Mcdonald's Tries Movies In Louisville

(Tuesday, July 17, 2007) - There is no attendant. No signature is needed. It never closes and can rent a DVD to you for $1 a day after a few minutes, a few button pushes and a credit card swipe.
McDonald's and redbox hope the speed, convenience and price will appeal to customers.

Since the end of June, 90 McDonald's in the Louisville area have installed the self-service movie rental kiosks. It's part of a yearlong trial to see if customers want to pick up something for the small screen along with a Big Mac.

Some McDonald's in Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; Portland, Ore.; Indianapolis; and other cities also are getting the redbox machines.

"McDonald's locations are conveniently located for people," said Greg Waring, vice president for marketing at redbox. "Customers are going there anyway. It lets customers save a stop."

"We thought that it would be a good thing" for customers, said Stephanie Young, 45, a local owner of three McDonald's restaurants. "It's a traffic driver."

Customers can rent from any of 500 DVDs — or 70 titles — with a debit or credit card for $1 a day plus tax, and hold them as long as they like. After 25 days and more than $25 in fees, the movie is the customer's to keep.

Rented DVDs can be returned at any redbox location nationwide.

Jointly owned by Coinstar — the company that puts change-counting machines in grocery stores — and McDonald's Ventures, redbox was founded in 2002 and has grown from 93,000 rentals annually to an expected 51million this year at more than 4,200 locations nationwide.

The ability to return a movie after one day and spend $1 makes it attractive to some customers. New releases at Blockbuster, for instance, cost $4.50 before tax for up to a week.

"For the new stuff, it is a better deal," Jason James, 22, said while renting a movie at a McDonald's in St. Matthews.

"We have customers that are value seekers," Young said. "It is definitely a value at a dollar."

James said he rents about four movies a week from redbox, in addition to using Netflix and Blockbuster.

The kiosk is also an example of a trend toward self-service.

"Self-service is creeping into retail without us seeing it," said Bill Yackey, contributing writer to Louisville-based Self Service World magazine and editor of SelfService.org. Most notable, the trend has shown up in grocery stores with self-checkouts and at airports with self-ticketing kiosks.

It is a trend that companies hope will appeal more to customers as faster service.

"A lot of people will come out and say that they want a sales associate," Yackey said. "But a good number like the control of the transaction and the service."

In redbox's case, Yackey said they are combining two appealing traits: convenience and speed.

David Gatti, 49, Young's brother and owner of four other local McDonald's, said customers love to multi-task.

"Rather than making another stop, with gas the way it is nowadays, it's a one-stop shop," Gatti said.

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