DVD kiosks coming to a grocer near you

ePaynews is carrying this article about the rise of DVD rental and sales kiosks. This comes on the heels of McDonald's successes with trialing DVD kiosks in their restaurants (in some markets):

With major US grocery chains such as Kroger, Safeway, HEB and Publix expected to install DVD rental kiosks through 2007 in a total addressable market with over 20,000 locations, vendors are looking into new technologies and services to retain their competitive position...

DVD rental kiosks can charge nightly rates of 99 cents to USD 1.50 but rental stores can offer customers a wider range of movie titles and space to browse. McDonalds’ Redbox DVD rental kiosk subsidiary, in which US vending firm Coinstar took a stake, currently has the highest profile for kiosk deployments....

It's interesting to see these different kinds of businesses all working to add more services to the product mix in hopes of both luring additional customers and satisfying those already in the practice of using the "traditional" products or services offered by the company. Interactive kiosks, while carrying a potentially high up-front cost (as anyone who has done budgeting for a kiosk project can tell you), can offer the same service day or night, typically without ever having to add on additional staff, making them an attractive option for high-volume locations.