An SEC filing has revealed the Blockbuster is closing almost a thousand of its stores by the end of 2010. Blockbuster is shuttering all locations that are not profitable, and may even close 275 to 300 additional stores that are subject to the company's "lease mitigation/termination efforts." The company hoped to bump profits from $10 million a year to $60 million.
The future for Blockbuster: Kiosks. The company believes Blockbuster kiosks are the means to profitability: By mid-2010, it hopes to have 10,000 kiosks available to compete with Redbox.
The forces of The Marketplace forcing the yellow and blue behemoth to close the doors of retail outlets is hardly surprising. Netflix is simply a better business model for consumers -- not only is it convenient, Netflix also offers a nearly limitless number of DVDs-- much more than your local Blockbuster could compete with. Of course, Blockbuster's online rental service is, by and large, the same as Netflix's, but Netflix started up more than ten years ago, and Blockbuster is relatively late to the party.
It's strange to me, actually, that Blockbuster has 6,000 or so stores still operating at profit. Who still goes to Blockbuster? Seriously, what's the draw? Terrible selection, having to deal with the employees of Blockbuster, and the inability to rent pornography! What's the draw?
Do you still use Blockbuster? If so, why?
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MeisterShane
Anybody that still goes to Blockbuster is living in the past.Ever heard of Videos on Demand by your cable company.Enough said!!!!!!!
partyboy8967
@g4tv i think you are a little to optimistic about netflix i dont know one person that uses it i really dont see what the big deal is about going to block buster. As a matter of fact im going there later to get need for speed shift and the block buster i go to had a very nice staff and i never have any problems. Netflix is nice but i still perfer to go to the store and grab a movie instead of paying a monthly fee. netflix would be nice if you constantly rented movies but for me who is a person that rents once in a while it just doesnt seem that cool.
Velocity2k
What's the draw? Well, it may surprise you to know that not everybody has a computer with internet access, and a lot of people are still old fashioned when it comes to renting videos. I live in an apartment; A dvd mailed to me won't fit in those tiny apartment mailboxes. Most people I know abandoned Blockbuster, not for Netflix, but for RedBox. $1 per night: you can't beat that!
jml191
I will agree though Blockbuster is run by complete morons, but it would be sad to see the company go under. but there is some bias in my last post, 10 free rentals a week (including games) will do that :)
jml191
Hey I work at a still profitable Blockbuster in Canada, and while I understand Where you all are coming from, I don't understand all the hate. our selection isn't that bad and I know that, well at my location at least i'm sure that they're all different, we have a pretty knowledgeable staff when it comes to both movies and games, in fact I can get penalized for NOT renting at least 3 titles a week. Netflix never really took off here (I guess people want to see their movies right when they pay for them) and I don't even know what redbox is. The staff at the stores usually responds in kind to customers, we're used to people trying to scam us and trust me the 10'th person saying "this movie didn't work I want a different one" or some crap gets old (and extremely annoying) real quick. I was a regular customer well before i started working there, and I could not even fathom using a subscription service like netflix for my movies, I just prefer being able to see and touch the product before paying, and I am able to talk to people about the movie before getting, it's just more personal than reading an online review. Blockbuster gets unfairly bashed in the states and I'm tired of it. BTW Blockbuster USA declared bankruptcy protection, nor outright bankruptcy, and up here in Canada almost all Blockbusters remain profitable and netflix bombed,
mOnTi
Never Rented At Blockbuster And Never Will. So Yeah!
pipspoolcleaning3
i had a game pass there when I was in college because I lived within walking distance but after a while their selections realllly sucked. I mean one copy of AAA titles a week late. come on. it became impossible to find anything unless you camped out all the time waiting for the perfect moment to rent. needless to say I quit and moved to game fly. I live in the same city as one of its locations and I get the games the same day of release. very nice.
Arguello
So I totally work at Blockbuster, and I don't think any of my customers mind "dealing" with me at all, as far as terrible selection goes we are just small stores and aren't warehouses like Netflix, so I'm sorry that your four year old can't watch the one copy of the Ducktales movie that exists. Sorry you have had bad experiences with the Blockbusters around you, but don't take that out on all of us.
While I have heard of other things Blockbuster plans to do some new things in the near future, I haven't heard a single thing about kiosks yet.
mp1289
DUDE!!! Blockbuster doesnt charge extra for blu ray which is a big plus. i only pay $4 a month to have it by mail. I get two blu rays every month, i would have to pay $6 to have the same plan on net flix....If want i can also return both of those two movies to the store and exchange it for another for $2 per blu ray. So i can get 2 to 4 blu rays every month for two dollars each without the pressure of returning them to get another like the higher plans. To rent an HD payperview movie on dish network i have to pay $7 dollars or $6 dollars on the ps3 and most of them are not 1080p. So blockbuster has the best HD deals!!
Even if you still watch dvds, it has the lowest plan...which is $4 dollars unlike $5 dollars from netflix...Blockbuster deserves more credit.
qubert
So yeah I still use blockbuster, but I do blockbuster online. I do use the stores because you can take the movies that come in the mail and exchange them for ones in the store. In addition, each month I can rent a game for free. If it weren't for the free game I'd switch to netflix since I have an xbox 360 and would like to use my console to view movies.
Duskulblaka
That's sad. I think the one near my house was closing. If me and my friends were sitting around and decided to have a movie night we would go there and just rent like 5 movies at a time. Maybe it's just because I don't know much about Netflix, but I don't think you can do things like that with them.
cesar_124
I only go to a blockbuster to rent a game if there is a game that I wanted to buy but didn't have the funds to buy. The blockbuster by me smells like BO and the employees are over wieght, rude and look really bummed that they need to work at blockbuster.
Chessrook44
What's the draw? Not having to wait for your movie to come in the mail.
Train316
I've been a loyal Blockbuster customer for over 10 years. And I'll stick with them. As far as Netflix goes. It's overrated and overhyped. If I'm right they charge more for Blu-Ray rentals. Tivo offers Netflix right now. But that might change soon. I love the total access online service. With some movies it's a long wait for them. However I can rent more DVD/Blu-Rays compared to the store. As far as games go. I'll rent games every once in awhile. And I'm more of a Gamefly user too. I've had Gamefly for almost 3 years. And I love it so much. You can rent Next Gen games along with some of the older games too. Furthermore you can also get Playstation Network cards at that store too. I'll get them all the time if I need to buy some cards.
Point is I'll stick with Blockbuster till the end. There are about 4 Blockbusters in my area if I want to chose to rent something. Some of them might close infact one of my location closed last year I think. Hopefully Blockbuster will adjust with the times and still stay a strong company.
Bonzoso21
I was a manager at Blockbuster for over 5 years up until '07, and even when I worked there and got up to 5 free rentals a week, I didn't use them very often. During my time there it was obvious even the top dogs in the company didn't even know what direction they wanted to go. They knew the online competition of Netflix and Gametap were eating into their marketshare, but their attempt at rolling out GameRush was a complete joke and they pretty much abandoned there committment by the end of the first year. And the amount of time it took them to decide to offer online delivery and in-store return was pretty laughable. Frankly, I'm surprised they managed to hold on to the brick-and-morter model for so long. People just don't want to have to go out and deal with limited selection, long lines, and irritating customer service anymore, and there are enough options that they don't have to. Since leaving in March '07, I have rented just 1 movie outside of XBL/PSN.
vferg
More of the older generation along with people that still like to rent games seems to be the market. Older people never like to change what they know works and for them this does the job just fine still. Still I cant wait for these stores to close for good and in 10 years recall how I used to have a job at that place we used to call Blockbuster at some point in my early life. Ha, the good old days.
jdiggitty
I quit using Blockbuster over a year ago. I had their online service and it was great at first. Then they seemed to change their rental policy every other week. The last straw for me was when they quit shipping movies in your queue until in-store rentals were returned. This effectively cut my available rentals by 3/4, so I switched to Netflix and my local hometown store. Much happier.
Frankly, Blockbuster is so poorly managed I can't believe they have survived the last 5 years.
Hauntlink
as an employee of a independent movie store, this is great news to me, my store is located near 2 blockbusters 2 miles apart and it closing close to 1000 stores its awesome, we have been struggling for the past 2 years (we went down from 5 stores to now 1) and this is going to be a great buisness
buiman11
Well, I look at Blockbuster as a good/bad. I guess I like walking into my blockbuster for the heck of seeing what goes there, my neighborhood video and game rental shop. I go there to rent video games really, because I don't have much patience for movies really. So I guess that says it all. I used to have a Hollywood Videos here across from them, but they closed down. I used to even love going their for their 64's, but that's all different now.
duncanato
FINALLY!
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