New Way To Rent Videos
Brandon C. Baker News-Harold.com
During their trip to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, last summer, Mike and Dorothy Farris discovered a way to rent movies outside of traveling to the nearest rental store.
In their hotel lobby, the Painesville Township couple saw a kiosk containing several DVD titles available for rent after the swipe of a credit card. It was certainly something they had never seen in Northeast Ohio.
Still, the Farrises knew it could make for a unique and probable connection to Mike’s dream of owning a video store.
“We thought, ‘Wow, what a great idea,” Dorothy said. “We came back home and thought we ought to investigate this.”
They found that the rental technology was prevalent in countries in Europe, and also available within some McDonald’s restaurants in places like Dallas and Denver through Redbox, a McDonald’s subsidiary.
With the necessary information in place, Mike and Dorothy decided to bring the technology to the area with the advent of their own company, ReelQwik DVD rentals.
ReelQwik is a distributor and operator of North Vancouver, British Columbia-based DVDNow rental kiosks.
ReelQwik placed kiosks in two grocery stores in Conrad and Perry Township on May 29.
“It fits the lifestyle of our customers,” said Bruce Reider, owner of Reider’s Market , which houses a kiosk in the front of their store. “It’s simple, it’s non-evasive, and it fit right in with what we do here.” The kiosks hold 110 movies with about 30 different titles, none more than two months old, Mike said. The DVDs cost $1.99 per night.
Dorothy estimates the rental process could take as little as two minutes.
Customers can view box art on the kiosk’s side panels. The kiosk at Rideout’s IGA in Perry Township features a 20-inch monitor for trailer viewing. Reider’s is scheduled to install a similar monitor this weekend.
The customer should push the “rent” button once they have made a decision. After entering the movie’s slot number and receiving credit card acceptance, the machine ejects the boxed DVD. The customer is free to look the package over for about five minutes before actually being charged.
If the person decides against the movie, they push the “return” button and reinsert the movie without a charge.
“I think people are taking to it rather nicely,” Mike said. “It’s like one less stop.”
Between the two kiosks, the Farrises estimate about 500 nights of rentals so far, with “Shooter” and “Norbit” being the most popular titles. New releases are implemented and rotated each week.
The couple are confident people can change the long-standing habit of a trip to the video store or the new method of ordering rentals online .
“Blockbuster has gone to a (mail-ordering service), and we never Netflix customers, but you have to wait for that movie to come in the mail,” Dorothy said. “This is even more convenient than that, as long as the store’s open, you can get as many movies as you want.”
Mike and Dorothy believe ReelQwik will present some promising opportunities in the near future. They plan on making apartment complexes a focal point. They are waiting on a response from a large complex in the area.
They also plan on selling advertising to local companies through the trailer screens and on the actual kiosks.
While Mike wouldn’t have minded his own video store, ReelQwik will keep the couple happy for years to come.
“You don’t have all the overhead of having to rent a building , hiring people and managing people,” Dorothy said.
“This is a real fun business,” Mike said.