netflix, because if someone wants to see a movie the day that it comes out on video then

Currently the competitive forces in the movie rental marketplace are not very strong. There are not very many players seeking to gain share in the market. The only competitors that come to mind when thinking of the movie rental marketplace are Netflix, Blockbuster and Red box. The evolution of technology has allowed many people to stream movies from online at no charge, for most and without any required subscription. Places like Blockbuster and Movie Stop are not as vivid as they have been in previous years due to the market shifting

Redbox is an easy way to rent and watch DVDs, Blu-Ray Discs and Video Games via automated kiosk or electronic device based streaming video. Kiosks are located at select fast food restaurants, grocery stores and convenience stores. Each Redbox kiosk holds approximately 630 DVDs/Blu-ray Discs/Video Games. DVDs rent for $1.20 per day, Blu-ray discs at $1.50 per day

Netflix inventory of approximately 75,000 is significantly larger than the average video rental store. The average video rental store has approximately 5,000 titles. Traditional video rental stores rarely stock sufficient copies of popular releases to meet demand. Customers unsuccessfully seeking a particular title may leave without making a selection. The large inventory of creates added customer value through

This also allows their content to be viewed virtually anywhere. The fact that they teamed up with Oracle to work on their website was a very beneficial move as this gives them somewhat propitiatory technology. I personally enjoy their recommendations and it is obvious that with their next arrival that they have strong logistics. They have a big cost advantage too. If I can stream a whole season of How I Met Your Mother in one day, I feel as though the $8.99 that I spent was a good investment and yet I still have another 29 or 30 days to go. The two times that I had to deal with their customer service; they quality of service was outstanding and I’ve heard many other wonderful testimonials. When looking at weaknesses, I feel that their inability to provide new releases is a major drawback. In addition to this, they need to amp the selection for online streaming since streaming is expanding rapidly. The issue at hand with streaming is that it can potentially lead to server crashes if there are too many users on at once. Netflix can also be very enticing to hackers since there is so much personal information stored. I would say that the biggest opportunity for Netflix would to be to make deals with the movie production companies to allow Netflix to offer new releases. To feed off of that, they need to increase their variety; particularly in the selection of indie and international films. With as

In a theater, one can watch movies as soon as they are released without having to wait until

untouchable and we were all doomed to a lifetime of late fees and limited movie

The online movie rental business is changing. As technology changes, DVD’s will not be the medium of choice. The shift will be downloadable movies. Most people enjoy the ability to watch a movie immediately, thus another of Netflix’s