Video rental shop
A video rental shop/store is a physical business that rents home videos such as movies and prerecorded TV shows. Typically, a rental shop conducts business with customers under conditions and terms agreed upon in a rental agreement or contract, which may be implied, explicit, or written. Many video rental stores also sell previously-viewed movies and/or new, unopened movies. In the 1980s, video rental stores rented VHS and Beta tape copies of movies, although most stores dropped Beta tapes when VHS won the format war. In the 2000s, video rental stores began renting DVDs, which eventually displaced VHS. In the 2010s, video rental stores added high-definition Blu-ray disks to their offerings. Video rentals are also offered in other business such as drugstores or convenience stores.
The widespread availability of video on demand on cable TV systems and VHS-by-mail services offered consumers a way of watching movies without having to leave their home. With the advent of the World Wide Web, Internet services such as Netflix have become increasingly popular since the mid 2000s. All of these new ways of watching movies have greatly reduced the demand for video rental shops.
