Week 1 product demand question

[Angry]

Unless you've worked for the company, preferrably at store level, your ideas are baseless guesswork. I'm not trying to act facetious, but it's the truth. If this company had someone with a brain at corporate, they would allow store manager's to actually have some say on pricing, promotions, and copy depth. Who knows store demographics better than the employees who actually work in the store 40 hours a week?

[NetflixInvestor]

That's why I am here asking for the input of store employees! If I didn't think it was of value, I wouldn't bother.

There are, in a model, certain assumptions that have to be made and I *know* what those assumptions are. That's why I can ask for input on those assumptions.

I need to know (for instance):
a) The demand curve over the course of a week (this should correlate with overall store traffic). This is the question I first asked.
b) Arguments for how much PVP can be sold at certain price points during certain time frames. for instance, could you sell PVP to 1 out of 10 renters a movie on the second week of release if it were priced at 15$?
c) The overall demand drop on a weekly basis. Boxofficemojo gives about an average of 20% drop in rental revenue per week for instance. If you rent 30 times on the first tuesday... how many do you tend to rend on the NEXT tuesday, etc..

Harder questions:
1) What would be the distribution of rental length if priced on a per-day basis? Redbox averages just over 2 days out for instance.
2) Would total rentals increase or decrease with a 2$\day system over a 4.59$ for 10 day system?

etc...

Some assumptions are more sensitive than others. Some of these are unanswerable in particular. The one I asked first I thought was a pretty easy concrete question (still unanswered).

[Angry]

I doubt you'll get answers to any of those questions. Who knows your true motives? If you're really interested, fill out a job application and experience it firsthand.

[NetflixInvestor]

What motive could I possibly have that makes answering that question above problematic?

[AbandonedDreams]

Originally Posted by NetflixInvestor

What motive could I possibly have that makes answering that question above problematic?

Why would you need to know the answers if you are not from corporate? You've said you don't work at the store level, so why would you be interested unless you work for the higher-ups?

Or maybe the competition. And why would we help the competition when some of us are barely hanging on to our jobs/stores as it is.

Although this board is anonymous, there are still ways of discovering people's true identities. If you are corporate, you may eventually try to do so. If people do not answer you, the more likely you are to go away.

You may think I'm being rude, but at least I'm being honest. I no longer work for BBV but if I did I wouldn't answer you. Some people on here are SMs, and this is the only source of income they and their families have. Why risk (even if the risk is very small) losing everything to answer someone's question when they haven't even made their motives clear?

Which begs the question, if you don't work at the store level and you aren't corporate, why the hell do you need this information?

[NetflixInvestor]

If I was a business analyst at corporate... how would I NOT know the average store traffic changes on a day to day basis? I'm really looking for very general answers here not super-specific stuff. I just want to rule out any MAJOR GLARING assumptions I might have. I can only apply my common sense but look for the wisdom of actual employees.

I just enjoy doing this kind of thing as a hobby. I have spent years as a stock investor and spreadsheeting and business modelling has always been a logical complement. I have at this moment quite a bit of interest in the idea I am discussing, and think it not only works, but that its inline with what Keyes wants to do. I also bought Blockbuster stock a few weeks ago for the first time after years of following this industry, and being significantly down on that investment, I started rechecking to see if BB has a chance to survive which led me to this.

Look- these meta-conversations are pointless. The more I respond to people who could have just ignored the topic, the more I alienate everyone else. If anyone wants to help answer the question that's great. I assure you I am not from corporate, and I have a hobbyist desire for the input. If you don't want to answer that's fine too. Or if you want to talk in more detail offline send me a private message. Thanks.

[AlterEgo]

The problem with your model is that reality varies depending upon the title thats released.

For a big name title, say Pirates or Superbad, we'd rent em all out by Wednesday. Pirates probably had 70 odd rentals to start with and Superbad 110 or so. I can't think of any in-demand title that has any copies on the wall during the weekend following its release.

Now, after a week and a half of being out to rent, it'll stabilize, we'll have rentals on the wall, in growing numbers. Soon enough we can't give em away, at least until we prp em.

This is only in general though. Its only for titles that are high demand that we are given a decent copy depth of. Some titles will be hard to get for weeks (usually ones that we are given 10-25 copies of), while others may not rent well at all for us (nanny diaries for instance).

You can't have an industry model for it because the variations based upon title demand, customer demographics, location and number of competitors in the store's area will all drastically alter the numbers.

So um... whats the point?

Oh, and who cares if you're corporate? People on this site are assholes who try to be pretentious while realizing they work for BB for a career. Gogo 35k a year. The one's who are in school come here because they enjoy stroking their e-peen, and probably don't give a flying fuck about BB's future or profitability. I know I don't.

[CreepyNormal]

Originally Posted by AlterEgo

People on this site are assholes who try to be pretentious while realizing they work for BB for a career.

There is also a possibility that he might actually *be* from Netflix or another competitor and might be trying to gather information for *that* end.

[HelloItsMeMOM]

Originally Posted by NetflixInvestor

But for clarityl, I am specifically planning on per-day pricing, wholesale content acqusition, and very aggressive PVP sales (selling at the end of week 1 for 15$).

Why would a customer want to buy a used rental copy for $15 at the end of week 1 when they could buy a new retail copy on release day at Wally World for the same money?

[HelloItsMeMOM]

Originally Posted by NetflixInvestor

Oh I assure you I am not corporate. BTW, which store EXACTLY do you work at?

(Crap my thread is derailed already...)

I am at store 6969 in Intercourse, PA (Smilie intentionally meant to be smartass)