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Friday, October 11, 2002
DVD rental store hits fast-forward
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||
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Also on this page: EVERYDAY ENTREPRENEURS Maine's small businesses | |
BRUNSWICK — Picture a little book shop with leafy green houseplants atop the bookshelves and a comfy sofa to sit on while you chat with your friends about what you like to read. But then picture those bookshelves lined not with books but with DVDs, everything from black-and-white classics, to independent and foreign films, to the latest Hollywood blockbusters. And when people plop down on the sofa, they discuss their favorite movies — with Bart D'Alauro, 29, and Greg Morris, 26, the movie lovers who own Bart & Greg's DVD Explosion! This month-old, offbeat video-rental store on Maine Street is pursuing the unusual strategy of carrying only DVDs (digital video discs). It is a little, independent, mom-and-pop style operation competing in a marketplace dominated by supermarket-sized video chain stores. Bart & Greg's DVD Explosion! is modeled on the former Matt & Dave's Video Venture, a funky, independent video store on Maine Street that a chain swallowed four years ago. And already, Bart & Greg's folksy approach seems to be building a customer base among people looking for a movie store that's not too big and impersonal, and that offers more than the usual roster of titles. "I think the selection is better here," said Peggy Luke of Topsham, who was at the store with her two little boys. "We're so excited because we loved Matt & Dave's." While she perused the shelves, her boys were enthralled by a large, talking action figure on the checkout counter that was based on a character from the science-fiction film "Battlefield Earth." D'Alauro said that movie is "so bad it's good." In the background, a DVD of "The Third Man," a 1949 black-and-white thriller starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, played on a large-screen television set in front of the couch. "You definitely get a feeling you're walking into a happening place," Luke said. D'Alauro and Morris opened the store at the Tontine Mall on Labor Day. The mall itself is small-scale and friendly. It houses a collection of mostly small, independent businesses. Brunswick, which is Morris' hometown and the place D'Alauro settled after Bowdoin College, is a good place to have an independent video store, they said. Local residents include college students and faculty, and military families from the Brunswick Naval Air Station. That diversity produces a wide range of interests, a natural fit for a quirky movie store. "I really like to support businesses that are local," Luke said. D'Alauro and Morris had hoped to have as many as 500 customers by Christmas and are almost there now. The DVD-only policy may seem like a gamble, but D'Alauro and Morris believe the new technology is the wave of the future. Consumers have embraced DVD players more readily than other electronic devices, such as cell phones and personal computers. In the first half of 2002, DVD sales and rentals of Hollywood films accounted for $2.6 billion — nearly as much as the combined revenue of $1.7 billion in theater and $1.6 billion video for the same films. On a recent afternoon, several already-devoted customers dropped by the store. Among them were Teagan Wright, 17, and some of his friends from Brunswick High School. Wright, who visits the store just about every day, said half of the $90 paycheck he was waving would be spent on DVD rentals. This day, he sat on the couch discussing movies with Morris. "The personal interaction is really a big thing for me," Wright said. "We bond over our love for movies." Morris and D'Alauro have loved movies since childhood, but both say it was the eclectic mix offered through film showings at Bowdoin College that turned them on to the wide variety of films out there. "I saw loads of movies I would never have been exposed to," Morris said. They also both worked at Matt & Dave's, where they increased their knowledge. Matt Cost, who owned Matt & Dave's with his brother for eight years in the 1990s, said that Morris and D'Alauro were so devoted to film that when new videos arrived at the store each Monday, they'd spend hours after work watching six or seven of them so they'd be able to talk to their customers about them on Tuesday. But both Morris and D'Alauro said they became disillusioned after the store, with a library of 10,000 films, was sold to large out-of-state corporations. The Costs first sold it to the California-based Video City, which had been talking about opening a store in town. Later, Video City went out of business, and the store was bought by Movie Gallery, one of the largest video chains in the country. A large Movie Gallery store about a block away is Bart & Greg's closest competition. After leaving Matt & Dave's, Morris worked at Videoport, a successful independent video store in Portland. D'Alauro went to a New York City video store. Later, they decided to set up their own store. They scraped together the money from savings and family. They set up a storefront and purchased 1,600 DVDs, the first installment on what they hope to grow into a 10,000-DVD library. They keep the operation low-budget. Marketing consists largely of flyers distributed around town and word-of-mouth about the store, its prices and imaginative specials, such as rolling dice on Thursdays to determine how much a second DVD will cost. Morris and D'Alauro run the store themselves, from 9 a.m to 11 p.m. seven days a week, with only help from D'Alauro's girlfriend, Michelle Lisi. The hours aren't onerous because they love movies, they said. "Neither of us is interested in business. We're not interested in making money and success," Morris said. "We're just doing this out of necessity because no one else is doing it around here." Beth Murphy, staff researcher, contributed to this story. Staff Writer Tess Nacelewicz can be contacted at 791- 6367 or at: tnacelewicz@pressherald.com
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