inquisity

A couple months ago, a sleek, red machine called Redbox appeared at my local grocery store advertising movie rentals for $1 per day. I was intrigued and tried it out.

The process was really easy: use the simple, visually appealing interface to find a movie, swipe your credit card, and out came your movie. The screen told you when your movie was due, and emailed your receipt. When you were done, all you had to do was stick the movie back in the slot, and it was automatically returned via barcode on the case (no receipt needed).

This is the first innovative way to rent movies I’ve seen since Netflix in the late 90s. Blockbuster tried to remake itself by developing its own online/in-store rental system, but it was too late, and the first in the market had the advantage.

Redbox has much more effectively targeted the gap in between the people who will wait for movies to arrive by mail (via Netflix or another service), and those who want instant-gratification (those who go to Blockbuster). By ubiquity of locations, Redbox has made it easier, faster, and (potentially) cheaper to rent a movie. I end up going to the grocery store one or two times a week, and on my way in I can just return the movie.

Best of all, if you’re on top of your game, you can return it the next day and only pay $1.

I don’t rent a lot of movies, but the only problem I had is when I wanted to return a movie. There was a couple browsing through the titles, so I had to stand there and wait until they were done. After a couple minutes, however, they saw I was just returning a movie, and nicely let me get in front.

Interesting tidbit: Redbox is a subsidiary of McDonald’s and Coinstar. This makes a lot of sense: McDonald’s has practical ubiquity across the US, and Coinstar has the technology to operate the machines.

The name Redbox is also good – I’m glad they didn’t go with something like “Micky D’s DVDs.”