Video Ezy
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Image:Video Ezy.PNG Video Ezy is Australia's largest video and DVD rental chain with over 500 stores within Australia as well as over 140 stores in New Zealand and 200 throughout South-East Asia. It was founded in 1983 by Robert Maidment. In the busiest hour on an average Saturday, Video Ezy stores serve approximately 100,000 Australians. Template:Ref
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Competition
In Australia Video Ezy's major competition comes from Blockbuster, Civic Video and to a lesser extent Movies 4U (also known as Top Video or Leading Edge Video). Video Ezy dominates the massive Sydney market. However in other Australian states like Queensland it has a similar number of stores to rivals Civic and Blockbuster.
History
Video Ezy first opened their doors in 1983, opening up their first store in the suburb of Hurstville in Sydney, New South Wales. After setting up stores all over Australia, Video Ezy sought to find other markets.
In early 1999 Video Ezy expanded into the South East Asian market. Many thought the move was too optimistic, claiming that the large industry for piracy would prove to be harmful to their expansion into the market. The first store in South East Asia opened in Bangkok to great success. The scope of the success led the way for over 100 other stores in the area.
Video Ezy prospered on the international stage, now, along with the Thailand stores Video Ezy opened up over 100 in Indonesia, as well as numerous outlets in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji and the United Arab Emirates. Also that year the franchise undertook major changes as DVDs became a part of the Australian home video market.
In late 2000 Video Ezy introduced Ezyretail. Ezyretail is a video store specific point of sale (POS) system exclusively used by Video Ezy. The software was first developed at Video Ezy 's Sydney head office in 1999 by Radek Soucek and Robert Gongorra. It replaced VideoMinder, a then DOS-based system still used by Blockbuster and some older Video Ezy franchisees.
In Australia, however, Video Ezy corporate had struggled. It retrenched many people working in its head offices as the corporate owned stores were sold off in late 2003. The company had originally planned to own dozens of stores in Sydney alone but its expansion never went beyond six stores, including one at Springwood, which is technically not located in Sydney. The only corporate owned store left in Sydney is located below the head office at Rosehill.
In 2003 Video Ezy also went on to market a subscription model with DVD Unlimited a move to meet new consumer demand for DVDs. In 2005 Video Ezy started to a program to intergrate more 'designer categories' such as Eastern Cinema, television series and World Cinema.
Marketing
Advertising campaigns
One of Video Ezy's earliest successful and well known advertising campaigns was launched in 1993. Video Ezy’s Movie Guarantee Get it first time, or get it free saw an increase in copy depth for all major titles with "customer satisfaction reached an all-time high". Template:Ref
Slogans
- "Ezy does it"
- "Get it first time, or get it free" (defunct)
Industrial relations
The company owns Rascalls which is responsible for promoting AWAs and keeping up staff morale. This is done through group training sessions where multiple store staff attend the same session.
Notes
- Template:Note Video Ezy about Video Ezy. Retrieved January 16 2006.
- Template:Note Ibid