Movie Gallery Reviews

Pros

Loved gettting to know the customers. Made it feel like it was family. You knew when a child was sick or how thier pets were.

Cons

Working ever holiday that there was.It was like a ghost town when all the other stores was closed and you was opened.

Pros

Co-workers were great,
great team environment,
 management didn't act like they were "better" than anyone else and did as much of the "dirty work" as everyone else.

Cons

Store shut down without ANY notice to employees or cutomers.
HIGH rate of turnover/transfers

Advice to Senior Management

COMMUNICATION! Up until the store shut down, employees were always - or at least got the impression that they were - in the loop.

Pros

Family atmosphere, great customer service, work/family balance, bonus structure, benefit package, I was always proud of working at Movie Gallery, location of corp office

Cons

Bankruptcy after Movie Gallery purchasing Hollywood Video, Upper mgmt at Movie Gallery should have closed Oregon Corp offices of Hollywood Video, Hollywood Video acted as if they had purchased Movie Gallery...instead of as a failing company close to bankruptcy that needed bailing out, Hollywood Video had incredible debt (Movie Gallery was debt free at time of purchase) and wasn't making enough money to sustain itself

Advice to Senior Management

I think upper mgmt should have been willing to cut salaries that the company could not sustain after the Hollywood Video purchase, I also think that maintain two corp offices (when the corp office in Dothan was more than capable of running the company cheaper and more effectively) after the purchase was a waste of money

Pros

It was a really great place to work and I enjoyed working there.

Cons

I wish that the company leaders had not run it into the ground.

Advice to Senior Management

Ditch Powerplay!!!

Pros

Great coworkers and decent benefits

Cons

Poor senior management and endless turnover

Advice to Senior Management

pay attention to market trends

Pros

Pay, flexiblity of hours, benefits

Cons

Bad corp decisions. Lack of upper Management support.

Advice to Senior Management

Always support your team

Pros

The team that I was involved in was great! My teammates were great, and my managers were pretty good too.

Cons

Went through many ups and downs and many changes in command. Unfortunately, I feel that many poor (and sometimes outrageous) decisions were made from above during a certain period. It's too bad that changes to put someone who actually knew what they were doing, and actually cared and knew the business happened so very late in the game.

Advice to Senior Management

3 words: First Mover Advantage

Pros

You get free movie and games, you get wind of new movies/games coming out and can snag a pre-order the day it goes out, and you can take home posters and displays when they go out of date.

Cons

Terrible, terrible communication between head office and individual stores (even getting the DM into one of his stores was a lesson in futility), stupid programs that drive away more customers than they bring in, other such nonsense.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of Power Play, it was the nail in the coffin for your business. I had a fantastic store manager who bent over backwards to do every ridiculous thing asked of her by senior management, and she was repaid for her three years of hard work by being fired because "her numbers were too low" (AKA: she didn't sell enough game consoles during a global recession to satisfy head office. Go figure). The benefits were good; walking in on an off night and picking up a good movie for free never got old, but when you weigh that against constantly reordering and reorganizing the entire store every month, dealing with righteously angry customers (who have every right to be angry; Power Play was confusing and convoluted to the point where we had trouble explaining it to customers when it was first released), and a DM who never praised any work done whatsoever; he only ever pointed out each store's shortcomings and threatened to fire people if things didn't improve. I wish that such a promising company had someone capable of running it properly at the helm, but sadly it's a bit late for that now.

Pros

All the free rentals you want, enjoyable co-workers, and I never had a problem getting time off that I needed.

Cons

POWERPLAY! Expected to scam people into autopay subscriptions that they say are easy to cancel but in reality, customers get charged even after they cancel. This isn't the store's fault - it's the idiots down in Alabama that can't seem to get things right! It results in pissed off customers, and this is why they're going belly-up! Worked for the company for 4 years before this program started, and while it may have been a good idea, it was executed all wrong. I used to love coming to work. It was actually fun! After powerplay started, so did the threats! If you didn't manage to scam people, your hours were cut and then you were fired.

Also, the DM and RM SUCK! Never said anything encouraging at all. Just threats!

Advice to Senior Management

Good riddance! What started as a fun place to work turned into a living hell thanks to poor poor DM and RM control! Also, the whole company is run by complete IDIOTS!

Pros

It was fun while it lasted.

Cons

All of the stores are closing. Technology has put us out of a job.

Advice to Senior Management

Closing all of the stores has been one of the smartest decisions the company has made in a very long time. If we can't keep up with the changes in the way people rent movies, then it's time we close the doors.