ECHO What’s On editor Hannah Rees spends time at Snips Movies in Bebington
Hannah Rees and Dave Wain at Snips Movies in Bebington(Image: Iain Watts)
“We were way down the pecking order, we were nobody,” says Dave Wain. Dave, 48, from Heswall claims there used to be 60 video rental stores in Wirral when his dad set up his video rental store back in 1995. There were four rental stores in Bebington, where the shop is located – now there are only two left in the whole of the UK.
The rise of video-on-demand and streaming services has seen the decline of physical rental stores such as Blockbusters and ChoicesUK. Despite these types of stores closing around the world, Dave can still be found in his little shop on Cross Lane in Bebington six days a week. Customers can rent any of Snips Movies’ 20,000 films for a set price of £2.50, or take home three for £5.
They can also pop in to buy one of its greetings card or party supplies, which take up the other side of the store. “It’s very dangerous as a business owner to put all your eggs in one basket,” he tells me.
I visited the store on Monday evening and spent time with Dave as he welcomed customers through his door, something he has done since his dad retired in the early 2000s. His dad previously ran a chain of women’s clothing stores from 1976 before changing tack in the 1990s.
Hannah Rees visits Snips Movies in Bebington(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Dave told the ECHO: “1995 was the time when supermarkets were kind of exploding. They were going from grocery-themed places to hypermarkets you know, multi-storey. They were doing clothes.
“So your little boutique clothes shops that existed on a row of shops couldn’t really exist. So come the mid ’90s, we had to think again, ‘what can we do?’ And that was it really. The guy who had the shop adjacent to this, he was a video butcher – half the shop was butchers, half the shop was videos. He retired.
“So we just thought, right, let’s not buy the sausages, let’s buy the videos. So we did. And then we just thought, wait, let’s bin the clothes and let’s have a complete change of business. And so in 1995 we opened Snips Movies.
“I was 18. It was the 1st of August 1995 and I think we rented two films. I think Forrest Gump was the first film that went out. I think that was the biggest film at the time. I still remember the first customer waiting patiently at the door at 10am.”
Fast-forward nearly 30 years and Dave says he rented out more films then he ever has in 2025. He said: “I have a customer here every Saturday morning, my first customer every Saturday morning without fail. [He takes] two trains, one bus, [does a] 30-minute walk from Ormskirk and he is dedicated. Every week he rents six films and he brings them back the following Saturday.
Owner of Snips Movies, Dave Wain(Image: Iain Watts)
“Back in 1995, every single customer was from Bebington. They were in the immediate vicinity of the store. But now it’s not that case. Now there’s hardly any customers from Bebington and they’re all in Liverpool, Crosby, Southport, Ormskirk, Ellesmere Port, Chester, West Kirby, Manchester, Macclesfield, and Frodsham.
“Because they know they can drive here, rent three, six, nine films or whatever, then take their time. The principle is just enabling people to have a broad spectrum of films to watch and not this tiny, tiny little fraction that streaming allows us to watch at a cost.”
One of those customers is 28-year-old Georgia, who travelled from over the water to rent a new selection of DVDs. Georgia picked horror movie The Blob, political thriller Conclave and three other films.
She told me she heard about Dave’s store through a friend and has visited since September last year. She said: “I love watching films. I was kind of in a rut with streaming, it was too much choice and streaming services cost so much.
“So I was running out of things, and my friend said ‘get over to Snips it’s really, really good’. I’ve been coming every week.”
Dave tells me that his demographic has changed through the years and he welcomes a lot of 18 to 35-year-olds, such as students on film courses at local universities and colleges.
Hannah Rees and Dave Wain at Snips Movies(Image: )
Dave said: “How as a student do you subscribe to six or seven different streamers? It’s impossible. You can’t do it. The money isn’t there. And even working class families, how can we subscribe to that many streamers? We can’t. But here, of course, there’s no subscription.
“You just literally pay as you go. If you want to rent three films a month, it’ll cost you £5. If you want to rent three films a week, then it’s different. It’s enabling people to see stuff that ordinarily they might not be able to see for a decent price.
“It’s looking back at a century of cinema as well. I’ve got films from 1913, so we’re straddling 110 years of cinema. You’re looking at different cultures, different countries.”
During my visit, I’m sat next to the world cinema section which has films from Austria, Japan, Hong Kong, Belgium, and more. It’s something “we just can’t get that on streaming,” Dave tells me.
As he shows me around his store, we look at categories put together by types of directors and film labels. It is a film fan’s dream, there’s even Czechoslovakian new wave film section, if that’s what you’re into. There’s a children’s section, new releases and a small room dedicated to horror films hidden away at the back. He believes it’s this range that has kept the shop going.
There’s also a wall filled with hundreds of CDs, but these aren’t for sale. “It keeps me entertained, I’m here 50 hours a week,” he says.
When asked whether he has a particular favourite film, given he is surrounded by thousands, Dave says he could never choose one. The 48-year-old said: “I always say my favourite film is the next film I’m going to watch. That’s the excitement, taking a film home that night, it could be the greatest thing you’re ever going to see in your life. There’s always something new.”
He added: “I have never worked a proper job in my life because it’s fun. I speak to people, customers come in every day, and they hate going to work. We need to work to live, but so many of them are in jobs that they really don’t like for many, many reasons and I’m so, so fortunate that I literally roll out of bed every morning and look forward to coming into work because it’s a dream job.
“It could not be better. Every day is different. Every day you’re speaking to different people, you’re talking about films. New films are coming in, new films are going out and it’s just fantastic. It is absolutely the greatest job I could possibly imagine and I’ve done it since I was a kid.”
More information on Snips Movies can be found on its Facebook page.