Video Business Retailer of the Year Report

Dec. 17, 2001 issue

Best of Class: Bradley Video
Always searching for ways to improve, and finding them

By Diane Garrett

Bradley Video's steady climb to regional powerhouse is one of the better-kept secrets in the video industry.
The 10-store Northern California chain doesn't grab a lot of headlines, but its financial statistics could put many larger chains to shame. President Bill Bradley projects the chain's revenue this year will average $988,000 per store. That's close to Blockbuster's $1 million store average and significantly more than Hollywood Video's $750,000-$800,000 store average. "That's the number that matters to me," Bradley says. "We just keep going up every year."
By late November, the chain's revenue was 7% up for the year despite a less than stellar October. Bradley expects to major releases in the latter part of this quarter to help gain back some of that lost momentum. The prior two quarters, the chain was running 11% ahead of last year.
"We're slow but steady," Bradley says, proud of how far his business has come in the 17 years since he opened his first video store.
Then a 24-year-old electrician with a love for the movie business, Bradley and his former wife financed the first store with credit cards. The marriage ended but Bradley Video has managed to thrive in the face of intense competition from Blockbuster and Hollywood in the Bay Area. Lately, the chain has been buying store properties to preserve equity and hedge against always-looming threats to the video rental business.
The retailer's steadily improving performance has not escaped the notice of VPD president Tim Shannahan, who calls Bradley "one of the top five operators we do business with today and of all the people we've done business with in the last 20 years." Shannahan lauds the chain's attention to product, customer preferences and employees, calling the stores "everything a retail environment should be."
Shannahan notes that Bradley is knowledgeable about what's going on in the business, and passionate about it as well.
"They're a great example of retail success story: They've battled head-to-head with Blockbuster and Hollywood and gone through the ups and downs of the industry and they've continued to thrive. It's not all by accident."
Bradley's recipe for success is deceptively simple: "We've screwed up a lot of things but we've always taken really good care of employees and paid a lot of attention to customer service," Bradley says. Adds VP Joe Kaminski: "We listen to our customers almost to the point of obsession."
Kaminiski and Bradley glean a lot of information about what is and isn't working on the store level from its mystery shopper program. Any employee who receives excellent ratings receives $20 as a reward.
The chain has also competed by offering product its competitors do not, particularly adult titles, which generate 10-20% of the revenue at most stores. Kaminski takes pride in offering a wide breadth of product, from videogames to adult and gay and lesbian titles. "We carry just about everything that warrants being carried," he says.
The chain has a steady stream of promotions--including Happy Hour on Fridays and Saturdays--although not as elaborate as in the early days, when Bradley once trucked in snow for an event. "Those kind of things are much more easy to manage if you've got a small focal point with a few stores," Kaminski notes.
Bradley believes there's room for improvement at even the mature stores, so the chain continues to move departments around and expand older stores to better meet customer needs. These efforts pay off in revenue, he says.
"What's amazing to me is the older stores are still improving," says Bradley. "It's constant, never ending improvement."