CANADIAN SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

There are several of you from the Great White North that have started to ask questions regarding things that apply to Canada ONLY. Ex. Credit cards I haven't heard about etc..
If Mark Rudolph or the guys from DVDNow can't answer your questions, or you want to set up a place to ask each other questions, I'll post them here. If they break into different areas, I'll seperate them for you guys.

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Quick Books or Microsoft Money?

Joe Fusco recently e-mailed me and asked a question that I couldn't answer. I left it up to my lovely wife to answer since she does all the hard stuff in this business. Michelle uses Quick Books by Intuit. She has it all set up for our business. Michelle is a CPA for St. Vincent's Hospital and I'm sure glad that she loves to keep track of this business. I think this is the part that would drive me crazy. Our business is set up as an S Corporation. Here's Joe's Question:

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

I was just trying the Quickbooks I have again. Seems the one I got from my friend is a trial and don't work anymore. I been fooling around with both Microsoft and Quicken trials and they all seem to have the same structure. If she can give some insight on to how movies rental and sale income is added, that will be great. I don't want to take up too much of your or her time on this. I do understand the credit and debit part of it all. My problem is where to enter the credits, such as rental income.

I will chose soon between Quicken and Microsoft. Quickbooks is way to much money, unless Michelle says it's worth it. I do have an accountant for the tax part of it all but I like crunching numbers myself.

Thank You

Joe

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