Editorial
Front Page - Friday, October 1, 2010
With more than 25,000 movie titles Video Park offers something for everyone
Erica Tuggle
Stephen Williams is the owner of the Video Park Superstore on Hwy 58. Although the business unexpectedly landed in his lap in 1997, he has turned the store, almost bankrupt then, into a thriving business with over 25,000 titles available in store, special order capabilities for hard to find movies and film titles that can be found nowhere else in town.
- Erica Tuggle
The Video Park Superstore, located on Hwy 58 since 1985, has provided movies for the community for 25 years, but the store was two months away from bankruptcy and on the threshold of liquidation when Stephen Williams took over in 1995. With his experience and perseverance, the little video store with over 25,000 titles still stands and thrives today.
Williams was working at the Video Park on Lee Hwy when a friend called in his help for a video store his aunt had bought on a whim. This aunt was a beautician all her life, but she bought the Hwy 58 Video Park all the same, and after a month called Williams in to fix the disaster it was turning into. The aunt quickly told Williams she wanted out of the business completely and asked him to buy the store from her.
Using traditional genre divisions and alphabetical order on this massive amount of titles, the employees of Video Park keep everything in order so walking to a movie and placing it in a customer’s hand is easy. This, Williams says, is part of the reason the customers keep coming back to Video Park: the human element.
“What we have learned is, first and foremost, the number one thing that our customers want is human interaction,” he says. “They think that going to a computer box and punching in something on the touch screen, if they have problems with their movie and it doesn’t work or is scratched, will leave them basically stuck with it. They can call a 1-800 number and try to get it resolved, but it is usually days before they get someone to fix it for them.”
Williams says in a “need it now society” customers want instant gratification. They want to have their movie on the shelf so they can actually take it home when they have the time to watch it, he says.
The ambiance of Video Park is another reason to stop in. Although, Williams says they began with just black and white photographs of classic movie stars to recognize Video Park’s specialty in carrying classic titles, his customers started bringing in movie memorabilia to donate to the store. Now there are movie themed lunch boxes, statues, plaques, posters and more lining the top shelves of the store.
Video Park carries many foreign films, out of print titles and has kept their complete library of VHS tapes. Williams says the reason they decided to do this is that 50 percent of the movies that have been made have been transferred to DVD and released. This means there is a huge amount of movies that can’t be seen anywhere else besides VHS. This has worked to their favor, he adds, with steady VHS rentals. He says the libraries are always sending students over who need to watch a certain film for class and can’t find the title anywhere else. Video Park also specializes in customer orders, he says, and will order a film for a customer to watch or if a customer would like to own a certain title, they can special order it for them.
Most of the employees of Video Park have been with Williams since he took over the store 15 years ago, and are extremely knowledgeable on all the movies. This allows them to steer their customers away from the movie duds.
“That’s something we feel we have the advantage over, say, Redbox or Netflix because you can’t actually get a human to say ‘Don’t get that, it’s no good,’” he says.
Williams says the money that Video Park makes stays local instead of going to a huge corporation. They donate to Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army and local ball teams and “have just basically made our customers our friends.”
Williams says at Video Park, he is aware when his customers have a sickness in the family and when customers come in and explain an emergency situation, he will work with them.
“That personal touch, I have found, it really means a lot to people. If they have a problem and they can come in and you give them a break, a lot of times they feel like that is something they can’t get just anywhere,” he says.
Video Park is now planning for their own Web site that will allow visitors to research movies, check out the newest releases and browse the entire Video Park inventory online. They are hoping to have the site up by the beginning of next year. Until then, Williams and the Video Park crew will be in the store, providing more movie titles than you’ll know what to do with.
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