Redbox's fatal flaw

If you're on the cutting edge of movie rentals, you have probably heard of Redbox. Even if you haven't necessarily heard of them, there's a fair chance you've seen the big red machines in a local grocery store, McDonald's, or any of many other places they have them setup. If you're not familiar with them, the concept is simple. These are basically DVD vending machines. You can either reserve a movie from a machine ahead of time, or pick one out on the spot. Either way, you swipe your credit card and the movie is dispensed in a thin plastic case, without all the glitz and glamour of the standard packaging, and you're on your way. Redbox also eliminates the standard rental periods, and charges you a dollar a day for your rentals. So, if like me, you generally get a movie and watch it right away, you can get away with only a dollar (plus tax) for the rental. When you're done, you can return the DVD to any Redbox location. I think it's a pretty nice setup, really, and it may be the only realistic model in which traditional rental of DVDs will continue to be viable in the era of Netflix.

However, it does have one fatal design flaw, one which has cost Redbox my business two nights running. There is a phenomenon that accompanies renting movies on impulse, and I'm guessing you've all been a part of it. Actually, it's not so much of a phenomenon as a critical mistake people make - deciding to rent a movie, but not having a plan for which one. I'm sure you've all been there back in the days before Netflix. What is the end result of this poor decision? You wander into the store, are bombarded by all the many options, suffer from sensory overload, and spend an inordinate amount of time in the store making your pick. This is compounded when there is more than one person involved in the decision.

In your average Blockbuster, this isn't that big of a deal. The stores are large and open, you can wander them freely and not bother anyone else. You're just wasting your own time. Not so with Redbox. There's only one machine at a given location, and only one person can use it at a time. So, your indecision in this case not only wastes your time, but it either wastes the time of the people waiting, or causes them to give up, as I have the last two nights. Redbox does limit this possibility to some degree, because there are relatively few choices in a machine when compared to the average video store, but people still can spend a good bit of time flipping through the lists, more than enough to make the process seem decidedly less convenient.

When you couple the people that get caught up in this trap with those who are overwhelmed with the technology itself and stare at it blankly for a while trying to figure out how to work it, I find myself praying that there's no one in front of the machine any time I have a mind to rent a movie. The last two nights, I've been disappointed, and thus my viewing of 21 will have to wait.