The DVD Rental Race Analyzed

Thomas Hawk writes "Netflix and Blockbuster have been locked in a price war with regards to the DVD rental space. Wedbush Morgan Equity Analyst Michael Pachter has a $3 dollar price target on Netflix and is in contrast bullish on Blockbuster. Davis Freeberg challenges Pachter's thinking that Netflix will be the loser in the DVD rental battle and Pachter himself responds back on his rationale on why he thinks Blockbuster has the advantage." From the article: "Irrespective of what Pachter thinks about the overall DVD rental business, Pachter's seemingly obvious prediction would appear pretty dire for Netflix. Pacther updated his price target for Netflix On 4/22/05 with the new $3 price. If Pachter is right, then we should expect to see Netflix's stock fall by approximately 75% over the next 12 months."

Comments

Blockbuster, rentals, and my rant

[John Seminal]

First, Blockbuster sucks. For a while, they were the only big rental store in my area. And they charged close to $4 to rent, plus tax. They sucked. I went back once with a rental, and handed it to the person telling them it was due that moment and I did not want to drop it in the box. He said "fine, no problem". The next time I went to rent there was a late fee waiting. He obviously just dropped the rental in the box.

Then Family Video opened up. All their older movies are 2 for $1. On Tuesdays through Thursday, if you rent a new release, you get an older movie free (Older = more than a year old). And their new releases are as little as $2.50, for an additional $0.50 you can rent a title for a week. And they treat customers well, I went there once and, it was my fault I was late and the store closed, and I dropped off the rental in the overnight box. The next day the guy working recognized me and said "jee... we just missed you yesterday, lemme take care of this late fee". No questions asked.

DVD rental stores are there for our service. Guess where I'll be spending my money?