As Blockbuster tries to catch up with it's main competition, Netflix. It is making it even easier to rent movies online.
In 2004, Blockbuster started offering customers its own service for online movie rentals. Before that, to rent movies online could only be done through Netflix who was doing much better than bricks and mortar type rental stores.
For example, Hollywood Video, which was once condidered a leader in the industry, has seen it's business go down since online movie rentals came along.
Lucky for Blockbuster, they were able to adapt to the changing landscape of the online movie rental business fast enough to stay in business.
What does Blockbuster offer that the others don't? Today, it's Netflix that has to do some catching up to Blockbuster. Not only does Blockbuster allow customers to rent online, customers can also rent Blu-ray discs at no additional cost. Netflix charges extra for this benefit.
The other major advantage Blockbuster has over Netflix is its brick-and-mortar stores. While traditional retail outlets seemed at first to be an old-fashioned handicap for people looking for movies to rent, today Blockbuster markets their stores as an added perk that Netflix doesn't have.
And it's true: with 7,000 stores in 21 countries, Blockbuster makes it easy to return movies locally.
So if a customer feels like renting a movie for the weekend but doesn't want to venture out to the store, they can rent online from Blockbuster, then drop it by the store on their way to work on Monday morning.
Finally, Blockbuster offers one more advantage that Netflix doesn't have: game rentals. Netflix doesn't offer game rentals but does have a wide variety of movies and TV shows on offer.
Blockbuster's inventory has long included video games, so it was a natural choice to include game rentals when Blockbuster started offering online movie rentals.
Similar rental plans at both cost about the same to rent 1, 2 or 3 movies at a time. The fixed monthly charges are $8.99, $13.99 and $16.99.
Do these options make Blockbuster better than Netflix? That depends upon your perspective. If you're a Blu-ray owner, then yes, it's better to rent movies online from Blockbuster.
If you're a gamer, then yes, it's better to rent movies online from Blockbuster.
If all you're looking for a good selection of movies and don't mind mailing DVDs back to Netflix, then the two services are basically equal.
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I'm a freelance internet marketer and copywriter. I've been generating traffic and sales to my own blogs and websites since 2006.
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