VENANGO CO., Pa. (EYT) — While the digital age has captured our society’s attention with instant access through video streaming services, there are some brick-and-mortar video rental stores still hanging on in our region.
(PHOTO: Chris Arduini, owner of Oil City Movie Stop.)
Following the advent of Netflix and other streaming services, the decline in the brick-and-mortar video rental industry came quickly.
Blockbuster Video, long considered a staple of the business with almost 9,000 locations across the nation during its peak, declared bankruptcy in 2010 and became part of DISH in 2011, offering their own On Demand service. According to The Verge, one brick-and-mortar Blockbuster store remains open in Bend, Oregon.
This week, exploreVenango.com had an opportunity to visit the only remaining brick-and-mortar video rental store in Venango County, the Oil City Movie Stop, talk to the owner, visit with the customers, and attempt to find out what keeps this video rental business going.
One customer explained why he preferred renting movies from a video store over Redbox rentals. He was taking his time, lingering in the aisles, and browsing the movie titles.
“A lot of people are like me. You go to these machines, and you have to put your credit card information in. I don’t own a credit card, and even if I did, I would not put that in a box like that. The way everything is being hacked anymore, I’d rather come to a place like this.”
Another video customer appeared to be enjoying looking at the selection of the movies, taking her time to read the previews. With the wide selection of movies available, she could spend hours finding a suitable movie.
As with any small business, there are more components to the store than just the product. One of them being the social element of going into a neighborhood store and having a face-to-face conversation with the owner or a community member.
Oil City Movie Stop owner Chris Arduini said there is a definite social aspect to choosing a video rental store over a streaming service or rental box.
“You can talk to someone about the movies, and people still see neighbors here, just like they used to,” he noted.
“A lot of people also don’t want to wait in line to pick something, especially when the weather is bad.”
Oil City Movie Stop has been in business since 1985 when it was brought in to complement Rent Town, a rent-to-own business that offered the opportunity to rent-to-own VCRs.
“The renters got coupons for one free rental per week, which built it up, then it took off on its own,” said Arduini.
Being in business during the era of the videotape format war, they offered both VHS and Betamax tapes, and later also offered laserdiscs before DVDs took over the field.
The Rent Town part of the business was sold in the mid to late 90s, and Movie Stop became the primary business. Arduini, who had already been working there for a number of years, took over the business in 2002.
According to Arduini, though business has decreased since the advent of streaming, the store still does well, with a number of loyal customers who still rent on a regular basis.
“People enjoy coming in, picking it up, looking at it, getting some information about it.”
“With Redbox, after so long, they don’t have things anymore. They have things for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months tops.”
While Redbox options can be quite limited, and even streaming services only have certain titles, at a business like Oil City Movie Stop, the collection is always expanding.
“We have an inventory of about 12,000 titles. We still keep classics that people can’t find other places, and we are always complementing the older titles that we have, along with new movies. There are still movies that are 20 to 30 years old that I get into the store to replace VHS copies that we had,” Arduini said.
“Each week, we add at least two or three old titles, and we’re talking about anything from black-and-white movies to 80s movies to old horror movies. People come in and look at our horror section and squeal because we have just about everything, and we also have a prequel/sequel section that goes with new movies coming out, so if someone wants to go back and see all the Halloween movies, they can.”
Arduini noted another thing people like is the range of rental options they offer, with everything from two-day rentals to seven-day rentals, making it easier for those in the surrounding area to rent.
In Clarion County, residents have memories of several video rental businesses in the Clarion area; however, the only one that currently remains is Knox Video & Discount Market.