Over the past  few decades, Blockbuster video has been a household name for most people, and it has been the place to go for a movie rental for as long as many of us can remember. However, lately they've been taking a real beating, losing market share to businesses  like Netflix and Redbox. In fact, they posted a net loss of $36.9 million in the last quarter, while overall sales fell 22 percent.

Obviously this is a significant issue for Blockbuster, and they are scrambling to save their ailing business model. Their latest move has been to change the return time for movie rentals from midnight to noon. Now I'm sure that this is resulting in a lot of video renters not being able to return their movies on time... so unless you are unemployed, or work close to a Blockbuster and get off for lunch a bit early, then it's going to require waking up early (which I'm sure we all love to do) for an inconvenient extra stop on your way to work.

On paper this probably sounded like a good idea, but upon further inspection and in practice it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the marketplace. These are the type of decisions that will actually run the company further into the ground, rather than help bring it out of the hole.  My wife and I have stopped renting movies from Blockbuster since this change in policy, and it's not likely that we will be renting from them ever again.

Moral of the story:  Think through your business strategy from an outside perspective before executing it.  Your plan my sound good on paper, but if it alienates customers, you're sunk.