Blockbuster Stores A Vanishing Breed

Folks, if there were only seventy four hundred arctic pumas or whatever left and their numbers suddenly collapsed to about thirty two hundred, you best believe that there’d be ecohippies having embolisms everywhere.  They’d demand that something change, even if they weren’t a hundred percent sure exactly what should change.

And that’s exactly what happened to Blockbuster Video outlets–it was recently announced that they’ve gone from seventy four hundred stores nation wide at the start of 2009 to just over thirty two hundred about a year later.  That’s better than a fifty percent drop, folks–if you had two Blockbusters in your town a week ago, better check again.  Odds are one of them closed.

The brick and mortar video store has not been having an easy time of things, folks.  Kiosks and download and DVD by mail has put the former neighborhood institution in jeopardy, and we’re seeing that shake out with more and more Blockbuster closings every day.  When a store loses over half its outlets in a year, that’s not normal business activity…that’s a sea change in the making.