A rental shop is a store where a consumer can hire reusable products for a certain period of time before returning them.
Typically, a customer must sign up for an account with the shop and give billing information like a credit card number. If items are returned late, the shop usually charges late fees, which typically accumulate day by day. Some shops now have policies where instead of late fees, they will treat overdue items as a sale after a certain date, and charge a price equivalent to a standard sale of that object (with appropriate deductions for the rental fee already paid and for its pre-opened condition).
The most common type of rental shop are video rental outlets, offering primarily movies. Many such rental shops also offer music or computer games as well.
Many motion pictures that do not perform well in movie theatres depend on the rental market for success, and some movies are released direct-to-video.
Blockbuster Video is the largest and most popular video rental shop in the United States. Movies Unlimited, the first video rental shop in the United States, opened in 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Some video rental outlets use a kiosk or vending machine to dispense and collect rentals.
Other types of rental shops include car and truck rentals, construction and heavy equipment rentals, sporting goods and recreational rentals, and costume rentals.

Video rental
Until 1998, movies were released in three phases: theater, rental, retail. There would typically be a two to three month delay between the time a movie was available for rental, and when the movie could be purchased by the consumer. (In reality, the video was available, but priced between $75 and $125). This started changing with the advent of movie release on DVD. Blockbuster video refused to use the VHS strategy for DVD, so the studios began releasing DVDs at an initially lower price. During 1998, retailers would have the DVD version of a film available for sale the same day the VHS version was available for rent. This later changed, with release dates for VHS and DVD coinciding.