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Jackie Fischer needs a kids movie.

Jim Harrison , manager at Front Row Video in Browns Summit, jumps into action.

He comes out from behind the counter, scans the aisles and picks out a Jerry Bruckheimer flick starring a team of secret agent guinea pigs.

"Ah, there's 'G-Force,' " he says. "Very popular."

He also throws in a few recommendations for the grown-ups.

"If you liked 'Taken,' you'll like this," he says, grabbing a copy of the revenge picture, "Law Abiding Citizen." "It'll be one of your favorite movies."

That's why Fischer comes to Front Row Video. Redbox and Netflix may be convenient, Fischer says, but "they don't have Jim."

Still, Harrison is becoming something of an endangered species.

Front Row Video, along with Cheap-O-Video, Video World and Video Review are among the handful of independent video stores left in and around Greensboro. And as the Redboxes, video-on-demand and Internet movie subscription services have proliferated, even chains such as Blockbuster are taking a hit.

Be Kind, Rewind

A sign reading "Be Kind, Rewind" is still posted near the cash register at Cheap-O-Video. Along with its DVDs, the store retains a large selection of VHS tapes, making it even more of a rarity among its video store brethren.

The place, a few blocks from the UNCG campus, has a sort of tattered charm to it -- worn out red carpet, a cardboard Elvis in a gold lamé suit, a placard warning any would-be robbers that "This Store is Insured by Smith & Wesson."

Richard and Celeste Hamilton opened the store in 1998. Richard had been working at Guilford Mills and saw a number of people get laid off.

"They were making cuts and I thought, I've got to get into something," he said. "So I started putting my money away. And I saved about $5,000 and said, 'Well, maybe a video store down here near the college will be good.' "

At its peak, he said, the little store was raking in close to $500,000 a year. He didn't say exactly how much revenue the store is making now, but it's "nowhere near $500,000."

He was able to compete easily with the big chains, he said, because he charged less ($2.50 a movie for two nights) and was able to take advantage of the college crowd. Each year, he'd have a whole new group of people sign up for memberships.

"It just kept building and building and building the first four or five years," he said. "We used to have two people working all shifts. But then Netflix, video on demand, all those things came into play and took my business away."

He still got many college students through the doors, but when a Redbox machine was installed at a Walgreen's across the street from campus, it killed off a big chunk of that business.

Mom and pop shops

The first video rental store opened in Los Angeles in 1977. The place, called Video Station, boasted 50 titles on VHS and Betamax, and charged $10 per night to rent a movie.

The industry expanded rapidly in the 1980s with video rentals cropping up not just in standalone locations, but also in places such as gas stations, grocery stores and tanning salons.

"It was an ideal thing for a mom and pop," said Don Mazzella , who helped produce several conventions for video dealers in Las Vegas in the 1990s, and now works as COO of management and marketing firm Information Strategies. "A lot of people made money. What did it take? It took shelving. The studios provided all your decorations, like the big posters. You could start with $6,000 to $3,000 deposit for the rent, and $3,000 for the inventory. You could coin money hand-over-fist."

By the mid-1990s, however, mom-and-pops began facing intense competition from chains suchh as Blockbuster. Though the chains often charged higher prices, they also let customers keep the movies for a longer period and had a wider selection.

The industry was also undergoing a big change in its distribution system.

Up until the late 1990s, new release tapes could run upwards of $100, and were generally not made available for purchase by the general public. A few exception were children's films and the occasional box office hit such as "Jurassic Park" or "Batman," which retailed for about $24.95. Many a renter, veteran video clerks say, were stunned at the charges they were hit with when they reported a new release as lost.

"It used to be the public had to wait six months before they could buy a new release," Hamilton said. "If you came in at 2 or 3 in the afternoon the day a movie was released, you were too late. They were all gone, all rented. But, now you can go to Walmart and buy a DVD for $14 on the day it comes out. That took a lot of business away."

Netflix was introduced in 1997. For a monthly fee, subscribers could receive anywhere from one to eight movies at a time by mail. It now also offers Internet streaming (at no additional charge to its subscribers) on a number of titles.

Redbox was started in 2003 by a subsidiary of McDonald's and allows users to rent movies from vending machines for $1 per night. It has spawned a number of similar services, including a vending machine effort by Blockbuster.

According to the Entertainment Merchants Association, the number of rental stores in the United States declined from about 21,000 in 2006 to just more than 14,000 in 2008. In 2004, traditional rental outlets accounted for 92 percent of consumer rental spending. By 2009, that figure fell to 60 percent with subscription services accounting for 30 percent and kiosk rentals 10 percent. By 2012, the traditional outlets' market share is expected to fall to less than half, according to the EMA.

"It's a difficult time to be in the business," Harrison said. "A machine doesn't have to pay insurance. It doesn't have to pay employees. It doesn't have to pay for lights."

Is this any good?

"My favorite movie man, what's going on tonight?" Dwight Wilson, a grocery store worker from Browns Summit, says to Harrison as he walks into Front Row Video.

The evening is a busy one at the store. A popcorn machine is running in the corner and Harrison answers a steady stream of calls from people wanting to reserve movies.

"People like the personal interaction, they like seeing the same person all the time," he said. "They like being able to say, 'Is this any good Jim?' We'll tell them straight up. And they trust our judgment."

At Front Row, new releases are $1.99 a day and catalog titles 99 cents for five days.

"That's about 19.8 cents per day, which actually makes us one of the cheapest places around," Harrison said.

It also helps that the nearest Redbox is about four miles away.

The main advantage a bricks and mortar operation has over Redbox is selection. A typical machine can carry about 200 titles (mainly new releases) as opposed to a store, which may have thousands.

Sybil Bolick, manager at Video World on Bessemer Avenue, said she still gets a number of students from the nearby N.C. A&T campus.

"A lot of times they'll need a movie for class, and can't find it at Redbox," she said. "But we'll have it. They'll say, 'You know, you're the only place I was able to find this title or that title.' "

A store also offers the sort of instant gratification a subscriber service like Netflix (which does have a large selection) can't offer.

"Netflix takes some pre-thought, which is not something kids like to do," said Jeff Green, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based retail feasibility consultant who has done studies on the video store business. "They may get together and decide they want a movie, but they want it now. So they have the advantage of impulse renting with a wide variety."

Still, the picture looks bleak for the bricks and mortar stores, and not just the independents. Last month, Blockbuster announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it might file for bankruptcy. According to a story on TheStreet.com, the company is reportedly $1 billion in debt.

Hamilton said he'll miss the camaraderie when he shuts down. He says many customers will yell, "Hey, it's the Cheap-O-Man," when they see him. He still has his regulars, and even considered lowering his prices, but figured it wouldn't make much difference.

"It's been a tough, tough road," he said. "I just can't charge $1 each. It's been 12 years I've been doing this. I've enjoyed it. We're still hanging in there, we're still paying the bills. But another year, year and a half, there probably won't be enough to keep the lights on."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com