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How Redbox Uses 2D Barcodes


Have you seen or do you use Redbox? They are the red boxes that look like vending machines but instead of selling candy or soda, they offer DVD rentals. You can find them outside of gas stations, convenience stores, or large retail stores. In a recent excursion to rent Star Trek, I noticed on the DVD that there were two 2D barcodes. Since I'm a barcode nerd of sorts, I automatically began to wonder how the machines use the barcodes to keep the DVDs in order. Redbox machines track small 2D barcodes in center of DVD This is my best hypothesis. Each DVD must be given a unique barcode. When the DVD is put into an empty slot, the machine scans the barcode and associates the DVD with that slot. When the next customer selects that movie to rent, the machine knows from where to pull the DVD. Customers use their credit cards to rent movies, so that if they don't return the DVD on time, their credit card can be charged late fees. The machine must also associate the unique barcode with the customer's account so that the system knows they turned in the movie on time. Since DVDs can be returned to any Redbox machine, I assume that the machines must all be on the same network.
Redbox could also be using the 2D barcodes to keep track of the film's genre and tie that to the customer's account, so they know what types of films that customer rents the most. Since customers must use their email addresses to log-in to rent, Redbox could be preparing an email marketing campaigns that would tailor the message and offers to each customer's film preferences. Targeted marketing like that would take more work on Redbox's part, but those campaigns have been proven to yield a much better ROI. It can also foster more customer loyalty as customers see more value in the offers, don't feel like they're being "spammed", and are convinced that the company cares about what they want. It is strange to think that something as small as those two 2D barcodes on the DVD play such a pivotal role in the success of the Redbox machine. If we didn't get the movie we selected or were charged unwarranted late fees, there's no doubt that we would not be using Redbox anymore.
Does anyone else know or have ideas on how this works? I would be interested in hearing about it. Email me at kcrockett@systemid.com with "Redbox" in the subject line.