On his way home to Pensacola, Fla., last week, Mark Bock dropped by a Redbox machine in Augusta to return a DVD.
He had picked up the flick earlier to watch in the car as he returned with friends from a road trip to Virginia.
"I've got an app on my phone that helps me find the closest Redbox," Bock said as he waited in line at the machine outside a Washington Road Kroger store.
The convenience and price of the service, which charges $1 a day for rentals, is one reason Bock and others have turned from traditional movie rental stores in recent years.
Bock said he also subscribes to Netflix, which mails movies to his home and allows him to stream videos from the Internet.
Together, those services have been putting a squeeze on old rental powerhouses such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. The Augusta metro area has lately seen closings of several Blockbuster, Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video stores.
Movie Gallery, which also operates the Hollywood Video rental chain, bore the brunt of closings. It declared bankruptcy and announced last month it plans to close its remaining stores and liquidate its inventory.
Blockbuster also recently closed a store in Evans as part of cost-cutting measures announced earlier this year.
In all, nearly a dozen Augusta-Aiken area video stores have either shut their doors or are in the process of closing since the start of the year.
That leaves four Blockbuster outlets and a smattering of about 20 Redbox machines and several Blockbuster kiosks in the area. Another rental option is signing up for a service such as Netflix, which also supplies episodes of television shows to consumers for a monthly fee.
"It's cheap and they have streaming videos," Bock said. "The stores are just too expensive."
Rental alternatives
As he stood in line to select a DVD, Rodney Williams, of Augusta, agreed with Bock. He said he rents a video from Redbox about once every two weeks.
Williams used to go to a rental chain, but now those are harder to come by and too expensive, he said.
"It's just the availability of it," he said, explaining his preference of Redbox.
The company's signature red kiosks dispense DVDs of recent hit movies at grocery stores, drugstores, gas stations and some McDonald's restaurants. All customers have to do is swipe a credit card and make a selection on a touch screen.
Redbox operates about 25,000 kiosks and has rented more than 750 million movies since its launch in 2004. Each machine holds about 630 DVDs, or about 200 of the latest releases, according to the company.
The service has gained popularity for several reasons, said Chris Goodrich, the Redbox spokesman. One is that customers can determine how much they will pay for the movie by how many days they choose to keep it.
"It's a combination of convenience and value. The value is pretty obvious," Goodrich said. "It's affordable for a large number of consumers and it puts some of the power in a consumer's hands. A lot of our consumers tell us they like that."
The number of kiosks installed last year equaled one machine an hour, a pace the company is maintaining so far this year, Goodrich said.
Netflix, which mails movies and television show episodes directly to customers, is another service that is gaining in popularity.
The company reported having 15 million subscribers through the first half of the year -- a 42 percent increase from the same time in 2009.
"The only limitations really are you have to have Internet service and have a credit card -- and you have to like movies," said Steve Swasey, the vice president of corporate communications for Netflix.
The service costs $8.99 a month for users who rent one DVD at a time. An extra $2 a month is tacked on for those who rent Blu-ray discs, and the price is also increased for customers who want more than one disc at a time.
There are no due dates or late fees, and the company says most customers will receive their selections within one business day.
New habits
Companies are trying to stay ahead of the curve by offering new services.
Redbox is set to start introducing Blu-ray discs to machines in test markets, Goodrich said.
Netflix is offering direct streaming online and on televisions through certain devices such as Apple's iPad and video game consoles Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The company expects more than 100 million Netflix-ready devices to be produced by the end of the year, Swasey said.
The company has reported a steady increase in the percentage of subscribers watching more than 15 minutes of a TV episode or movie. That number reached 61 percent in the most recent financial quarter, the company said in a regulatory filing.
"People are engaging in it because it's that much easier," Swasey said.
Blockbuster is straddling four types of delivery: the traditional video rental store, kiosks, home mail delivery and home streaming.
That versatility and partnerships with key movie studios give Blockbuster an advantage over its newer competitors, said spokeswoman Christina Grasso.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
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!["This is the best thing in the world," said Greg Richey as he gets a $1 video rental from the Redbox outside Kroger on Washington Road. Movie fans also can subscribe to Netflix, which mails movies to the subscriber's home or allows users to stream videos from the Internet. Corey Perrine/Staff](http://aug-cdn.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/superphoto/editorial/images/feed/msms/photos/4342045.jpg ""This is the best thing in the world," said Greg Richey as he gets a $1 video rental from the Redbox outside Kroger on Washington Road. Movie fans also can subscribe to Netflix, which mails movies to the subscriber's home or allows users to stream videos from the Internet. Corey Perrine/Staff")
