SHOPWORN

Something happened to me the other day, for about the 800th time: I went to my local video store and couldn't find anything to rent. The movie I came in for (Father of the Bride-even a reviewer doesn't catch everything first time out) was rented, so I scanned the store for a second choice. But at the sight of thousands of tapes thrown onto the shelves in seemingly random fashion, my eyes glazed over. There was nothing to guide me beyond the most general sort of genre classifications. I asked the teenage clerk to recommend another comedy, and she gave me For the Boys. So I left. I'm not alone in this, right? Here's the problem: No one's really sure what a video store is supposed to be. Is it a one-stop multiplex in business to offer the latest hit movies? Is it a library loaded with decades of film history? Or is it a retail joint no different from a hardware store? More and more, video-store proprietors are favoring the first approach, allowing a blinkered focus on big new releases-the home-video industry calls it the New Hits Philosophy-to dominate their business. Having only a certain amount of money for new inventory, a store owner will purchase 20 copies of, say, Lethal Weapon 3 rather than 15 copies of that title and single copies of five older or lesser-known movies. But while renters want the latest fashions, if those are sold out, people want more choices and effective ways to be guided to them. In short, they want a well-managed back inventory. And because the store owner hasn't bothered to provide that, consumers simply ask for more copies of new hits. Some individual stores buck the trend. Tower Video, for instance, is one of the rare chains in which the staff seems to know its stuff no matter where the franchise is located. But they're exceptions to the rule. So what can retailers do to become exceptions? A lot. They can: (1) enroll themselves or a staff member in a film-history course; (2) make one of the many movie reference books available to customers; (3) organize the titles in categories or subgroups that let renters know someone has actually seen them; (4) expand customers' knowledge of older movies by tying them in with current events (right now's a good time to put political films like The Candidate, The Best Man, or The Seduction of Joe Tynan in a special display); (5) keep the titles consistently alphabetized; (6) read reviews and watch advance screening tapes-treat the inventory as something more than size-8 eye hooks. Video-store owners need to learn-and teach-more about their products, movies. If they don't, they're in the wrong business. And their customers will realize, as I did the other day, that they're in the wrong store.