Rent one get another free Tuesdays?

Rent one for an extra two dollars get a console game to 3 days? (for a week)?

Rent one get a 1.25L bottle of drink? (for a week)?

Rent one get a free bag of popcorn? (for a week)?

Employee picks are alright provided you've got a nice range of tastes covered. They make it a little easier to choose. You do have to make sure they change every week otherwise it completely backfires.

Do you sell DVDs (ex-rental or new)? That can pull in some fairly good money. I'm guessing by the fact you make your own specials you're not a chain so it might be hard to get the prices down to the sweet spot.

DarkView wrote:

Do you sell DVDs (ex-rental or new)? That can pull in some fairly good money. I'm guessing by the fact you make your own specials you're not a chain so it might be hard to get the prices down to the sweet spot.

We are in a chain, but it's an individually owned store. So we get the discounts from the suppliers.

We do sell ex-rentals. We buy like, 4 - 8 copies of a movie (depending on it's box office gross) then, after a few weeks, we sell off all but two copies of it.

I too made the suggestion of new movies, we have a few but not a lot. The only problem is, to sell off new movies, we need to make enough money to buy them. We're pulling in money, but everyone had to take an hour cut in order to successfully keep us afloat. So I'm fishing for ideas to get my hours back <.< (On the plus side, I did get a pay rise)

Coupons work well on my family. We get coupons every few weeks, and my Mom always goes out and rents a movie or some games with them. A lot of movie stores are falling on hard times these days. This is because increased computer use, I suspect. These days people can get their entertainment fix from the computer, rather than movies. Although games are good, many people prefer to buy games as to renting them because games are longer then ever these days. Back in the SNES and N64 days there were pretty much no games I couldn't complete in a rental. Back then, games were around 4-8 hours long, and many games didn't have a real length, like Mortal Kombat for example. Now days most games are 8-16 hours long with some as long as 40 hours. You just can't rent for that length. And then there is the whole digital cable "Movies on Demand" thing, but I wonder how many people really use it.

Test stations for games are a good idea, especially when loaded with a bunch of demos, but this isn't as easy as it used to be.

Making people feel at home in the store is a good idea. Movie stores require a good bit of browsing, but sometimes I feel as though I shouldn't be spending so much time deciding, which normally leads to me renting nothing, because I couldn't find anything I was happy with. Making the customer feel at home would make them feel welcome to take their time, and give the whole store an atmosphere that customers will return for. Also, make sure your clerks know a thing or two about the movies/games you have. You can't expect them to know everything, but they should keep up to date on all the current releases, and allowing them to watch them before they hit the selfs is a good idea. My mom used to work at a Blockbuster and she got 5 free rentals a week, and was able to checkout copies of movies before they hit the shelfs(as a 24 hour rental). This ensured that she knew a lot about the movies that were currently out, and could help customers out with questions(also, I got to play pretty much every game ever made for the N64).

For the reccord, we can rent any movie we want for free at any time. We aren't limited to how many free rentals we can have. Also, our suppliers give us sampler DVD's which contain movies months before they hit the shelves. There's no worry in us not knowing our stuff.

Also, keeping people in the store isn't hard at all. In fact, some customers just don't want to leave! It's getting them in there in the first place that's the tricky part.

Well, if your problem is getting people into the store, then make the outside more attractive. Such as having lights on the outside (make sure they're bright), big, giant posters up on the front windows advertising movies, or contests, or "special Tuesdays" you have in the store or whatever. Have giant movie star statues or whatever outside of the door. Like have a five foot Superman action figure standing outside of the door. Things like that. People will enter because they will be like "wow, this place looks cool. Let's check it out".

Try to make the setup of the store more welcoming. Throw in a small love-seat somewhere, posters and maybe a movie or two playing on TVs would be nice.

You also have to realize that you're competing with a booming online world these days, drive-in video stores are phasing out so in order to survive you'd need to not only have good deals but make the shop very welcoming and enjoyable.

Fliers in the local newspaper are always a good way to promote yourself as well, I'd also suggest entertaining the idea of featured picks, maybe older movies that just don't get enough attention.

I also read that you said your space is cramped, do your best to make your shop look and feel bigger. Relocation is a good idea too, either that or branching.

Instead of branching to a completely separate shop, Try branching to a section of another store. For example a corner in your local super market. Those are relatively cheap on a by the month rate.

Also try tent sell offs. Pick a weekend where you set up and sell from a tent in a large parking lot. Rent & sell for a price discounted 30% or lower.

Offer free coffee and tea (Or whatever the common drink in your area is) inside the store. Sometimes a snack on a special day (Donuts for example).

The tent idea is something Blockbuster does over here. They set up a huge tent and rent/sell from it for extremely discounted prices, What the tent does is let you use a new location with absolutely minimal or no rent. And with a new location comes new customers.

Edit / P.S.> Though it seems your area is alot smaller than mine, So I'm not sure how it would work out.