News today (April 14, 2008) that Blockbuster has made an unsolicited bid to buy consumer electronics chain Circuit City.
Would it be wrong of me to ask why? Was Blockbuster not finding enough lamers to work in their stores and for some reason assuming that they could just resupply with the employees from Circuit City?
Circuit City has been on the down slope for quite a while. Some might say dating back to their days supporting the original DIVX disc format, but most honest individuals would say far longer than that. Blockbuster has been on a similar downward trend for a quite a while too. Combining the both of them might bring about some synergies and cross marketing opportunities, but the question would remain why?
If I am interested in renting movies would I rather go to Circuit City or Blockbuster? Correct answer: neither. Seriously, I'd rather sit home, click a button on the 'puter or DVR and start downloading. Ok, maybe I'd rather have a disc based copy of the movie, and for that I could see going on the internet and clicking a link to have the movie sent to me. I could perhaps even see driving to a nearby store to buy a copy if I wanted to own it, but would it make a difference to me if I was able to buy some Circuit City products within Blockbuster, or if I could go to Circuit City and rent films from Blockbuster? Probably not.