Blockbuster’s Digital Download Service is Their Stupidest Idea Yet

Blockbuster is rolling out a gem of a new service:  Digital downloads of movies… available only in-store.  Sweet.

Between Netflix’s delivery-to-your-door model and the shrinking window between a movie’s theatrical release and its availability for cheap purchase in DVD format… Blockbuster has been taking hit after hit the last few years.  And that’s before all the digital download services cropped up at Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, & XBox Live.  Those services let you zap your favorite new movie directly to your PC with the click of a button.

So naturally Blockbuster wants to keep up, right?  So they’re launching they’re own digital download service.  Great, right?  WRONG !

The only people who will be able to use the digital download service from Blockbuster will be the people standing in their physical stores.  Because Blockbuster’s digital download service is an in-store kiosk.

Yup.  They are that stupid.

They think that you’re going to put your flash drive in your pocket, and drive down to their store, plug it in the machine, pay for a movie, wait for the download, then drive home and watch it.

From the article:

“The latest idea from Blockbuster can best be described as “Netflix meets YouTube, without the convenience.” That’s basically the pitch Blockbuster Chairman and CEO James Keyes made at his first annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday when he unveiled an in-store kiosk he hopes consumers will use to download movies.”

I would think this was hilarious if it wasn’t so insultingly backward in its conception.  Consumers will pay for convenience. That is proven.  I would rather pay twice as much through Netflix or Amazon (and get my movies to my home, from my home, on demand) than get in my car and drive to your physical store to tap my toes while your stupid kiosk downloads my movie.  And for the record, it’s pretty cheap to download a digital copy of even a new movie.  Most movie downloads on iTunes, for example, are $9.99 or so.

Blockbuster’s new service is basically the equivalent of Coke creating a new kind of vending machine… that allows you to put in your dollar… but instead of receiving in return a 20oz. bottle of Coke,  you get a coupon that says “take this coupon to the nearest grocery or convenience store to redeem for a refreshing bottle of Coke.”

It’s like the library announcing that checked out books can no longer be taken out of the building.

I can only conclude that the executives at Blockbuster are a cave-dwelling lot.  Can you think of a Fortune 500 company with less of a handle on where their industry is heading?  Because I can’t.  It’s seriously one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in years.

Listen, I get that they’re trying to drive traffic to and through their physical stores to try and sell more product (and pay their rent).  But seriously… you’re supposed to take what your competitors are doing and improve on it (or at least leave it the same)… not make it worse.  A roving balloon-animal magician would be a bigger draw and would probably cost less too.

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