Pandemic boosts interest in video sales, rentals for Vancouver store

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It looks like a low-tech blast from the past has become popular again during the pandemic, according to one Vancouver video store.

R.J. Rudd, the owner of Video Cat on Cambie Street, recalls a mad scramble early on in the pandemic as people rushed to stock up on entertainment.

“While they’re like, ‘Well what are we going to do besides watch movies?’ They just didn’t know what else to do so you got to try and keep yourself entertained,” he tells NEWS 1130.

“As to why people continue to do so, I noticed that there’s definitely a shift into catalogue films rather than new releases because, obviously, a lot of new movies are not even really a thing anymore. I am still bringing in new stuff but people have been going into the classics. A lot of stuff is not available on streaming sources.”

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He says classic movies are the ones he tends to restock the most, and the customers are often students or people who have moved to Vancouver recently.

“[They] really like coming to a video store either because it’s something that they’ve never seen or haven’t seen in a really long time, and they just think this is a really cool resource,” Rudd adds.

While it seems sales had been easing up since the beginning of the pandemic, Rudd says people are still coming in to pick up a flick.

“Honestly, the sales are definitely what carries a lot of the time – the people buying movies, and there’s a lot of people consistently doing that on a regular basis,” he says.