Blockbuster to eliminate Access due dates
Company relaxes return policies for store-exchanged titles
By Danny King -- Video Business, 2/24/2009
FEB. 24 | Blockbuster is relaxing its return policies for subscribers who receive free rentals from stores after turning in titles they’d ordered from the company’s Web site by no longer charging customers the purchase price of a title that’s kept for too long.
The largest U.S. movie-rental chain has already started testing the elimination of so-called due dates for some of its Total Access customers and will fully roll out the new policy next month, Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove said. Instead of being charged for the sale of a movie or game title a week after it’s due back at the store, Blockbuster will just count the title against a customer’s monthly allowance of titles under their rental plan, just as the company does for Internet-ordered titles.
Since launching its Total Access program in 2006, Blockbuster has tried to use its Web site to compete with companies such as Netflix by letting customers request mail-delivered movie rentals on the Internet and return them to the company’s bricks-and-mortar stores.
Additionally, Blockbuster is using its Web site to spur demand for its digital-download service, which competes with similar digital offerings from Amazon.com and Apple. The company integrated what had been known as its Movielink digital download service into Blockbuster’s Web site last July, almost a year after Blockbuster bought the service from the five major studios for $6.6 million.
Blockbuster reports its fourth-quarter financial results next month.
