Pricing Issues

Stewart has asked for a thread regarding pricing, so here it is. I also wanted to share one of my smaller stores with all of you. This is Jan. 1st, 2009 An appropriate day because all of my information is clear except for the previous day and Today. I think this is where everyone should be and beyond. This business is excellent with a little hard work and a great location. Plus, there's no reason to short sell yourself. Everyone understands that businesses need to make money to stay in business.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
EXMAPLE OF A SCREENSHOT
KIOSK IN SMALL TOWN OF

WYOMING.

Mike,
Can we start a thread about pricing? I am considering going up in price. I am barely breaking even. My numbers are steadily increaseing as comfort levels go up. I am currently at 1.49 and .99 each additional night. I am considering increasing the first night to 1.99 but don't want to shoot myself in the foot. I would also like to see what people are pricing out for advertising.
BTW - I am pretty much alone. There is a REDBOX in the WAL-Mart here but I have never seen anyone at the machine.

Stewart

Joe Fusco's Mount behind his DVDNow Kiosk

Joe Fusco has been nice enough to show us his screen mountbehind his lit up sign. Joe and I both have our sign up and the screen poking out over the top. Click on the images below and enlarge them. Basically, these are shoe racks that fit perfectly over the back of the machine. I also store a couple of tools behind mine. I forget a screwdriver, I have one on the shelf behind my machine. It works out pretty neat and the screens as you can see are angled down towards the customer. It also provides height so most people in the store can see your advertsing. Thanks for sending the photos Joe. I guess we can make this the post for everyone and their ideas on mounts.

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

DVDNow has a mounting bracket designed to fit the S100 series model available for $170 plus shipping

Note that there is an new design for the S250 kiosks

Mark Rudolph
Operations Manager | DVDNow Kiosks, Inc.

Movies DVDKiosk Art for January 2009

Happy New Year!

I noticed that VPD doesn't have the Kiosk Art for two movies. Lakeview Terrance and Pineapple Express. I ended up pulling the Posters and dropping the release dates in for you. Not sure why we get movies from them every month and they don't have the downloads for them. Also, these are in higher resolution so you will get a good clean print. If you click on them and print them out in your Microsoft Picture Manager, you'll be able to select the 5 x 7 print settings and they'll come out perfectly.

Also, there have been a number of you this month that have inquired about the DVDRepair Machine that we use to fix our scratched up DVD's. If you want, I'll post the information. Let me know if some of you need a machine that works and I'll get you the info... They are roughly $125 plus shipping.

Good Luck to All of You in the New Year! Have Fun in the DVD Business!

By the way, I just uploaded all of these trailers in UMG. If you have them going into your machine update your kiosks in UMG.

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Pre Auth for DVD Rental machines

Yet another topic that has come up that I figured we might as well chime in on. Pre Authorizations for our Kiosk machines. The question is and still is, "How Much"?
I have mine set at $10.01. I like the 01 because it sometimes gets the folks to call me. I use the phone call as an opportunity to explain the machine and the way it works. Most of the folks I talk to turn out to be really great renters. Some do a full pre-auth and others do a partial. It's a tough deal because some folks don't have much in their accounts... What do you guys do?

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Redbox sues Universal

I am sure you all have some thoughts on the lawsuit! Let us know what you think..

copy and paste this URL into a new brower to catch up on some interesting comments:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/174096756/m/697000035931

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

BLU RAY DVD'S

Since Joe and Rich Petty started a new line of discussion on Blu Ray and Regular DVD's, let's keep it rolling.

Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

vesmontana said...

Hey Joe,

Did you try the blu-rays yet?
I am thinking of trying them when Dark Knight comes out. If so what are you charging? I think we all are going to have to put them in eventually but it could increase our sales as well.

November 20, 2008 3:37 PM

Joe Fusco said...

I put Wall-E Blu Ray in and it rented once for 4 nights. I charge $1.00 for DVD and $1.79 for Blu ray. I have it clearly marked next to the slot and across the top. Also have 'Blue Ray" on the case spine. I use a P-touch. It's great, they peel right off the metal of the kiosk when removing.

Careful with the wording. I had "Wall-E available in blu ray $1.79/night". With the Wall-e blu ray rented and not in the kiosk (with "blu ray" shown on the spine) the other Wall-e's were just sitting there. Everyone may have thought they were all blue ray the way it was worded. Now I changed it to "Wall-E in slot 104 is blu ray for $1.79/night". Just have to remember not to move them remotely.

I ordered 2 blu ray for dark night. See how that does.

November 25, 2008 5:37 PM

Security Metrics Quick and Easy Compliance Contact

I just got off the phone with http://securitymetrics.com and talked to a specific guy by the name of Mike Decker. Mike told me that he'd be happy to help any of you become PCI compliant. I can't believe how easy this was! He was incredibly gracious with my lack of understanding this whole thing. Matter of fact, all I did was give him my 5 IP addresses that Mark Rudolph sent me via e-mail and ran the scan right there. He told me that I was compliant as long as I answered the 11 questions (which were easy)...

PLEASE CALL YOUR MERCHANT SERVICE FIRST IN REGARDS TO PCI COMPLIANCE. If required, contact Mike Decker below...

Here is Mike Decker's contact information:
Mike Decker
Security Metrics
801-995-6329
He told me that he usually is able to get to your phone call within 5-10 minutes. He said if you can't get in touch with him, just call this number 1-801-705-5665 and they'll make sure you are taken care of.

NEW PERSON THAT TOOK OVER MIKE DECKER'S JOB

Mike Decker is no longer at Security Metrics. New contact:


Jonathan Clark

Compliance Consultant

jonc@securitymetrics.com

Office 801-995-6368

Tech 801-705-5700

Fax 801-724-9700

www.securitymetrics.com





Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

DVD Kiosk Art for December with Release Dates

Here are the movies with Release Dates that we are putting in our Kiosk during the month of December. Go ahead and help yourself. These will print out on your printer. As you may or may not know, you can get all of these ordered from VPD for I believe Rhonda Young said ($9.99) per kiosk. I am not sure how many they'll send to you but if you don't have a color printer, it might be worth it to have them send you the kiosk art. I like to get these sent to my host stores before the month starts so they can add them into the slots. Customers like seeing what is coming to the kiosk before they actually arrive...

Sincerely,

Mike Weiland

http://readydvd.com

Wall-E DVD Art That fits-Thanks to Rhonda Young from VPD

Rhonda Young has been gracious enough to send everyon the Wall-e dvd case art. You can see that they added the spine to it so we can all use it in our box. The box art will work now so that you customers will see the title on the spine. If you need it sent seperately in an e-mail, let me know. It is perfect the way she sent it and won't need to be resized.

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

PCI Compliance Update on our DVD Kiosk Machine

As many of you know, this PCI compliance thing has been on the back burner and hadn't yet materialized "until now".. We got our bill(FOR THE YEAR) this month for $139.75. I, of course think it's a ridiculous fee that the merchant accounts are dropping on us. I called Roy and e-mailed him about it and he sent me some return information. I called First Data and told them that I wasn't too happy about the charge. A gal by the name of "Lisa H." was the person I talked to. She understood my concern and told me that if I could prove that we are PCI compliant with a "PCI compliant Certificate", she would wave my fees. I have contacted the folks at DVDNow to see about such a certificate. Hopefully, we can get out of this fee. I'll keep you all posted on it. Here is the letter I received from Roy Neese at First Data. He is also trying to get to the bottom of it with me. Hopefully, we can get something done for "all of us"..

Mike,

There was a notice sent last month about a $149.75 fee being added to all customer accounts. The card companies are requiring all merchant to certify they are PCI compliant (Payment Card Industry) in order to be protected against fines. The notice indicated that First Data has hired a company to help merchant become certified. First Data’s yearly fee is primarily to pay for PCI Security compliance as required by Visa/MasterCard. Each merchant has the responsibility to be Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant. On your behalf, First Data has hired a third party vendor to perform this service at a discounted rate. PCI compliance is a very serious issue and cannot be overemphasized. For more information regarding PCI compliance and electronic data storage please visit www.visa.com/cisp, www.mastercard.com/sdp and www.pcisecuritystandards.org. As a Merchant you are responsible for certification of PCI compliance and may be subject to fines for not providing proof of compliance. From what I understand you can contact Customer Service and choose option 6 then 4 to discuss what your options are with this yearly fee.

If you choose to contact Customer Service 1877 273 8191, please let me know what they tell you.

Roy B. Neese
Account Executive



Sincerely,

Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Examples of DVDKiosk Commercials and Advertising

Hi Mike,

I will be sending you pictures of a sample of Attractions, a brochure that VPD is selling for .10c each. I found it on page 93 of Closeups magazine we get. I think it's a great idea. I usually set up a flyer every few weeks to put in my "take one" holder on the machine and pass around to Laundromats and other businesses. I have to change the movie art, print them, cut them. A real pain. $10.00 for every hundred, I think it's worth it. You can even put store and contact info along the bottom with a stamp or label. They come out once a month. I ordered 500 for Feb to do an advertising campain to distribute them around appartment complexes in the area.



Thank you Joe Fusco EZ DVD Po Box 1554 Smithtown, NY 11787 www.myezdvd.com 631-680-3464



Joe Fusco's Advertising:

Art Work that Joe Fusco has on one of his Kiosks. Great Stuff! Just Click on Image!

Donnie Harris from Northshore Texaco in Knoxville, TN sent us this!




Donnie Harris's Kiosk and Light box art, from Northshore Texaco in Knoxville, TN

DVDNow Crew 2009 and more recent Pics

This is the most recent picture that I received from DVDNow. This was taken in July of 2010. They just moved offices. The company has grown and is definitely world wide now.

This is the older Picture of the Crew, below you'll find the newer picture.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Mark Rudolph recently sent me this picture of the gang. Quite a few more folks now. The company has been growing to accommodate all of you Kiosk Owners. I'll have to see who is who in this picture. Hopefully Mark will send me some names... It's nice to see who you are doing business with.

Marks Comments:

From Left to Right:Tania (intern from Germany), Kendall Rush, Mary Smith, Carla Cromwell, Ron Eggler, Dale Gercken, Mike Risdon, Yurika Koroki, Julie Krol, Benita Huggins, Scott McInnes, Kerry Turtle, Brent Johnson

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com/

DVDNow WebArt, etc..Kiosk Art

Mark Rudolph from DVDNow has been gracious enough to send me all kinds of DVDKiosk Art. I thought it would be appropriate to add it to this blog so that all of you can load it and use it. As always, Mark is there for all of us Kiosk Owners. Many of you maybe don't know who he is, but he's been instrumental in our business. DVDNow is very lucky to have this guy. Anyway, that's my two cents... Here's the ART.

Sincerely,

Mike Weiland

http://readydvd.com

DVDNow Case Sticker

DVDNow RFID TAG'S WITH WARNING

DVDNow KIOSK WITHOUT LARGE SCREEN ON TOP

SLOT INSERT AT READYDVD

Inside of our case on the left side

Game Questions for DVDKiosks

Another new thread that we haven't touched yet. I don't rent out games because there are just too many games out there. The cost, the game type and age appropriateness. There are so many factors to look over in the game rental business that I'd love to know who is renting the games successfully. Diane also has a great question for someone that's renting them.

diane said...
HI, I have the opportunity to put a kiosk in a mall but with DVD games not movies. Anyone got any comments regarding whether this is a good idea or not?
October 27, 2008 5:25 PM

Ingram Video or VPD Questions

chuck said...

My name is Chuck Newton and the name of our company is DVD Rentals, LLC. We have eight machines currently in operation with six more to deploy. Our machines are located in WI, IL and VA. The machines are located in a large grocery store chain in WI and IL and in a convenience store chain in VA. We use Ingram to purchase the DVDs as they are less expensive than VPD. Also, they are going to begin putting on the RFID tags and load stickers for us. I would love any pearls of wisdom you have regarding advertising as we are struggling with that part.

October 2, 2008 1:29 PM

Mike at ReadyDVD said...

Chuck, about how much money are you saving on DVD's from Ingram. Also, how much would you be paying them for their RFID tags? Are they going to be charging for them to be put on the DVD's for you? Do you have access to a newsletter that you can set up for your customers? We have also recently received a contract with Universal Studios that they want us to sign. Did you get that?

Great stuff Chuck,

Sincerely,

Mike
http://readydvd.com

Mike and Chris,

Ok, have just gotten the approval to announce the following:

-- Ingram is ready, willing and able to put the RFID and load stickers on DVDs purchased from them for $0.29 cents per DVD. You need to provide the RFIDs and Load Stickers.

-- The pricing they have me loaded at is "Margin plus 5%". As an example, pre-order for Dark Knight was $18.92, Hancock was $19.26 and Wall-E was $18.94.

-- You can call Bill Watson, Ingram Sales Manager at 301 490-1166 and he will refer you to your local Ingram rep or if you already know who your local rep is have them mirror my account set up (DVD Rentals, LLC). They are going to treat us a buying group.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Chuck Newton

October 11, 2008 8:19 PM

chuck newton said...

Mike,

Sorry for the delayed response but I wanted to make sure it was ok to talk about my deal with Ingram. Anyway, the pricing is not significantly less although every little bit helps. With VPD we were paying an average of $19.07 and with Ingram we are paying an average of $18.50 or so. Since we have machines in WI and IL, the biggest savings for us is having Ingram put on the RFID tags and load stickers. They are charging approx $0.30 per DVD but we are saving $60.00 per week in shipping costs. If you order more than $25.00 per week, Ingram waives the shipping charges and since they are now shipping the DVD direct to the WI and IL locations, we do not incur the additional shipping charges. So for us, it makes sense. Ingram does not currently have a newsletter but I have mentioned it to them and they are looking into it. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Chuck Newton

October 11, 2008 8:24 PM

Mike at ReadyDVD said...

Hi Chuck,
Where can we get in touch with them? I like the free shipping. That's getting pretty expensive with VPD. Also, do they have all the movies that VPD does? How much do they charge for the RFID tag on the movie?

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

October 20, 2008 7:52 PM

Chris and Jerrae said...

The pricing I got from Ingram was pretty high. Can't remember exactly but it was significantly higher than VPD. Not sure if it's my volume of business vs. that of others.

My name is Chris and my wife and I are putting in kiosk in the Gilbert area of Arizona. Our company is DVD Express and we've had success with getting signed up to advertise on the kiosk before they go into a location.

Does anyone have any input on the types of TV's that work best on the kiosks?

October 23, 2008 7:47 AM

chuck newton said...

Mike and Chris,

Ok, have just gotten the approval to announce the following:

-- Ingram is ready, willing and able to put the RFID and load stickers on DVDs purchased from them for $0.29 cents per DVD. You need to provide the RFIDs and Load Stickers.

-- The pricing they have me loaded at is "Margin plus 5%". As an example, pre-order for Dark Knight was $18.92, Hancock was $19.26 and Wall-E was $18.94.

-- You can call Bill Watson, Ingram Sales Manager at 301 490-1166 and he will refer you to your local Ingram rep or if you already know who your local rep is have them mirror my account set up (DVD Rentals, LLC). They are going to treat us a buying group.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Chuck Newton

Getting Started in the Business Questions

Since there have been a few "getting started in the business" questions, I guess it's time to add a section just for that. In the DVDKiosk business, there are several things that we all want to know before we get into this business. One thing that is going to be impossible to answer is "How much money do you make in this business". Please remember, that I can tell you that I personally make more money than I put into the machines and overall costs. It varies from month to month though. I can't just give you a figure. Remember, takes effort on your end to determine how much you are going to make. There's nobody out there that can give you an exact dollar amount. Also, remember, DVDNow can't give you a dollar amount either. It's actually not legal for them to give you that information. I wouldn't want someone digging into my kiosks giving out information to others either. With that being said, here is the latest e-mail.

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

lbaker2 said...

Hi Mike, Michelle and to all those of the "brotherhood" of the DVD rental business - my name is Laurie. I am located in a small town on the outskirts of Boise, Idaho. (population - approx 15k) Have been doing extensive research, crunching numbers, and spending endless hours during the middle of the night contemplating if the DVD Kiosk rental business is a good fit for me without totally exhausting my children's college fund :) I am close to taking that big "leap" but have a few questions if anyone could help give me a better insight -
1) Return on Investment - could anyone give me an approximation of how long it took before they actually started seeing a profit?
1 yr - 18 months - 2 yrs ?

2)On an "average" -how many movies are rented out a night? (30? 40? 50) as I have no clue what to expect - we have only one grocer in town (Pauls IGA) and one video store (Movie Gallery) --currently no competition with another DVD Kiosk Business model - Pauls probably sees a minimum of 300 customers a day.

3)Are there possibly any hidden fees that I have not accounted for? (accounted for Distributor Cost, cases, tags, liablity insurance, Merchant Account fee, Web service fee, and 10% percent of walk up revenue to grocer. (what about State Business Licensing) - any State or Federal registrations required -any annual fees anyone can think of?

Thank you so much for your time in helping answer a few of the many, many questions that I think of throughout the day. Look forward to future blogging with everyone on site.
Laurie B

October 21, 2008 11:29 PM

Vendors worth Looking Into.

Funny how everyone has been finding this site and getting in touch with us about other sources of marketing. I guess, in my opinion, I'll post anyone that will make all of our businesses grow. If you are one of those people, go ahead and submit your information and we'll take a look at it. If it's something we think will work, we'll post it!

Sincerely,

Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Can I Compete with Redox?

I have recently had several folks call me and e-mail me and ask about competing with Redbox. Although I compete with them on a limited scale, I still do. I have not been affected by them whatsoever. I also look for areas where there really isn't any competition. In Montana, things are quite different than some of the areas in the country. Some of you will probably end up competing with them more than I have to. In Great Falls , MT there are several Redbox stores but they aren't that close to my machines. Also, overall, the price is only off by 99 cents. Big deal, who wants to drive for 99 cents. Anyway, I asked Scott McInnes about DVDNow machine owners and their results with going head to head with Redbox. Very interesting comments coming from the top.. See Below

Oh, by the way, Scott is the top dog at DVDNow... Some of you may have even had the opportunity to speak with him. I very much appreciate his time in answering this question for all of us

Sincerely,
http://readydvd.com


Hi Mike,

I know that you recommend that our owners not try to compete with
Redbox. I know that you've had success by not going head to head with
them. But, some of our other owners do really well when they do go up
against them. Some of our top machines are right in the middle of
Redbox territory. In my opinion, it is possible to go head to head
with Redbox but to do so you need to have aggressive pricing. I was
speaking with one of our owners in Salt Lake City and he does $.99 for
the first night and $1.49 for additional nights. He does very well.
There are positives and negatives to Redbox but in my opinion the
positives outweigh the negative.

The most compelling evidence we see is how much quicker kiosks get up
to a decent revenue level in Redbox areas vs. non-Redbox. Few of our
kiosks in Canada, South Africa, etc... do as well as the kiosks in the
United States. Redbox has done a great job of increasing people's
awareness of the benefits of renting from a kiosk. Now they're popular
to the point where the lineups to use their kiosks are causing people
to seek alternatives to Redbox.

I agree with you that if you're across the street from a Redbox you
can't charge the same as what you could if there was nothing else in
town. But, with the right strategy there is definitely an opportunity
to be successful on Redbox's turf.

YOUR PAY and How to Ban a Problem customer

If you run into any problems with certain customers that try to mess with the system of renting, it's very easy to ban them. Your machine is capable of keeping those problem folks from runing your rental business. I recently received a question regarding this (Thanks Deion). I think this will help all of you that use "yourpay"as your gateway.

Here's how to ban the "problematic customer"
As some of you know, my wife Michelle does most of this stuff for me. She's the brains behind the operation...

Hi Deion,
I will try and write how to list a card as fraudulent in Your Pay. I’m going be mostly memory here, but I will try and get it as close as possible to the real thing:

1) After logging into Your Pay, go to ADMIN on the top menu bar
2) Under Fraud Settings choose ADD/Change Credit Card Number to Block
3) It will bring up a screen : Fraud: Block Credit Card
4) Here you will input the entire credit card number, click the Add Arrows, and then it will drop into box on the right.
5) Then hit “Next”. That will take you to Fraud: Block Name
6) Enter the card holder’s name and “click” it over. I usually enter the name the way it appears in our kiosk software. I also enter it other ways, i.e. if it is listed as Weiland Mike, I will enter it as ‘Weiland Mike’ and also as ‘Mike Weiland’. I don’t know why some people’s names are last/first and some are first/last, so I enter it both ways. ALSO: If the name shows up as ‘Mike A Weiland’, I will enter it in Fraud as ‘Mike A Weiland’ and also as ‘Mike Weiland’. I think there is a help screen you can access for additional pointers. If you do the name, you can hopefully stop the guy from renting if he uses a card different than the one(s) you have already seen.

If you don’t know how to get the entire credit card number (our Connections software doesn’t show the entire number), you will need to find the Order Number of the transaction (either in Your Pay or Connections will have it if the sale is declined) and copy/paste it into YourPay’s “Ticket Only” option that is under POS. We won’t do anything with it here, but if you paste the Order Number there and hit Retrieve Order (or Next, I don’t remember what is says exactly), YourPay will retrieve the order and the entire card number will show there. That is where you can copy the card number and paste it into the Block Card Number when you go back into Fraud Settings.

Give it a try and feel free to email me if you encounter any problems.

Michelle

DVD Kiosk Slot Art for November 2008

Click on any of the images and then save them to one of your folders on your desktop. If you click on them to print after you've saved them, you should be able to tell your printer to print on a 5x7 Format. I use Microsoft Picture Editor to print them out. These are ReadyDVD's selections for the month of November. They did the best at the box office and should be excellent rentals for the month.

QUICK TIPS AND MAINTENANCE OF YOUR MACHINE - CLICK HERE

Sincerely,

Mike Weiland

http://readydvd.com/