Joy Des Jardins at The Joy of Six blog and I have noticed something similar…there are no new movies available at Blockbuster anymore. Ever since they freed us from horrors of late fees, it seems that no one is returning their rentals on time. When I was there last weekend, the guys behind the counter were giving away more rainchecks for movies than they were actually renting them.

So it all begs a question: in order to compete with such things as video-on-demand and Netflix, did the folks at Blockbuster make a critical error in judgment? I mean who wants to make the trip to the video store only to find it depleted of decent movies yet still full of the latest Rob Schneider escapades?

What’s really interesting is how there seems to have been a lack of anticipation to this issue. A quick google produced this quote from the Motley Fool dated December 14, 2004, half a month before the policy went into effect:

Inventory control is another concern. If rentals are allowed to collect
dust on the coffee table for an extra week before they need to be
returned, then out-of-stock titles are bound to become more frequent.
Furthermore, if the company occasionally encountered problems
collecting delinquent late fees of a few bucks, will it be any easier
to track down $20 for a new release?

Okay, sometimes we don’t anticipate the outcomes of our decisions very well. Still time to learn from them. Except there doesn’t seem to be any changes in the works after nine months. I’ll admit that I’m not very current or informed on this, but I approach it from a casual customer’s perspective. If I can’t find the movie I want (particularly when it comes to quality kids movies), am I going to roll the dice and walk away disappointed or just sign up for Netflix?

It would seem that this is one business decision that might actually be backfiring and creating an opposite outcome from the one which was intended.