The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymous Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and The Attachment Parenting Blog, discussing topics of interest to parents. Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs.

Blockbuster swings to profit! Who'd have thought it?

In the age of video on demand, advertisements touting that Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has rented over two billion movies, the pervasiveness of peer to peer (p2p) networks, and the general drum-beat of the demise of video rental, today's earnings report from Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) is a shocker:

"Blockbuster Inc., swung to a first-quarter profit amid prior-year termination fees as domestic same-store sales grew for the first time in five years, though total revenue fell amid a decrease in company-owned stores."

The domestic Blockbuster results -- which have improved for the first time in the last five years -- were driven by a 20% jump in same-store merchandise sales.

Not rentals. Not through-the-mail rentals, even. By in-store merchandise sales.

Which makes sense. Nowadays if you want to buy a DVD and you want to get it now, where do you go? Wal-Mart or Target? Or Blockbuster, where they always seem to have things on sale because they're selling lightly used rental disks for $5-$8/each? (heck, I've bought DVDs at Blockbuster for $1.99, which is cheaper than renting the movie for a week!)

Anyway, fascinating news. Thoughts?

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