McDonald's Trying DVD Rentals... Again?

from the hmmm... dept

A year and a half ago we noted that McDonald's had decided to run a trial program in the Washington DC area, where they offered DVD rentals out of a large vending machine at their stores. There wasn't much news about the program, and it seemed safe to assume it wasn't going anywhere. However, today, McDonald's is announcing what sounds like an identical DVD rental program in Denver - without mentioning at all that they've already tried this. It's a bit odd that they would roll out a second "test" program so much later, and not even admit they had done an earlier test of an identical system.
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  • identicon
    NOBODY, 24 May 2004 @ 3:33pm

    No Subject Given

    What's even weirder is that someone is presenting these machines as a business oppertunity on all the news channels. "All the best locations are still available." It's a dumb idea. But you know what they say about a fool and his money....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      BoilerBob, 25 May 2004 @ 6:34am

      Re: No Subject Given

      While I agree buying the "best locations" is a dumb idea, I think it could be good for a company like McDonalds. Increased revenue plus repeat trips to the store (to return the rentals). If it's managed well, they throw a box of new dvd's on the truck with the food supplies, no additional delivery costs. Cheap labor to restock the machines. When the films are too old be be rented, sell them in a bin for $2 next to the registers (I guessing that it's cheaper to give them away then to ship them back to a warehouse) I could see this being a break even opportunity that increases traffic to the store which increases revenue in their core products.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Secret Squirrel, 25 May 2004 @ 12:34pm

    No Subject Given

    Since they plan on renting the top 30 rentals for 99 cents, this could work on those days were I really want to rent a hot new release and don't want to wait 2 or 3 days for netflix. Watch, rip, and burn back on a DVD-R, return it the next day. Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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