DISQUS

Inside Redbox: Buy Your Own Redbox (well, almost)

  • Brad · 1 year ago
    At $1 a movie, it's not like there's any room to under-sell RedBox. The only way you could get ahead of them would be if you had better placement of your machines. With RedBox being in McDonalds, super markets, etc I don't know if that's possible. If you could get it to fly, however, I'm sure it'd be a great business opportunity.
  • helpmick2 · 1 year ago
    I live in a small community where the closest redbox is over 20 miles away. I think it would be a great opportunity for someone to place one at the local community store. I remember thinking about investing in one when the commercials were on television a couple of years back.
  • Eric · 1 year ago
    My college has a non redbox rental machine in the lobby of the student union. To the 15,000+ college students that is better placement then in a grocery store
  • Derffie · 1 year ago
    a classic business flaw for redbox... no real barriers to competition... anyone can buy a machine..and by better placement they can cut into redbox's turf
  • daniel · 1 year ago
    you could always rent games for like 2 dollars a day thats something redbox doesn't have.And do this along side of renting dvds.
  • Tim · 1 year ago
    Redbox currently does not offer BluRay or game rentals. I think it would be easy to compete with Redbox by matching the $1/day rental on DVD and offering $2 on BluRay and games. This would give an opportunity for higher revenue.
  • KYJurisDoctor · 1 year ago
    GREAT. Movie previews will be good too if no one was waiting in line!
  • john · 1 year ago
    RENT GAMES!
  • G B · 1 year ago
    Sounds like a great formula for a scam offer. Dangle "potential" profits in front of gullible people. IF it is such a good deal, why isn't the seller doing it? With such cash flow(?), you couldn't pry these machines out of his fingers. And... how did he suddenly end up with 10 machines? What's so wrong with this deal that he isn't profitting from them himself and must "sell" his "money makers"?

    Think about it.
  • Michael · 1 year ago
    @G B: While it is possible that this offer is not legit, it actually looks fairly safe. I think the guy who is selling these kiosks actually owns the "Evobox" brand and is selling the kiosks, brand, and everything.

    He is probably selling because Redbox is way too competitive in this market (Salt Lake City), and he has had no luck on getting good placements.

    A some other comments have mentioned, I think if you could get the right location this would be profitable (like a university).
  • vallen · 1 year ago
    these machines still have to be maintained and stocked, rotated, not to mention you have to have a contract with the distributors in order to get movies on to market, and cheap (little guys dont get price breaks like a larger buyer just look at the mom-and-pop bookstore that went extinct in the 80's).
    Another point is- vending kiosks come in MANY flavors of software and hardware- All of them have glitches aplenty. these could be dated out prototypes, or re-purposed from another use. older kiosk vending is horrid, and lots of people got stuck with $10k boat anchors (See agfa Imagebox- now belly up, and noone will service them.

    It's a Bad move.
  • gadget · 1 year ago
    this is a great money making idea. anyone who bought a evo box shouldnt have any problem placing the machine i have a t least 15 places i could place them now
  • Chip · 1 year ago
    E-mail me with some incentive. The cash is here, but can I make some money, too? Tickle me pink!
  • Me · 1 year ago
    Twice the capacity of redbox? Redboxes hold 630 disks.
  • Harry · 1 year ago
    So you buy one of these questionable kiosks for $7,500 or so (or one from DVDNow for @ $19,500), bust your hump convincing someone to put it in their establishment, then go out and buy 300-500 dvd's from one of the distributors at $5 to $20 a pop to stock it.

    What do you set your price point at? Lessee . . . How about $1 like Redbox? Take about $.05 from that for the credit card processor. Looks like you're making $.95 per rental to me. Of course you're going to be as successful as Redbox with their 8000 kiosks and average about 400 rentals a week, so that makes about $380 from your one kiosk. So maybe you won't be that successful and do a whopping 200/week for $190. Are you SURE that many people will rent from a "me too" kiosk at Lois and Fred's Family Market?

    So maybe they will. You've spent a MINIMUM of $1500 stocking that kiosk with titles that might not rent more than 5 or 6 times. Then next week and every week after that you have to go out and buy maybe 5 to 10 each of 5 to 8 new releases to keep things fresh every week. Lessee, 5*5*$5(minimum, and some of the more popular titles will cost you $18-20) is something like $125. How much did you make on those 200 rentals? or was it more like 16 rentals? How much of the revenue are you sharing with Lois & Fred?

    Then the kiosk goes down. Surely you have the technical expertise to get it running, right? And the time to go out to the kiosk every week to stock it and clear the inevitable jams caused by kids putting foreign objects in the rental slot?

    Yessir, this looks like a REAL money maker!
  • ddthesm · 1 year ago
    This could be profitable.....if it's planned & executed absolutely perfectly and lets say in theory that these kiosks work perfectly. I would think for this much money, no good business person would see it as a good investment, especially from a random posting on craigslist (unless they already have an established business). And the other posters are correct, unless one has a huge amount of cash to invest on top of a huge savings in the case the whole project crashes and burns, this would be a huge risk to any business owner because of restocking and maintenance.
  • Bert steele · 1 year ago
    I work on a major army base (FT Campbell) and they have thier own machines, granted they are a lot slower and have less selection they beat the heck out of the local rental stores. So I would think if you don't have red box then the next best thing would be the best thing going.... just my thoughts
  • Ed · 1 year ago
    At this time it would be difficult to compete with Redbox and Dvdplay
    if they keep giving out promo codes. When the machine goes down you have to give refunds to everyone or you lose business. A tech told me in some areas people jam the machine then claim it was out of order when they tried to return the DVD so they pulled the machine from that location. Who has time to go out to fix it at about $50/hr or is your time free.
  • Giovanni · 1 year ago
    Looks like his website is back up:
    http://www.evobox.com/

    Also, here is a mirror site of the same thing:
    http://www.youhavechosenwisely.com/evobox/

    He is also selling the domain name:
    http://www.who.is/whois-com/ip-address/evobox.com/

    Here is the active trademark (also selling):
    http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/portal/tow?S...

    He also has both EVOBOX (trademark) and Evolution Entertainment, LLC registered in Utah.

    Here is his current contact information:
    Robert Heward
    2250 N UNIV PKWY #48
    PMB4888
    PROVO, UT 84604-7575

    Mobile: 801.319.2033
    Fax: 801.421.2073

    I spoke with him at he is selling for $7,500 each unit; however if someone purchases all units he'll sell the whole business for $60,000. He'll finance with $20,000 down.