Catherine Gillis
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 15/00) - The recent opening of a fifth video store does not have other video outlets in Yellowknife worried about competition.

Superior Video, located downtown, officially opened its doors last December, but the grand opening was on Feb. 26. The Yk location marks the Kamloops-based chain's 20th store opening.

"We feel that there is enough business to go around. We are very optimistic," says Dorothy Kiss, the store's manager.

Besides Superior Video -- and its 6,000 movie titles -- there is also Hollywood Video, Video Headquarters, Videoland and Choice Video in Yk.

Iris Wagner, manager of Choice Video in the Panda II mall, says she's not worried because her business has been around for about eight years and the regular customers are loyal.

Dana Lowton, the new manager of Video Headquarters located on Airport Road, says she's not worried about being squeezed out.

"Personally no, I don't feel that we are in competition with the other video stores around Yellowknife. We have a big selection of videos, and we are a chain company. We have 25 stores running through Alberta and we are soon going to open some up in Saskatchewan."

Robert Hui, who runs the independently-owned Hollywood Video, located downtown, says, "I'm not worried about competition, I have good based customers. And even if there was a little competition it never hurt anyone."

In addition to the five outlets, videos can also be rented from several convience stores throughout the city.

But Donna Crouch, former owner of Really Big Video -- which was located on Airport Road -- blames too many competitors for her failure to survive. Crouch says it is difficult to compete with chain companies when you are running a self-owned business.

"I know that competition is part of the business, but there is not enough market share to go around. I closed the store down on my own terms, before anyone else could come in and tell me what I already knew was going to happen."

Really Big Video opened its doors in July 1995, and was officially closed them on Dec. 31, 1999.

"The fact that we shut down so soon not only hurt my pride, but I was also very concerned about how the employees would handle it. It turns out that they weren't too pleased about it, but they handled it better than I did.

"They helped load everything into the moving truck right up until the last box, and then they took me out for dinner, which I thought was very odd because my store had just been shut down. It was a nice gesture though."