Anderson Family Video store taps into nostalgia to endure shift toward streaming
On weekday afternoons, Starr residents Zenas and Oliver Todd like to browse the movie rentals at the Family Video store in Anderson.
For Oliver, an elementary-school student, walking along the shelves containing thousands of movie boxes is a subtle memory-making exercise. For Zenas, his father, it's an opportunity to rekindle his own childhood memories of renting movies.
"I started coming here to get movies for the boys. We have fun looking for movies together," Zenas Todd said. "And I like shopping here. I'd rather be able to look around, look at the movies in person."
Plus, he added, "It's a good deal; you can't beat the prices on the kids movies."
The mix of family shopping and nostalgia are key ingredients in the survival of the Family Video store on Pearman Dairy Road, which is thriving at a time when renting at a Redbox or streaming via an internet service are often more convenient.
Manager James Werner said many first-time visitors are pleasantly surprised to discover there's still a video store around.
"There's a nostalgia factor to being in a video store," Werner said. "Ninety percent of those who come in for the first time experience that. There are not many ways to get that feeling, and it takes them back to childhood in some cases, or to a time as parents they brought young kids in to rent a video.
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"A lot of customers tell me about memories of going to a video store on Friday night, renting some movies and taking them home for the weekend. Those are warm memories, and it's great that they can enjoy them again.
"They say, 'I didn't know you still existed, and I'm happy you're still here,'" Werner said. "We get that all the time."
The Anderson store is the southernmost of a chain of video stores that opened for business in 1978, the early years of the video rental industry. It was overshadowed during the 1980s by Blockbuster, which has since closed its doors throughout the country.
Some customers, like Mike Dunn of Anderson, encourage others to shop at the store.
"I want to keep it going. It's a one-of-a-kind place," Dunn said as he returned movies and rented new ones on a weekday.
The Anderson store celebrated its 10th anniversary in February, and Werner said business remains steady.
"I've been here so long, I see some children that came with parents when we opened and they (now) have their own accounts. It's a weird thing to deal with, because I feel like I watched some of them grow up," Werner said. "We've been an established part of people's lives for so long, some are in college that came here when they were in elementary school."
Werner, a Westside High graduate who took radio/television courses at Tri-County Tech, said movies "have always been a big passion for me."
The Anderson store is one of seven operating in South Carolina. That includes stores in Mauldin, Laurens and Spartanburg.
The store shelves get fresh additions each Tuesday, when 20-30 new movies are released for home video.
"That keeps the industry going," Werner said. "People like taking them home a few days, even if they've already seen the movie. People enjoy both. That's what skeptics who thought we'd go away didn't realize."
"Picking out a good movie and taking it home to watch it can change a bad day into a good one," he added. "Everything about our store makes the world better. That makes it a fun place to work and to visit."
The same elements are in play at the Family Video on East Butler Road in Mauldin, where Donna DuPage typically visits each Tuesday for a fresh movie fix.
Along with daughter Karen Crum, DuPage, 85, sometimes waits patiently in the parking lot for the store to open.
“This is the only place close by that you can rent them,” said DuPage, an Illinois native and Fountain Inn resident who makes the 20-mile round trip weekly with her daughter. “I get a lot of movies I’ve seen before, just to watch them again.
“I enjoy a good movie. I used to watch ‘em with my kids," DuPage said, "and now with my grandkids and great-grandkids."
She normally rents four movies at a time, sometimes taking advantage of 10-for-$10 sales, and always enjoys browsing.
She was relieved to learn an Independent Mail photographer in the parking lot was there for a story about the store's survival.
“Most of the video stores are gone. When I saw people here with a camera, I thought maybe this one is getting ready to close,” DuPage said. “I don’t want that to happen.”
The reaction doesn’t surprise Karen Putnam, who manages the Family Video stores in Mauldin and Laurens.
“We get that often," said Putnam, who, at 34, can't remember when video rental stores weren't around. "The customers have seen so many other stores close … and we’re the last one standing, so it’s normal for them to think about it. But we have no intention of closing.”
The Mauldin store has a layout familiar to longtime movie rental fans. The display shelves are designed to make shopping easy and fast for the regulars, but they also inspire nostalgia among new shoppers.
Putnam said it's common to see customers getting sentimental when they visit. “Even today, we had someone come in for the first time who said he couldn’t believe that he had found a video rental store, and that it looked just the way he remembered them looking when he was young," she said.
Among the regulars, shopping habits tend to vary by age. Younger shoppers, who are often looking for Blu-ray products, gravitate to the store because the selection and availability is greater than Redbox. Older customers, many of them former Blockbuster clients, lean more toward DVDs. Both groups like to browse.
“Nostalgia is a very powerful incentive,” said Mauldin assistant manager Howard Quantanilla, a 33-year-old movie buff who took several film courses as a student at the University of South Carolina. “They all understand the convenience of shopping on the internet, but the browsing is an appealing part.”
Follow Abe Hardesty on Twitter @abe_hardesty or email abe.hardesty@independentmail.com