Today’s postal strikes are set to cause misery for many British businesses.  However, few operations will be as affected by the strikes as the hugely popular Lovefilm, who offer a rental-by-post movie DVD rental service.  The company are set to face postal misery due to their reliance on the Royal Mail network, and some of Lovefilms emerging competitors are hoping to take advantage of this issue.

With the Royal Mail failing to come to an agreement with the CWU, national strikes are due to commence on Thursday and Friday, crippling the national mail network.  Many postal order businesses are going to be heavily affected by the strikes, and all business have been warned to expect severe delays when sending and receiving post.

One of the businesses that will be most heavily affected by the strikes is Lovefilm, the UK’s leading rental by post operator.  With over 1million members, the company rely on the Royal Mail for all outbound and inbound deliveries.  The strikes are expected to affect customers receiving movies, and also cause delays in titles being returned to the company.  This could cause particular trouble for new users who have taken up Lovefilm’s ‘free trial’ offer.  This entitles users to rent movies for 14 days for free, but if a customer fails to return a disc after 14 days they are automatically subscribed to a monthly direct debit.  So far, there has been no official comment from Lovefilm on contingency plans they have in place to deal with postal delays.

LOVEFiLM relies on Royal Mail’s standard tariff letter First Class and Second Class services for outbound mail, and its Packetpost service for bulk mailings.  For returns it uses Royal Mail’s Returns Management Services. LOVEFiLM sends and receives hundreds of thousands of items of post each week; making three million despatches a month, with packages having up to four disks each.

In the same vein of delivery companies trying to take advantage of the Royal Mail’s problems, Lovefilm’s competitors are trying to seize this opportunity to offer alternative methods of renting movies.  The Movie Booth, leading supplier of DVD vending kiosks in the UK and Ireland’ are running promotions over the weekend to try and give movie lovers access to films which may usually be supplied by Lovefilm.  Carlos Marco Rider, Movie Booth Managing Director said “Lovefilm are the industry leaders, and will have a massive number of customers expecting to receive films this weekend.  Their reliance on the Royal Mail will affect their distribution, and with The Movie Booth’s growing network of national kiosks we hope to be able to ensure people have access to their favourite movies this weekend”.

Simon Morris, Lovefilm’s Chief Marketing Officer, recently said “‘We must be one of the largest users of Royal Mail’s First Class services.  Since we began we have seen steady growth, which has been managed in partnership with Royal Mail, and we are grateful for that.  Royal Mail is the best of breed in terms of its services. To a large extent we live or die by our service”.  Whilst the Royal Mail strikes wont signal the death of companies such as Lovefilm, any further strikes could severely affect these postal-reliant business.

For information on The Movie Booth business opportunity call 0870 1436769.

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The credit crunch has forced retailers to use every business opportunity available to maximise revenue streams.  This has led to retailers streamlining operations and tightening budgets.  However, opportunities have also arisen for retailers to diversify products and services to generate new income sources.

A notable example of this appeared recently with news that Tesco are set to announce revenue figures from DVD and games sales that is higher than HMV’s revenue for the same products.

The home entertainment sector has been one area which retailers have focused on in the credit crunch.  A survey from Halifax Home Insurers showed that nearly 60% of people now prefer to spend Saturday nights with friends and family at each other’s homes as opposed to spending money at bars, clubs and restaurants.

The DVD rental kiosk concept is one example of a service that has been of benefit to retailers in the UK and Ireland since demand for home entertainment increased.  The Movie Booth currently operates DVD kiosks in stores including Spar, Nisa, Budgens and Tesco.

The company recently surveyed users from one of their kiosks in Tesco, Wexford.   Of the 224 customers surveyed, 100% of these said that they purchased additional related products in store when renting a movie from the kiosk.  89% said they also bought products in-store when returning their movies.  Offering additional services such as DVD rental kiosks have proven to be a lucrative example of product diversification through direct and indirect sales.

This comes on the back of a Screen Digest report shows that spending on ‘home entertainment’ has jumped £65million in the last year.  This increased demand for movies coupled with the closure of many traditional DVD rental stores – Choices UK and Apollo are two of the biggest victims – has given retailers a unique opportunity to exploit the gap in this market.

Jane Hinton, a store manager at a Spar store in Shrewsbury which houses a Movie Booth kiosk said “The Movie Booth is doing really well in my Spar shop. It has had a lot of interest from our existing customers and has also brought in a lot of new customers. It is easy to use and as a shop manager is completely hassle free. We have also had an increase in sales of convenience foods.  I look forward to the next few months, as I’m sure business will continue to grow”

DVD kiosks are beginning to join pay-points, photo kiosks and ATM’s as services which customers would expect to see in their local stores.  As the internet gives people an ever-growing choice to purchase everything they need online, retailers are finding ever-inventive ways to remain competitive.

For further information visit www.themoviebooth.com or call 0870 1436769.

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What you MUST know about the DVD rental industry…

We’ve recently spent a considerable amount of time compiling an in-depth report on the DVD rental market. You can get a copy of the full report by calling us on 0800 0434723 (UK) or 1800 932903 (Ire.).

The  report  gives  you a complete insight into market growth and also highlights the main emerging markets.  Here we’ll break down some of the key research findings for you…

Home Entertainment Market Value Growth

- The total home entertainment market value grew from £3.64billion in 2007 to £3.71billion in 2008.

- There has been continual growth in the demand for home entertainment product and services from consumers.

The massive potential of the DVD rental market

- There were 390 DVD rental stores closed in 2007 and 2008.
- Despite this, the movie rental market was still valued at £345million.

- The closure of traditional DVD rental stores has created a large gap in consumer demand which has yet to be filled.

Technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

- The delivery of broadband in the UK and Ireland is still far below that which would be required to provide a reliable, modern online movie rental service.

- Pay-per-view movie costs remain very high, and access to to new release titles is virtually non-existent.

-  Only  16million  UK  homes  have  access to broadband - this leaves approximately half the population with no facility for movie downloads or streaming.

DVD rental kiosks have been a huge success in the USA

- Redbox have grown their DVD kiosk network from 1,600 in 2006 to 22,000 in 2009.

-  The  Redbox share of the entire DVD rental market is 13%, valued at $780million.

This comes despite the fact there are still 5,000 Blockbuster stores operating in Amercia, the US has far greater broadband capabilities than the UK and Ireland AND Netflix (the UK equivalent of Lovefilm) has been in operation for over 12 years.

We have a huge amount of interesting data like that above, and we’d be happy to provide you with this.  We hope this will make a better, more informed decision on whether you proceed with The Movie Booth.

Want a copy of the report?

If you’d like a full copy of the report  then simply email contact@themoviebooth.com or call 0800 0434723 (UK) or 1800 932903 (IRE) and we’d be happy to send this to you.  You can also contact us for further details on our business opportunities.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Movie Booth

P.S. The report is sold by leading industry bodies for thousands of pounds. However, if you’d like this for free email contact@themoviebooth.com or visit www.themoviebooth.com and complete our contact form.

The ongoing doom and gloom in the financial world has led to many people being forced to change their spending habits.  However, a state of the art machine that has recently been installed in Lancaster and is the first of its kind in the county will enable local residents and shoppers to join many people across the UK who are renting movies using futuristic vending technology.

With consumer spending on traditional nights out at an all time low due to the ‘credit crunch’, people are increasingly looking for a low cost night in.  Step in The Movie Booth, who claim that their DVD rental kiosk offers both a more convenient and lower priced movie rental service than their competitors. One of their DVD rental kiosks has recently launched in a Spar store on Willow Lane.

DVD rental kiosks have proven to be extremely popular in the USA, and use advanced robotics to make the rental of movies a ‘fully automated’ process.  The Movie Booth kiosk stores over 600 DVD’s in a box measuring half a square metre, and stock new release movies. 

Using a touch-screen menu, clients rent DVD’s on a pay-as-you-go basis as opposed to the traditional membership sign up.  The Movie Booth claim that this gives customers more control over the length of their rentals and enables them to receive the most competitive prices available.

The kiosk in Lancaster launched with pricing at £2.50 per 24 hours for new releases such as 17 Again and The Watchmen whilst also offering new users of the kiosk their first rental for free during the initial launch.  The kiosk adds to The Movie Booth’s network of thirty kiosks operating in the UK and Ireland. 

Mitchell Leszczyszak, Account Manager at The Movie Booth said ‘We’re extremely excited to launch our first kiosk in this region – it’s seems that the people living here like the idea of renting a movie from a booth.  The store we are launching in already have extensive customer bases so I’m hopeful that people visiting the shop will rent movies just as readily as they would buy milk and lottery tickets’.

For further information on the business opportunities available visit www.themoviebooth.com or call 0870 1436769.

Answer - 21,000+

DVD rental kiosk growth in the United States has been nothing short of phenomenal in the past 18 months and the company leading the market – Redbox – are the most talked about company in the worldwide home entertainment sector at present.  In the USA, the concept has grown to the extent that there are more DVD kiosks operating in America than there are Blockbuster stores.

But isn’t the DVD rental market in decline?

When comparing the USA to the UK and Ireland, this growth of kiosks in America comes despite the fact that:

- Average broadband speeds in the USA are DOUBLE  the average broadband speed supplied in the UK and Ireland.

- Online rental facilities such as i-tunes offer far more movie titles and lower prices than services in the UK.

- On-demand movies are far more accessible and affordable in America.

These points prove that the pricing and convenience offered by DVD kiosks have made this the most popular way to rent movies in America, and that the supposed decline in demand for DVD’s is premature . We expect the DVD kiosk to similarly explode in the UK and Ireland, and here’s why…

·         The market leader in the USA are Redbox, who now have over 18,000 DVD kiosks in operation.

·         When launching in 2002, Redbox began life with only 20 DVD kiosks in operation.

·         Retailers in America realised that DVD kiosks offered a completely new service for their customers, which led to retail giants such as Wal-Mart to install kiosks in their stores.

·         Blockbuster - pioneers in the DVD rental industry - have agreed to install 3,000 kiosks in America after seeing the success that has been achieved in this new market.

What’s this got to do with people like me in the UK and Ireland?

In the UK and Ireland, the market is in early stages of growth - The Movie Booth  currently  have thirty DVD kiosks in operation.  However, as in America, UK and Irish retail groups have now realised the potential of DVD kiosks.  The Movie Booth have been able to gain access to a majority of the largest supermarkets and convenience stores in both countries.  This has resulted in a flurry of new kiosk launches taking place of late including installations in several new regions including Glasgow, Shropshire, the West Midlands and London.  Despite this, there are still huge opportunities for growth in many regions of the UK and Ireland.

What this means for you is that you have the opportunity to become involved in a market that is fully primed for explosion.  The Movie Booth offers you the full facility to own and operate a network of profitable DVD kiosks. You

can become a DVD kiosk operator:

·         Without owning a retail store.

·         With no prior knowledge or experience of the home entertainment industry.

·         Without having to pay one lump sum to take ownership of the kiosk.

How can I find out more about this business opportunity?

We’d love the chance to discuss your individual options – you can get a general overview of The Movie Booth’s key operational benefits by watching a recent interview with The Movie Booth’s UK and Irish Sales Manager, Paul Dugdale    .  To watch this short interview, simply click here.

If you’d like to have a personalised one-to-one chat with Paul about how The Movie Booth can benefit you, you can call us freephone on 0800 2922032 from the UK or 1800 932903 from Ireland.

We look forward to speaking with you.

The Movie Booth

P.S. The Movie Booth have recently launched new kiosks in Glasgow x3, Shrewsbury. Wolverhampton, Tooting and Lancaster. Despite this, there are still business opportunities available in your area, so email enquiries@themoviebooth.com or call 0800 2922032 to find out how you can profit from becoming a DVD kiosk operator.

In a further display of the growing strength of the DVD rental kiosk industry and the general benefit of this business opportunity, Sony have announced a deal to partner with US DVD kiosk leadert Redbox.  Full details of the news are below…

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has signed a multiyear distribution agreement with Redbox Automated Retail that will put Sony’s DVDs, direct-to-video movies and catalog titles into Redbox’s 17,000 self-service kiosks, where movies rent for $1 a night.

Other studios have eyed the growing network of Redbox kiosks warily, concerned that bargain DVD rentals will further erode DVD sales. Redbox even is battling Universal in court, claiming the studio is trying to limit third-party distributors’ dealings with Redbox.

Sony, in contrast, has decided not only to embrace Redbox but also to deal directly with the Illinois-based company. Sony refused to comment on the terms of the deal, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is selling Redbox its DVDs at a lower price than Redbox would pay a wholesaler. Redbox, in turn, has agreed not to sell used Sony DVDs.

“Our consumers have always been the best barometer of where our business needs to go, and clearly Redbox has become an important distribution option,” SPHE president David Bishop said, explaining that the deal will increase availability of Sony titles and eliminate a source of used titles.

Redbox, a subsidiary of Coinstar, has built a nationwide network of kiosks in such locations as McDonald’s restaurants, Wal-Mart, Walgreens and grocery and convenience stores.

For further information on how to become involved in the growing DVD rental kiosk market in the UK and Ireland call 0870 1436769 or email contact@themoviebooth.com

The DVD rental kiosk industry has been receiving some extremely positive press in the last few weeks.  The worlds leading manufacturer of ATM kioskss, NCR, recently revealed their plans for the growth of development of their DVD rental kiosk business opportunity.  In an interview with Reuters, Chief Executive Bill Nuti revealed some details of their growth plan…

NCR Corp, which is known for its automated teller machines (ATMs), is aiming to make a business selling self-service DVD kiosks as recession saps demand for its bread-and-butter products. The company recently joined hands with DVD rental company Blockbuster Inc and expects to provide about 10,000 DVD rental kiosk units by the end of next year.

“Over the long term, in about 10 years, entertainment has the potential to become as big as finance or retail verticals,” said Chief Executive Bill Nuti. DVD rental kiosks are coming up fast in American neighborhoods as customers find them more convenient and movie rental companies look to cut fixed costs of running retail stores.

No.1 U.S. DVD rental company NetFlix Inc (NFLX.O) cited the growing popularity of kiosks as a reason for its weak outlook when it reported its latest quarterly results in April.  NCR, which is also foraying into other verticals like healthcare and public sector, expects its entertainment vertical to become a $1 billion business five years from now.  Of the company’s overall revenue of $5.3 billion at the end of 2008, analysts say the financial segment, which includes ATMs, accounts for more than half and retail self-service kiosks about 40 percent.

CEO Nuti forecast rapid near-term growth in the entertainment vertical, and said he expects it to become a “meaningful and noticeable” part of the business by 2011.  “We’ve seen tremendous shift in terms of consumers’ rental behavior moving out of the store to DVD rental kiosks, and that number is forecasted to triple between now and 2011,” CEO Nuti said.  He added that he saw similar behavior and dynamics in parts of Western Europe, Asia-Pacific and Australia-New Zealand.  Wedbush Morgan Analyst Gil Luria expects the entertainment segment to add a lot in terms of revenue for NCR, but said the $1 billion goal was a little ambitious.

“That business (entertainment) has a very high risk of not delivering the profits that the company is expecting,” said Luria.  Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Ajit Pai said, “As a third vertical, its still important.” Pai, however, said he was not sure if it was the best vertical to be targeting.

BLOCKBUSTER DEAL “FILLED IN GAPS”

NCR entered the entertainment market with investments in VivoTech in 2006, when it acquired access to the technology required to develop entertainment kiosks. 

Nuti said he was “filling in the gaps” with the recent Blockbuster partnership, adding, “We will probably end this year with 3,000 kiosks.”  Analyst Luria said the roll-out of the kiosks might not meet targets that the company is currently talking about.  NCR expects to spend half of its entire entertainment budget, about $30 million, for the deployment of kiosks in 2009 and a similar amount in 2010. Currently, the market for DVD rental kiosks is dominated by Coinstar’s Redbox business. The market in 2009 is expected to be $1 billion at most, Luria said.

The Movie Booth brand continues to go from strength to strength with leading retail industry magazine Convenience Store featuring The Movie Booth business opportunity in its latest print edition.  You can read the cutting below…

Movies matter

Franchises are infiltrating other areas, too. Take Alan Isaac, who operates NearBuy in the Isle of Man. He introduced The Movie Booth self-service DVD rental franchise five months ago. “People seem to take an interest in it just because it’s something they’re not used to, or have never seen before, and that alone has been a great pull factor,” says Alan. “Once they have used it, they invariably return and make repeat purchases.

“The guys at Movie Booth arranged for the system to be sent to us, set it all up and explained the software. Then it was just a matter of getting used to the system. As with any franchise, the only real barrier is the cost of entry. It’s not a cheap solution but if someone was looking at supplying DVDs, has the resources to make it work and the space, then it’s ideal for our sector.”

The Movie Booth kiosks are now in 20 stores around the UK and Ireland, with another 11 due to go into c-stores soon. For £250 a month, retailers can lease a kiosk and benefit from promotions and an in-store demonstrator at the outset to show customers how it works. The half-a-square-metre vending machines hold 621 DVDs, and the company will set retailers up with a wholesale supplier and recommendations of films to stock.

For further information on how to profit from the DVD kiosk business opportunity please call us freephone on 0800 2922032 (UK) or 1800 932903 (Ireland) or email contact@themoviebooth.com.