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My First Experience With Blockbuster Express – It’s the Future
While I live in NYC and can touch the Empire State Building from my window, sadly there are only small mom & pop shops near my apartment. There are no Starbucks, McDonalds, Borders, etc. There are also no movie rental shops anywhere in the vicinity. But on a trip to the local Duane Reade, I noticed something new in the store — a Blockbuster Express video rental machine.
RedBox provides movie rental machines around the U.S. and is about to start trials of video game rentals. My sister seems to love RedBox — I have not had a chance to try the service as there are no RedBox machines near my apartment. It looks like Blockbuster Express is similar to RedBox. I gave the Blockbuster Express machine a try and here are my thoughts on the experience.
The Blockbuster Express website allows you to register to create a list of movies you would like to rent. I found this to be a worthless feature because you can’t actually see real-time inventory or even reserve a movie for a later rental. You can view the total inventory in the machine and it appears all of the machines have the same inventory. My sister tells me that with RedBox you can reserve a movie at a specific RedBox location.
The machine itself was easy to use although there appears to be some issues with the search functionality. For example, I entered “Mall” in the hopes of renting Mall Cop. No results were found. I began to browse and on the first page the movie “Frat Party” appeared. I then tested the search by typing in “Frat” but that search also returned no results. So my suggestion is if you plan to use the machine, just use the browse button. It looks like there are about 200 movies in the machine with 28 pages of 8-10 movies on each. You can also view movies that will be added to the machine soon.
I selected Transformers 2 and used the free rental code posted below. The machine asked me to swipe my credit card and asked for my email address to send me a receipt. You can also signup for promotions on the same screen. After that the movie popped out and when I arrived back home the receipt was in my email.
Movies cost $1/day to rent and the rental period ends at 9pm the following day so you could wind up with more than 24 hours for the $1. There is a long screen with terms that you need to agree to each time you rent. It looks like something about when you actually own the movie if you don’t return it.
Overall I was very pleased with the experience. While it would be great if there were more movies in the machine, for $1 I can’t complain. Now if they could just add one of those hot drink dispensing machines and a snack/popcorn machine too we’d be all set.
Are quick-service rental and purchase machines the future of retail shopping? Macy’s installed vending machines to sell electronics. Best Buy has vending machines in airports around the U.S. When I look at how much real estate a Blockbuster store occupies and how small these new Blockbuster Express machines take up, I wonder if we will soon be buying everything from a vending machine. On the other hand, people said ATM machines would end the bank teller position and that hasn’t happened as of yet.
As an aside, if you do try the Blockbuster Express video rental machine, enter the code KIOSK for a free rental. I rented Transformers 2 and as a huge Transformers fan, I can say that I am very glad I got the rental for free.
Looks like BE is starting to pick up. They also have some of the newer realeases earlier than RedBox (at least in Atlanta they do)
You mentioned, “Now if they could just add one of those hot drink dispensing machines and a snack/popcorn machine too we’d be all set.”…well, a company called PopNGo actually has this machine (the popcorn part) and is testing one with Blockbuster as we speak according to a December nes release. It’s the perfect fit to go next to this or a redbox machine. If the test goes well, expect the stock of this company to fly as well. It’s a penny stock (ticker: POPN)
I have used Blockbuster Express on two occassions. Both of the DVD’s were defective, and would only play to a certain point and freeze. It appears that Blockbuster has taken the old DVD’s out of their closed stores and put them in machines. I have never had this problem with Redbox. I have emailed them but no response. To reserve a movie on line, you have to enter all of your credit card info, etc. and then they tell you that the movie is not available at your preferred location. Redbox will tell you initially that the movie is or is not available.
I agree. Redbox is much better.
interestlingly – 2 of the dvds i’ve rented recently i couldn’t get to play – they kept jumping up and down and ran bars – i thought it was my dvd player but maybe i am no longer sure.
[...] Express Now Supports Online Rentals by Allen Stern on February 25th, 2010 Back in December I reviewed the movie kiosk service Blockbuster Express. The kiosks have been popping up all over NYC (this morning I noticed one in [...]
I work for blockbuster and I think its a good idea as long as the stupid machine doesnt steal my job. As for the search feature if the kiosk is anything like our computers you have to be very specific like Tina said its Paul Blart Mall Cop so just remember the little things in front of the big titles like that
Any word on whether you can return the movie to a different kiosk than the one from which you rented it? I know that one of the really nice features of Redbox is that you can return the movie to any Redbox machine.
For instance, if you’re headed on a car trip, you can pick up a few Redbox movies, watch them in the car and then return them somewhere else.
aah good point – it looks like you can do that with BE too, “For your convenience, DVDs rented from BLOCKBUSTER Express™ kiosks can be returned to ANY BLOCKBUSTER Express™ kiosk location.”
i guess that is good for people with a car
Mall cop is actually, “PAUL BLART: Mall cop” Try paul next time.
Frat Party may be NATIONAL LAMPOON’s so try that next time too.
Based upon the map on RedBox.com, there are 3 RedBox locations in Walgreens around the Empire State Building including in the one on the first floor of the building.
Sign up for RedBox SMS updates and you get a free night code on the first Monday of the month every month.
1.) transformers 2 sucked.
2.) bank tellers have indeed been decimated. each teller these days probably has to serve way more customers than before. thank the ATM.