choicesuk - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

Is there any future for DVD rental companies? Yet another UK firm, ChoicesUK, is about to call in the administrators, having previously complained about the threat of piracy in the entertainment industry, along with ‘unseasonably hot weather’.

While piracy may have played a role in the company’s demise, it is more likely that it has been ground down by pureplay online DVD rental firms, including one operated by mighty Amazon, which launched its service in late-2004. For starters, online DVD rental pureplays have much lower overheads than ChoicesUK, which seems to have been strangled by the costs of maintaining 170 shops and 1,800 employees.

But hold on. I’m starting to wonder whether the pureplays themselves will last the distance, in the face of changing consumer behaviour.