
Why Did Blockbuster Fail? They Didn't Care About Customer Feedback - Helprace
http://helprace.com/blog/why-did-blockbuster-fail-they-didnt-care-about-customer-feedback
======
MBCook
What feedback, exactly, did Blockbuster ignore that caused them to go under?

The article doesn't seem to actually _show_ any examples of missed feedback.
There are some generic things about Apple being good and thinking of things
other people didn't, but not concrete examples of customer feedback being
missed.

Furthermore, I'm sure there are examples of companies following customer
feedback and it _making things worse_. JC Penny and their giant discount
sales, perhaps? There are no examples of that in the article.

Just seems short on substance, basically "feedback is good".

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jasode
_> Just seems short on substance, basically "feedback is good"._

Which isn't unexpected because the company's webpage
([http://helprace.com](http://helprace.com)) says they sell a customer
"feedback portal".

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Pigo
Don't be the next Blockbuster, Borders Books, or AOL, buy our customer
feedback product!

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larrik
This article was vapid and nonsense, and Apple's inclusion makes no sense at
all (I mean, if there was ever a company to disprove their points...).

I mean, they pit Barnes & Nobles (which hasn't failed yet) vs Amazon? Ignoring
Borders? Likewise, Taxi's haven't failed, and aren't really looking like they
will, either.

It's pretty rare that I wish for a downvote button on posts on HN.

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hodder
When blockbuster was nearing its final days one location in my city was
purchasing DVDs for $5/DVD. Another location was SELLING DVDs for $3/DVD.

We filled a van with DVDs and arbitraged them.

After that experience, I became convinced Blockbuster's failure was due to
gross incompetence.

If I ever apply to Ycombinator, I think this would be my "interesting hack" on
the application.

~~~
M_Grey
I worked briefly at a Blockbuster as a teen, and it was the _worst_ job I ever
had. Everyone stole, the manager stole boxes full of candy, nobody tried to do
their job even remotely. It was the most dispiriting and incompetent place
I've ever been; I quit within a month.

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jgon
Blockbuster failed for many reasons of their own doing, but I think that it is
overlooked that they also failed because they couldn't outlast several years
of Netflix dumping VC cash into a fire for good content. Now, in the classic
SV "disruption" playbook, Netflix has stopped paying for quality content,
excluding their own mostly mediocre content, and I am left wish that the
blockbuster near my house was still open so that I could go out and rent a
decent movie. So much of the Netflix catalog is absolute bargain basement
garbage these days and it doesn't look like that is about to change anytime
soon.

Maybe one day we'll be able to access quality content from the big players,
but I think there's an equal chance that we'll look back at a time when you
could go and get access to a ton of classic movies from any studio and almost
any time period without having to buy it upfront in a single consolidated
location and feel like we've really lost something with our current state of
affairs.

~~~
blakesterz
>> several years of Netflix dumping VC cash into a fire for good content.

I can't say I agree with much of your comment, I find much of their content
decent enough, but I'd never thought about the VC cash thing before. I don't
know how much they burned, but it's interesting to think the only reason they
were able to pull this off is because they were able to lose a ton of money
this way. Blockbuster being public at the time wouldn't have been able to?
(don't know how true either of those things are)

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joe_momma
It was obvious why Blockbuster failed. Their infrastructure and cost to do
business was much greater than 3 warehouses centrally located.

Don't forget NetFlix was a DVD distributor before it became a streaming
service.

So there are multiple layers to "WHY" Blockbuster failed... This article
doesn't even seem to touch on anything significant.

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will_brown
Blockbuster was owned by the Wayne Huizenga an interesting businessman and
notorious South Florida character. Its hard to ignore the most important thing
is he sold Blockbuster to Viacom for $8.4B in 1994.

Some say he had the foresight to see the writing on the wall, but I'm not sure
that is the case and remember reading (if anyone can find it) about his
preference for subscription based business models - Blockbuster late fees was
the best they can come up with, which is nostalgic even to write, looking back
they could have done a Seinfeld episode about the Blockbuster late fee) and so
he was inclined to shed the business. If he had really seen the writing on the
wall, he likely would have sold and/or just started the first subscription
based movie rental by mail website (a la netflix).

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mkozlows
Hot take: Blockbuster failed because their business was renting physical
media, and then physical media went away, and it turned out that being good at
renting physical media didn't give you any particular skill or expertise at
running a digital video streaming site.

~~~
trjordan
Netflix was originally in the business of renting physical media as well.

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jbarbs
Very superficial analysis. The article goes on about a bunch of generic things
but it doesn't really address the particular issue outlined in its title: Why
did Blockbuster fail?

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skywhopper
Weird that the chart of companies that broke the paradigm of some predecessor
includes Samsung vs Apple in the same lineup with Blockbuster vs Netflix.
Samsung has its problems but it's not in the same class as Blockbuster.
Blackberry seems like the correct analogue to Apple in that comparison.

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tommeader
I found this a video about the rise of Netflix talks a lot about Blockbuster
and their downfall:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrpEHssa_gQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrpEHssa_gQ)

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peter303
Blockbuster began before there was the web. The web is great help for
feedback.

Also Redbox came along skimming its 90/10 business at a third of the price 10%
of the titles have 90% the rentals.

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e40
If you screw over your customers, they will be customers only as long as it
takes them to find an alternative to your service or product.

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sickbeard
it may be part of why the failed but it's not why they failed

