2011: Flixbox
July 8, 2024
By AHNZ
Flixbox started up in New Zealand in 2011 with DVD Vending machines which must have worked well because they were prolific in Auckland for about 10 years. Very useful for watching new release movies.
What coincided with their quietly vanishing was not that people stopped wanting them or even that streaming platforms took over. It was the Lockdown of 2020 that destroyed this business. It relied on people being able to move freely, go out, and shop normally. The COVID Panic killed it. Yet another sacrifice on the great bonfire we burned for about 2 years.
Starting out as DVDNow it was the creation of Matt Butler having been inspired by something similar he saw in the USA. The company was Pacman Kiosks Ltd and he sold it on in 2015 long before the COVID Crash.
“Butler founded DVD rental machine firm Flixbox in 2011, he had seen the concept in America when he was 19 and brought the concept to New Zealand through New World and Countdown stores at the time when DVD rental stores first began to struggle. In the end, he sold himself out of the firm and the business has since faded away following the rise of Netflix. The business launched back when Netflix was a small mail-order service” – keaoutdoors.com (2022)
When I traveled through the USA in 2007 I saw the same thing too. It was possible to rent a Netflix DVD in one town and return it in another! Very handy for someone on the move and low overheads that allowed a movie rental business to keep going when the old bricks and mortar stores like Video Ezy were becoming extinct.
Butler’s Flixbox didn’t have the feature of being able to take returns issued from any of its machines like the American counterpart. That was unfortunate for me as a user because many times I have to pass on getting out a movie unless I wanted to return to the same spot to return it the following day. That would usually be Coundown on Quay Street for me which had a good selection but I was seldom there 2 days in a row.
Frequently there would be special deals for getting a free movie that I’d take advantage of. It was part of the fun to let the kids use the machine to pick their own DVD out and watch the little animated WALL-E robot grab the DVD and dispense it.
During the height of its powers it boasted locations the following locations on its website…
- Countdown, Highland Park
- Pukekohe Countdown
- 97 Church Street, Opotiki
- Whangaparaoa Plaza
- Countdown, Point Chevalier
- 40 Hibiscus Coast Highway, Silverdale
- Orewa Countdown
- Caltex, Helensville [Why not the Countdown?]
- Highbury Shopping Centre Countdown
- Ranui Freshchoice
- Te Atatu South Countdown
- Mangere East Countdown
- Quay Street Countdown
- Speedking Laundromat, Green Bay
- Countdown, Sunnynook
- Hunter Plaza
- Pukekohe South Countdown
- Beachlands Karishma Food Market
- Warkworth Countdown
- Papakura PAK’nSAVE
- Meadowlands Shopping Plaza Countdown
- Hauraki Corner Countdown
- Kelstonn Countdown
- Flatbush Supervalue
- Kumeu New World
- Waiuku New World
- Hobsonville Countdown
- Countdown, Meadowbank
- Black Box Pizza, Mangere Bridge
- Countdown, Mount Wellington
- New World, Mount Wellington
- Aviemore Drive Countdown
- Mangere PAK’nSAVE
- Countdown, Barry’s Point Road, Takapuna
- Sunnynook
- Countdown, Northcote
- Countdown, Grey Lynn
- Countdown, Manukau
- Grey Lynn Central Countdown
- Countdown, Three Kings
- Countdown, Papakura
- Countdown, Westgate Shopping Centre
- Countdown, Mount Eden
- Countdown, Pakuranga
- Countdown, Manurewa
- Countdown, Mount Roskill
- Countdown Te Atatu Peninsula
- Botany Downs Countdown
- New Lynn New World
- Countdown, Botany
- Lynfield Countdown
“Welcome to Flixbox, the cooler, fresher reincarnation of DVDNow. You can rent and buy all your new release from any Flixbox you find in your local supermarket. We are a 100% Kiwi owned company with Kiwi values and a Kiwi personality to boot!” – Flixbox (2020)
“Flixbox has installed five machines outside Countdown and New World stores in Auckland and planned more over the next couple of months….In New Zealand, bricks-and-mortar video stores still dominate the market. Gray estimated his company had 5 per cent of custom. Traditional stores are struggling, though. In the past two years, more than 15 stores have closed and revenue reportedly dropped by more than $20 million…Butler said the biggest hurdle had been raising awareness of the concept with such a small number of machines.” – Herald on Sunday (2012)
Many jobs, deals, and firms were destroyed by Labour 6.0’s reaction to the COVID Panic. Those stories aren’t told because the “one source of truth” about that particular episode of mass hysteria remains the mainstream view. Flixbox, like so many other displaced economic entities that were previously viable concerns were swept off the board for political reasons. The storeis go untold. Or, at least will not be told by the present version of Statist history we are still expected to swallow and repeat.
Like Comment Share
