I’m not the most positive cat around, and quite often I’ll blast companies on this site for doing stupid things (which they often do). But give credit where credit is due. Blockbuster has just announced a BRILLIANT move for their online order mail delivery service that competes with Netflix. Starting Wednesday, you can actually return your mail order movies right at a Blockbuster if you want instead of mailing it back (which you can still do.
There are a couple of major benefits to this move.
1) For Blockbuster, it takes advantage of the one thing they have Netflix doesn’t. Actual stores.
2) Returning the videos to my local store (walking distance to my place) means I get my new movies faster, since these companies don’t send out the new movies in your queue until the other ones are returned. The day you turn them in at the Blockbuster, they are immediately listed in the system as “returned” and your new movies get shipped out
3) This one is AWSOME! When you return a mail movie directly to the store, they immediately give you a FREE in store rental THAT DOESN’T COUNT AGAINT YOUR QUEUE OR AGAINST YOUR MAXIMUM MOVIE COUNT! You still have to returns this free movie like you would any other regular rental… but it’s free!
4) When you return a mail move to the store you ALSO get 1 free movie rental coupon. This also doesn’t count against your queue or your maximum movie count.
I have never used any of these online order mail delivery movie services, but this new move by Blockbuster may have just sold me on the idea. I think I’m going to try it out. Why on earth would I use Netflix now?
Your thoughts?