Since Oxford's Family Video opened in 2010, it has remained a successful business despite competition with Redbox and Netflix. Convergence to the convenience of Redbox and Netflix has not affected the business due to their customer service and in-store benefits.
Audra McGuire, store manager of Oxford's Family Video, 5930 Fairfield Rd, said Redbox and Netflix do not affect their business very much due to the limited selection of movies from those companies.
"If you go to Redbox or Netflix, you hope they have [the movie] what you need," McGuire said. "You might not like a movie or it might not work, and here [Family Video] if it doesn't work, we can definitely fix it for you."
One difference between Redbox and Family Video is the availability of the newly-released movies.
"We get a lot of movies on day one, so we have every single movie on the day it comes out," McGuire said. "Redbox might not get it until day 28. Another example is Monsters University comes out tomorrow [Oct 29] so Redbox may have it, they may not, but we actually got special release from Disney to play it Friday, so we are actually renting movies that don't come out until Tuesday."
According to McGuire, Family Video has not been affected by Netflix, but to compete with the online movie-streaming model, they offer a special deal in the store for those who cancel their Netflix account.
"It [Netflix] has not really affected us all that much," McGuire said. "We also offer, if you have Netflix, and you cancel your subscription and you bring in your letter, we can give you a half price rate for 30 days, but you don't see too many of those anymore."
Going into Family Video allows the customer to receive help and recommendations from the employees, which sets them apart from the online movie rentals, McGuire said. Family video also offers different in-store opportunities. One of these is the benefit new members receive when they join Family Video.
"The great thing about Family Video is, especially if you're a new member, you get so many free movies, its ridiculous," McGuire said. "New members get half price for 30 days, you also get two free one dollar movies every single day. So, if you took advantage of that, your first month you would get about 60 free movies."
Another benefit is Family Video's membership is completely free.
McGuire said Family Video is also ahead of competition because of its great customer service and employees.
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"We really take time and invest in our employees, and in turn, our employees really enjoy working, which, you know, if your employees enjoy working with you, you are going to have great customer service," McGuire said. "Your customers will see that and will enjoy coming in."
Family Video employee Austin Stonecash said he enjoys working at Family Video because he is able to talk with the customers and recommend different movies.
"Everybody on the staff here watches different movies, so everyone has opinions and suggestions for movies," Stonecash said. "When people ask if we can give an honest opinion, we are honest and tell people. Customers really take advantage and enjoy that."
Stonecash said he has seen a decrease in the number of customers who want to rent a movie just one time, but an increase in the number of customers who become members to rent movies frequently.
"When the big movies come out, we might not see the people come in just because they want to rent that one movie," Stonecash said. "But the people that rent ten, twenty movies a month, I think that's actually gone up because we have a better selection, so that counters our ability to be fast and easy compared to Redbox."
Family Video stands out from other movie businesses because they are an entrepreneurship franchise which also owns Marco's Pizza, a pizza company, ITV-3, a cable-television service and StayFit 24, a 24-hour fitness center.
McGuire said they like to put Family Video and Marco's Pizza adjacent to each other to offer dinner and entertainment in one night.
"We couldn't put a pizza store into our location, but what we like to do is put pizza in by Family Video so that way you can order you pizza, come pick up your movies, pick up your pizza and pay for it all at the same," McGuire said. "Our store here in Oxford is just too small to do that so you wouldn't see that here unfortunately."
McGuire said being close to Miami University's campus, she encourages students to consider working for Family Video. McGuire said employees are able to do a lot working with Family Video, considering they own many other companies.
Miami junior Alex Fliotsos said she likes that Family Video is still around, considering Blockbuster went bankrupt.
"Sometimes Netflix and Redbox don't have the movies I want to watch, so it's nice to be so close to a Family Video just incase I want to find a movie that they didn't have," Fliotsos said.
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