They used to be on every High St. Now there’s one Blockbuster left in world!
FOR years it was a Saturday night ritual enjoyed by thousands.
Families, couples and friends would go to their local Blockbuster store and browse the shelves to find the perfect film – before bringing it back and doing the whole thing again.
But now, after a decade of decline amid the rise of online video services, the video chain has been reduced to a single store.
Despite spanning 9,000 branches worldwide at its peak, today the only remaining store can be found in the small city of Bend, Oregon, in America. The store – which credits its stellar customer service for its survival – was left the last one standing after two in Alaska closed their doors over the weekend.
Blockbuster’s demise followed the rising popularity of video websites such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. It has caused the Bend Blockbuster to become such a novelty that passers-by often stop to take pictures. But the store is still going strong – with 10,000 titles to rent for as little as 75p a week and around 10,000 customers.
General manager Sandi Harding said: ‘People drive by and say “Oh my gosh. How are you still here?”’ The mother-of-four, who has worked at the store for 14 years, credited great customer service for their survival, as well as the joy of selecting a film as a family.
She said they also make sure to have the newest titles in stock, as well as classics Netflix does not offer – adding they still get three to four people coming to open accounts every day. She said: ‘ A lot of people ask if we feel threatened by Netflix but we just try to do our own thing. There are customers who have been coming here for years and we don’t just see older people, there are plenty of families who come here to show their kids the Blockbuster experience.
‘And it is still not uncommon to see our parking lot full of cars on Friday and Saturday nights.
‘People also love to come on Tuesday mornings when we bring in all the new releases.’
The first Blockbuster opened in Dallas in 1985, with the first UK store arriving in 1989. The Bend store opened as an independent outlet in 1992 and took on the Blockbuster brand in 2000.
Blockbuster rapidly became a global success story. But customers became exasperated by its late fees – which at one point made up £1 in every £6 made in sales. It was being charged a $40 late fee that spurred customer Reed Hastings to dream up his own firm – Netflix. The website, which started as a DVD postal service, now has more than 130million subscribers and is worth about £130billion.
A further blow was a DVD price war that saw supermarkets and online retailers sell cheap DVDs. By 2010 Blockbuster had posted record losses which forced it to file for bankruptcy.
In December 2013 its UK arm – which at its peak had 528 outlets – collapsed for the final time. Most of Blockbuster’s remaining US stores closed in 2014.
The branch in Bend and others were run under a private franchise agreement and so survived independently. Mrs Harding said there were no plans to close. ‘It’s pretty amazing we are the last store left,’ she said. ‘But we do also feel quite sad because ... it’s the end of an era.’
‘Show their kids the experience’