New Release depth question

[Shuke]

Over the holiday weekend, I ventured into BB twice looking for any of three new releases (Ocean's 13, Knocked Up, and something else I can't remember now) and both times they were completely checked out. My first visit I just left empty handed. My second visit I rented When Harry Met Sally since my wife had never seen it.

Is this the norm for hot new releases to be completely out? Or was it just due to the holiday weekend?
Also, if it is the norm, is anything being done about it?

[JackSM]

It's becoming the norm for hot new releases to be all out on the weekend, the problem we have is that we obviously have to pay for each copy we get in stock, therefore each copy needs to rent a certain amount of time before we make any profit on it (we are after all a business out to make money). So if we get in 200 copies of 1 film and they all go out on the first weekend, great! BUT we would have lost money as we paid for them all so they all have to go out say 5-10 times to really be worth having, and the week after release they won't go out much as everyone already rented it the first week.

So sadly the only answer is to have less copies which go out more often, if we got enough copies of every film for everyone to get a copy over the first weekend we would go out of business within a month. :(

[DavidNewlySL]

No more late fees, is all I have to say, if people were inclined to bring their movies back on time, then the less copies would work and we would spin more of a profit, but since we owe the studios money, we get less copies, and the less copies are kept out longer, mainly by the movie pass and online customers, some even keep them entire weeks, and then come back the following tuesday, which is why people line up by the doors tuesday morning.

Which is why keyes is focusing on selling product, which will allows us to get more rental copies and more retail copies and sell the retail copies for a cheaper price. Hopefully he changes the return times soon like he said he would.

[Antithesys]

We've always been out of new releases by Friday evening, even before EOLF.

[whorehoppin]

well this holiday weekend was probably one of the top 2 weekends of the year (from Weds thru Sunday) so every hot new title was gonna be gone. We had probably 50 "Knocked Up" left all weekend though. There's usually a handful of new movies that never get rented out like "Sicko" and "The Wendell Baker Story" - we get way too many copies and most of them never get touched.

[OzMan]

Is this the norm for hot new releases to be completely out? Or was it just due to the holiday weekend?
Also, if it is the norm, is anything being done about it?

It USED to be the norm... back before BBI screwed the pooch. Then people like you would rent an old movie that they had never seen before, (at least in your wife's case), or something they knew they liked, the customer was happy, and the video stores made money.

Now that BBI has completely fucked up the industry, they are to the point that, to avoid having to close down themselves, they have to start making money, AFTER getting their customers used to finding what they want.

Yeah, Keyes has a LOT of work to do to fix what Antioco broke....

There's usually a handful of new movies that never get rented out like "Sicko" and "The Wendell Baker Story"


Yeah, and there's a reason for that ;)

[zooworker]

We've always been out of new releases by Friday evening, even before EOLF.
Us too.
But these damn online people get a free movie on tuesday and don't bring it back until the next tuesday.:mad:

[Wrong Heaven]

Over the holiday weekend, I ventured into BB twice looking for any of three new releases (Ocean's 13, Knocked Up, and something else I can't remember now) and both times they were completely checked out. My first visit I just left empty handed. My second visit I rented When Harry Met Sally since my wife had never seen it.

Is this the norm for hot new releases to be completely out? Or was it just due to the holiday weekend?
Also, if it is the norm, is anything being done about it?

I kind of want to call foul on "Knocked Up" being rented out - I highly doubt it was - even after getting slammed all week, we still had a good 40 copies of that title left, and I'm a medium volume store.

Also, the best thing that can be done about it is that the customers need to start bringing their shit back on time, or less than 3 days late. So many items are being kept out for the hell of it (really, people being lazy) and that's what is fucking up the whole system. And then, of course, those are the same people who complain nothing is ever in. Fun.

[powerbait]

Knocked up was checked out everywhere around here on Thursday. I know because I tried to rent it.

[bitemyskull]

My store didn't rent out on Knocked Up, but we did get pretty low.

[Antithesys]

Plenty of Knocked Up. But we did run out of Premonition today.

[Wrong Heaven]

Yeah, we're down to about 6 copies of "Premonition".

[OzMan]

Plenty of Knocked Up. But we did run out of Premonition today.

Yeah, we're down to about 6 copies of "Premonition".

Should have seen that one coming :D

OK, sorry.... I'll stop now.....