Tech Changes Too Much For Video Shop
In an age of renting movies through the mail or streaming them on your computer, it should not come as a surprise that a local movie rental store is closing.
But for William Peaslee, who opened Video Vault in Westborough 16 years ago with co-owner Robert St. Angelo, that doesn't make the news any less bittersweet.
Despite a slowdown in business during the past few years, the movie store was hopping on New Year's Eve over the holiday weekend.
"Even when you're the last man standing and you're getting ready to close, New Year's Eve is always the busiest day of the year - always," Peaslee said, with a line of customers waiting to check out movies.
Peaslee expects to close his store sometime this spring and it will mark one of the last movie rental stores in MetroWest shutting down.
Rewind
The troubles for Video Vault are not unique. National rental chain Blockbuster has struggled, declaring bankruptcy in September. Last year, the company lost $69 million on $788 million in revenues during the second quarter, which is an increase from a $37 million loss on $982 million in revenues during the same quarter a year earlier. The company has already closed thousands of stores and expects to continue the consolidation through the year.
Meanwhile, Netflix has proven that the movie rental business isn't dead, it's just changed.
Netflix customers order movies online and then receive them in the mail; customers can also stream movies online. The company's stock is surging, trading above $170 per share on the NASDAQ. Quarterly profits rose more than 30 percent in the third quarter compared to the year before.
Some local businesses have taken a cue from Netflix, realizing that in order to survive, they must adapt.
Lewis Glass, for example, purchased Paradise Photo and Video on Washington Street in Natick in July 2007. For the first two years he rented out DVDs, along with providing some photo and video services. Then, rather suddenly, the rental business dropped off.
"You could just tell by the number of DVDs you were putting back on the shelves the next day that were returned," he said. "Nobody was renting anymore."
He closed the video business in 2009 and now focuses strictly on photography and video services, his area of expertise. Paradise Photo and Video now offers everything from headshots and yearbook photos to shooting sports games or professional commercial projects.
The key, he said, is finding a business niche that AWACs ("Anyone With a Camera" as he calls them), can't do.
Other small business owners are sticking through the changing times.
Russell Reitz opened Listen Up Music in Natick Center in 1996 and now sells DVDs, CDs, vinyl records, LPs, VHS, cassette tapes and just about anything else he can find on Ebay that he thinks will turn a profit.
A former broadcast sales associate, Reitz left the industry and opened a music and video store as a life-long dream.
Despite a slowdown in business in the past few years, he still gets a steady flow of older customers and people interested in specific music genres, like Indie Rock, for which he has a collection of CDs. The biggest draw, he said, is price and convenience.
"Most of the stuff I sell is pretty cheap, so it works for people who want it cheap and want it now," he said. "Netflix is great, but you've got to wait for it in the mail. You can buy a DVD here and then go home and watch it."
Reitz seems to be running the store out of nostalgia, determined to keep the classic music shop open during an age of iPods and iPads.
"I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon," he said. "I'm doing well enough that I don't see closing down any time in the near future. Ten years from now, who knows?"
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