We have a RedBox in town at the 7-11 stores for video rentals. There is a youtube down below that will give you some info and how to get promo rentals for free (just call that a public service). Anyway it is a good idea and for $1, frankly it is going to kill off most video rental stores over time and as Blockbuster won't last the year it seems, it might be the alternative.
In the middle 1980s in Dallas Texas there was a promoter named Charlie Taylor who was a bit of a scamp. He "invented" this VHS equal to the Redbox...now that was 25 years ago mind you. But his didn't work. It never worked. It wasn't intended to work.
He set up a phone bank and hired people to sell these things to others at $5000 a pop..the vending machines and they were huge - 6 feet high and 8 feet long and 4 feet wide...huge. (this is before DVDs). So he put one of these in a Big SuperFood Store in Dallas and for $2.00 and your credit card swipe you could pick a movie for overnight but just punching the levers like a vending machine. He filmed the "trial week" and that was his "promo" which he made into an infomercial and pretty soon with the call center, he was selling like 50 of these a day. What he wasn't telling anyone and I mean anyone, was that he hired someone to stay in that machine for 12 hour shifts during store hours and feed out the movies and when returned to store them on the shelf. porta potties and a refrig .. no joke. Anyway it made headlines, was on all the TV stations in the southwest, and he sold by best count about 500 of these before leaving town. He paid no one. He took all the money. When the feds came everyone was long gone. Charlie, sometime later, turned up in a dumpster in New Mexico having inadvertently sold one of these to a local crime boss's son who didn't like that he up and disappeared.
In the middle 1980s in Dallas Texas there was a promoter named Charlie Taylor who was a bit of a scamp. He "invented" this VHS equal to the Redbox...now that was 25 years ago mind you. But his didn't work. It never worked. It wasn't intended to work.
He set up a phone bank and hired people to sell these things to others at $5000 a pop..the vending machines and they were huge - 6 feet high and 8 feet long and 4 feet wide...huge. (this is before DVDs). So he put one of these in a Big SuperFood Store in Dallas and for $2.00 and your credit card swipe you could pick a movie for overnight but just punching the levers like a vending machine. He filmed the "trial week" and that was his "promo" which he made into an infomercial and pretty soon with the call center, he was selling like 50 of these a day. What he wasn't telling anyone and I mean anyone, was that he hired someone to stay in that machine for 12 hour shifts during store hours and feed out the movies and when returned to store them on the shelf. porta potties and a refrig .. no joke. Anyway it made headlines, was on all the TV stations in the southwest, and he sold by best count about 500 of these before leaving town. He paid no one. He took all the money. When the feds came everyone was long gone. Charlie, sometime later, turned up in a dumpster in New Mexico having inadvertently sold one of these to a local crime boss's son who didn't like that he up and disappeared.
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