Employee profile
What was the name of your video store?
Bjorn's Disc Store
Where was the store located?
San Antonio, Texas (United States)
When did you start working at this store?
1990
In your own words, how did you get started working in video retail? What
led you to choose the video industry, and this store in particular?
It was simply a job offer too unique to pass up. Bjorn's Disc Store (which is now defunct, although the parent store, Bjorn's Audio/Video exists and is doing quite nicely) was the only place in San Antonio with a huge selection of laserdiscs for sale and rent. It was the one place where a videophile could get films in letterbox long before the advent of DVD. People used to come from all over Texas to buy and rent from us - I had customers from as far away as Norway whom I did business with over the phone. To call it an "experience" would, I suppose, be an understatement.
Describe your store - what did it look like? What were its distinguishing
features?
Clean. Pristine. Organized. Boxey. Not too big, but just big enough.
What were your customers like? What particularly memorable customers or events do you remember?
Electic. Eccentric. Interesting. Informed. Educated. The second question? Geez...I'd have to really think about that one. Probably too many to list.
What was your boss like? How did he or she divide the work in the store?
For a large chunk of my five and half year tenure, I *was* the boss. Things were pretty laid back at the Disc Store. Everybody knew what needed to be done on a regular basis. Fools were not hired.
What video formats did your store offer (i.e. VHS, Beta, Laserdisc)? Where were
different formats kept in the store?
Laserdisc only. (We did also sell compact discs.)
In addition to mainstream Hollywood movies, what other kinds of videotapes
(children's videos or X-rated tapes, for example) did you rent/sell? Where were these
videos found in your store, and how important were they to the business?
If it was on LD, we carried it, regardless of the genre.
What other services/products did you offer besides the rental or sale of
programs? Did this change over time?
Like I said, compact discs. Eventually that was phased out when it became cost-prohibitive and it was LD only. For a brief period of time (after I'd already left the joint) the Disc store went DVD, but that didn't last terribly long once places like K-Mart started selling DVD for so cheap.
Did you ever rent VCRs or other hardware to your customers? If so,
how important were hardware rentals to the business?
No.
During the period that you worked at the store, what changes did you see take place?
Not really that many. One of the interesting things about LDs is their pricing structure never really changed over the years. $30-$40 would buy you a new flick. And because we had no competition, rarely did we have to do anything to attract new customers.
Is this store still open? If not, when did it close?
Well, yes and no. Bjorn's Disc Store is now actually the "Small Electronics" department in the main Bjorn's Store. To this day, they still carry a very small selection of DVDs for sale. Unless I'm mistaken, they only carry Criterion discs - I suppose a holdover of sorts from the days of LD. (Many people have no idea that Criterion is much older than DVD!)