Customer profile
What was the name of your video store?
Bucksburn Video
Where was the store located?
Aberdeen, (United Kingdom)
When did you start shopping at this store?
1987
Describe your video store - what did it look like? What were its distinguishing
features?
It was quite small and occupied the bottom half of a two floor building with the top floor as a flat for the owners of the shop. Both walls were from top to bottom and the full length of the shop covered in red plastic shelfs for the videos. In the middle of the shop were about 3 or 4 standalone shelves both sides.
What were the employees and/or owners like, and what kinds of interactions
did you have with them? What particularly memorable exchanges or events
do you remember?
Never met the owners but the people who worked there were people from the local village/town and were all very friendly they were mostly quite old and not really in touch with the movies they rented but would always asked with a nice feined intrest if you enjoyed the movie and what have you.
What other services/products did the store offer besides the rental or sale
of videos? Did this change over time?
One of the coolest things they done were auctions of the large cardboard cut outs as the shop wasnt big enough to put up more that one at a time in the shop front
What video formats did the store offer (i.e. VHS, Beta, Laserdisc)? Where were
different formats kept in the store?
VHS was the only format avaiable. so stacked from floor to ceiling all the way round the shop.
In addition to mainstream Hollywood movies, what other kinds of videotapes
(for example children's, exercise, or X-rated) did the store rent/sell? Where were these
videos found in the store, and how often did you rent or purchase them?
Childrens videos were stored in the middles shelves and xrated movies were kept on the very top shelf of one of the walls. My friends and me would constantly point them out and read the tittles but never got round to renting them
Did you tend to rent or buy videos? Why?
Rent the videos the shop never sold the videos for some reason other than x-rentals but some people would not respect the tapes at all so it wasnt worth it.
During the period that you shopped at this store, what changes did you see?
The older classic films got phased out slowly for more space for more current main stream movies.
Is this store still open? If not, when did it close?
Nope it was open for about 20years, it just closed down about 3 years ago.
In your own words, tell the story of your first VCR/video player. Where
and when did you buy it, and why did you decide to make the purchase?
It was my parents VCR it was a top loader VHS the first one i can remember anyway, you would press the eject button and the room would shake!
Did you ever rent a VCR or other hardware (a camera, for instance)? If so,
how often and why?
Nope and Nope