Blockbuster Will Close Up to 960 Stores

Struggling in Face of Competition with Netflix and Redbox, Retail Rental Chain Could Downsize by 22 Percent

(CBS/AP)  Blockbuster is planning to close as many as 960 stores by the end of next year. That would shrink the video rental chain by more than 20 percent as it struggles against stiff competition from Netflix and Redbox.

The store closures disclosed in documents filed Tuesday show that Blockbuster is having to cut much deeper than it anticipated to save money and keep its lenders happy.

Blockbuster now expects to close between 810 and 960 of its U.S. stores through 2010, up from the 380 to 425 stores that normally would be closed. If Blockbuster hits the high end of the new target for store closures, it will represent 22 percent of its 4,356 U.S. stores.

The Dallas-based company has closed 276 stores so far this year.

[ronmeister700]

In San Antonio Blockbuster has a history of severely abusing their employees. Blockbuster management is more concerned with firing strong employees that are highly loyal to save their own jobs. In this process good hard working honest employees have been defamed and lost jobs that were a part of very important wages that help support a family and a household. These employees threaten weak upper managers. Because of nepotism, and internal theft, Blockbuster deserves to suffer financially and have most of all San Antonio District managers fired and replaced.

[falling4u06]

Do you know how much work it is to take all movies from drop box, check all to be sure disks are in there, then stack em to be scanned in, then put them in alphabetical order, then take huge stacks of movies and run them out to floor. All while doing special requests from managers or district managers. Or doing some pulls that HAVE to be done that night. Also helping all customers that whine looking for movies they "returned on time" on the shelve. They put so much pressure on employees at blockbuster, seriously. And we are only human and i bet you are too that we all make mistakes. However with most customers, I would exactly remember when an item was back and a lot try to tell me they returned it on time. Or when we are leaving at the end of the night customers would stop us and try to give us their movies. we would tell them to put in drop box and it will be checked in in the morning. OMG they go nuts! "well i thought you just return it before the day is over and blah blah blah..." i told them they will be charged because they are bringing movies back when it was closed. How can anyone check in movies when there is no one even there!!! People are so retarded!! Or i Love this one! at the end of the night we would wait till 11pm for customers to drop movies in, at 11pm we stop and close the store. while we are closing customers would drop movies in and look right at us! knowing they did something wrong...So later on if they had a late fee id ask when they returned..."I returned at night there were employees there." "was it after closing?" "maybe" they would say. Well there you go customers would return things after closing but thought since we were there it would be returned but they don't know if we r closing all computers are down and cannot check in items. we tell every customer to return by closing...no the end of the day....Bunch of retards I swear!!!

[falling4u06]

It is customers that help make it hard to find disks to seasons. When a customer asked me if we had like disk 3 of season like 2. And if we didn't have it in stock...It was because customers would never bring it back or it was stolen. We had some theft in our store and I know they did take disks from some t.v series. Also if something goes out of their system, distribution sends them another copy. It was so annoying when customers would whine about it like you because it was whoever rented it to bring back..hence why late, i mean restocking fees came back, because no one was returning movies.

[dvillegas43-2009]

The problem I had with Blockbuster was not Blockbuster's fault. In my opinion the entertainment industry hasn't produced a decent movie in the last 20 years that I would want to rent or take out a small loan to see the drivel in a theatre.

[keyingdemon]

Not surprised one bit; Blockbuster failed me in so many ways. The stock in the stores was disappointing, I could never find an older film and their online service was just as bad. It's really irritating to want to rent, say, a series like "Lost" and you can only get the first or second disk or the first season and that's it. Not the way to run a business. For yeara Blockbuster believed itself to be the only game in town. Netflix and Redbox have changed all that. Toodles BB!

[falling4u06]

Also, with older films, not too many customers rented the odd ones. so that would be lost revenue if you were the only one to rent it. but it doesn't matter now because they are closing.

[TIEL2]

Recovery?
I don't think so.

[ladyraestewa]

Blockbuster resorted to deceptive practices that drove the nail into that coffin. Didn't help them when I learned they actively supported (and corporate offices contributed financially) to groups responsible for killing abortion doctors and bombing abortion clinics.

[YouPeopleSuck]

Well i see everyone real happy about this but do any of you people think about those who will lose there jobs?

[falling4u06]

A lot of stores closed in my district and i am still are friends with employees. So i some got transferred to other stores or just laid off.

[bluharley]

It's been a long, long time since I was in a blockbuster. Their time is long gone. Buh-byeeeeeeeeeeee.

[straightener--2008]

@platteman

My "hope" is that some people "change" their close-minded, knee-jerk town hall mentality and engage in critical thinking about issues rather than cheer for your team playing a game that nobody will win.

[cs4466]

Blockbuster's business model was essentially based on charging outrageous late fees, in some cases far more than it would cost to purchase the late video outright. That is a business plan that is extremely disrespectful to customers.

It is one of the most unreasonable companies and, frankly, they should go out of business because they managed to alienate so many consumers.

Bye bye, Blockbuster.
by stgenesius September 15, 2009 4:54 PM EDT


This is 100% correct. Good bye, good riddance, Blockbusted.

[falling4u06]

Actually, with late fees, once it racked up to the price of the movie it stopped and customers then owned the movie and just had to pay whatever amount the movie is retail. So the highest i seen for each movie was like $20 for new movies.

[platteman]

How is that hope and change working for you now. Can anyone say bailout, oh wait, maybe Hollywood will do it instead of us taxpayers.

Blockbuster, is going bust, what a shame.

[woeisme1]

Wow. It seems pretty unanimous that Blockbuster sucked.

Are we going to bail them out?

[docpeter1953]

Probably, Did they give any $$ to elect BHO?

[bubbadubba]

Wow, I didn't see that one coming. I was just about to put everything I own into Blockbuster video rentals. It's not like we have high speed internet to watch movies on demand or anything.
Now I will have to put all my money in music CD store chains.
LOL

[ludvig1-2009]

I quit going to them and started using Hollywood Video because their accounting system was all screwed up. I'd take a movie back and they'd tell me I never returned it or it got returned late. I think all their stores should close.

[jxknowles]

Another sign of the times. Generations XY and Z are seeing their worlds changing all around them.

[Fatesrider]

Given Blockbuster's habit of editing movies for content it finds objectionable, I stopped renting from them seven years ago. Given their late fees, inflexibility in changing their business model and that whole "you can only watch what we think you want to watch" attitude, what's surprising isn't that they're closing up stores, it's that they're still in business at all.

[tvgenius]

Ours closed last year and nobody noticed. Blockbuster sucked. Hastings is SO much better. And redbox too...

[stgenesius]

Good.

Blockbuster's business model was essentially based on charging outrageous late fees, in some cases far more than it would cost to purchase the late video outright. That is a business plan that is extremely disrespectful to customers.

It is one of the most unreasonable companies and, frankly, they should go out of business because they managed to alienate so many consumers.

Bye bye, Blockbuster.

SG

[falling4u06]

Actually, customers were not returning movies when there was no late fees and when they had a grace period. There were barely movies on shelves which meant angry customers that could not rent the movies they wanted. Hence that's why they went back to late fees. Its those nasty customers that don't return things that ruin it for the other people.
I do remember that when we switched back to late fees last year...that a lot more movies went into the drop box. More movies returned + Movies on shelve + late fees = more revenue

[timdgrim]

Will they change their name to 'Blockbusted'?

[Ordflyer]

Good Riddance - In my opinion Blockbuster is run by a bunch of crooks.

I never forgave them for their scam where you would rent it for 5 days for approx $3 and then after that it was a DAILY rate! No other store did that - it was such a scam that they were sued for it.

Rot in H@ll Blockbuster - BTW Netflix is AWESOME!!!!