Redbox Quitely Testing Hand Gun Kiosks

April 1st, 2008 Davis Posted in Kiosks, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix |

After pulling their R rated movies from all McDonald’s locations, Redbox has come up with a creative solution for filling the inventory void left behind. Instead of stocking their popular Redbox kiosks with more G rated movies, they’ve decided to jump into a new market and will begin renting 9mm hand guns at their popular $1 per night price point. In a statement to the Inside Redbox blog, Redbox PR spokeperson Tommy G describes the program as a way to make Redbox customers feel safer at some of their “rougher” Redbox locations.

“with recent reports of violence at some of our ‘rougher’ locations, Redbox wanted to help ensure our customers’ safety so, we added this option in some of these areas to test out the idea. It is unfortunate that this customer found out about this before it was ready to be released to the public. Rest assured that we are doing everything we can to make our customers’ experience at Redbox the best it can be.”

It’s hard to know how popular handgun rentals will be, but if Redbox has success with the program, I bet we’ll see Netflix work out a loaner program with the post office to compete.