We were out doing a regular pick-up at Giant Eagle and by chance noticed a DVD vending machine out front standing right next to the soda machines. I’m not sure why we never noticed it before, although I think it is rather new. A big sign on it says “$1 DVD Rentals” — a dollar? I like the sound of that, although we’ve never been one to pay to rent movies…or rent anything for that matter.
The last time I paid for a rental was way back in the Blockbuster hay day, that being when I was renting original Nintendo games. The public library has been our primary movie rental location for years, but where we’re at now really lacks a decent library within a quick drive, even for books. So when we saw a DVD machine at the Eagle we were intriqued…and the price is right. Last night we decided to “get Japanese” and rent a DVD from an automated vending machine. But I had my doubts.
To my surprise, the entire process was really easy and the rental was almost a dollar. It was actually $1.07 to be exact, thanks to tax, but close enough that I’d bite. The movie selection is limited but the titles are recent enough that they’re probably not at the public library yet. The machine is all touch-screen and it takes two steps to get your movie: pick your title, swipe your credit card, take your movie. Simple. And no people to deal with or any hassle like that.
One down side is that you have to use your credit card for a dollar purchase, but it is required because you still have to return to the DVD. I was hoping that it would be a disposable movie as I had read about a while back but it wasn’t. To me that’s the ultimate convenience when it’s a one-way trip to rent movies. The hassle for renting is always returning the movie, but since the machine is at the grocery store where we are a lot anyway, it makes it slightly less of a hassle.
One dollars gets you the movie for one night and have until 7pm the next day to return it. Every day you keep the DVD you are charged another dollar. They try to pawn it off as “no late fee” of course, but when you’re only intending to watch the movie one night and then return it, an extra dollar is the late fee. Returning the movie is crazy easy too. There’s a little slot on the side of the machine and you just drop it in. There is a barcode on the disc itself that it reads so it knows when you did everything.
So while this new option costs me a dollar, it’s close enough and easy enough (and 24 hours enough) that I’m willing to pay a dollar instead of driving all the way back to the hometown to get a movie at the library for free. The library closes by 9p every night and sometimes earlier, which is never a good thing when it comes to returning movies…at least not in our house.
If this is the future of movies, video games, and any other accessory, I can like it. Eliminating the middle man…the human and retail space…to get what I want quicker and on my own is definitely how I prefer to do things.
It was a Redbox (as linked) and it says you can return them anywhere. You can also pick the movie on-line then pick it up at the vending machine, which is pretty cool if you need to be on-line with it.
It makes sense for high traffic stores, especially convenience stores. If they do well I’d expect them at CVSes and Walgreens all over. Wal-mart would probably do their own version. I just like that I can return the video the same place I go for regular stuff anyway.
Yeah… another great idea that somebody else had instead of me. :O\
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They are new. They have been in Kroger stores for at least a year. It might be a different brand, I don’t know. I have never used one, but my mom has been using them for a while, and thinks they are great.
Regarding the late fee… if you think of it as, you are renting it for a dollar per day, it really isn’t a late fee, because you pay for as long as you want. Where as, as such, at the iraq, I mean Blockbuster, you pay the three day rental fee each day it is late. Which sucks.
I am still inclined to pay my $4 for pay per view and never have to worry about returning anything. That is usually the cheapest for us!
It won’t be long and we’re going to see a combination of the pay per view and rental models on set top boxes.
Take a Tivo (or other DVR), AppleTV, game console, or some other yet to be released set top box, and connect it to Amazon Unbox, Netflix, iTunes Music Store, Microsoft’s online store, or some other new online service, and we could have a real winner of a service.
It’ll hit the mainstream within the next year.
Now, if I could just get a bigger pipe to my house.
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I was in Italy recently and saw quite a few DVD vending machines – They are just built into the walls of buildings so not even inside the store. I looked into it a little – there is a website here with some of the dvd vending machine suppliers