Posted on 07/15/2018 3:40:22 PM PDT by BBell
A man parked his motorcycle on the sidewalk Saturday morning, ruining the aesthetic of the last remaining Blockbuster in the continental United States.
"You can't park there," general manager Sandi Harding told the man as he walked into the store in Bend, Oregon. "People are trying to take pictures."
The man paused for a beat. There was confusion in his response.
"Trying to take pictures?"
Somehow he had missed the past decade, when Blockbuster the video rental behemoth became Blockbuster the fallen victim of modernity.
In 2004, at the company's peak, 9,000 Blockbuster outlets studded city blocks and suburban strip malls nationwide, a one-time indelible fixture of the family movie night. But soon after, Netflix, Redbox and the cold march of digital progress eroded the customer base at each store.
Thousands of Blockbuster stores were closed through July 2018, leaving only three: two in Alaska, and Harding's store in Bend.
"Every day, even before this, people would drive by and see the 'Open' sign and say, 'Oh my gosh. How are you still here? Why are you still here?'" Harding told The Washington Post in a Saturday phone interview as her store buzzed with activity, including the arrival of the oblivious motorcyclist.
Now gawkers and tourists stop in Bend and line up to take photos in front of the store.
There is, in a literal sense, nothing else quite like it in the lower 48.
And after Sunday, when the stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks close for the last time, the location on NE Revere Avenue will be the sole Blockbuster in the entire country.
Harding has been with the company for 14 years and joined the Bend location on Revere in May 2005. She insisted that nothing big changed. Customer service keeps people coming back, and new titles, such as NBC's
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
If Blockbuster knew which way was up, they’d assemble an emergency task force of IT professionals, and rebuild their business model from the ground up, leveraging all that high speed digital technology has to offer, and throw in some new feature or twist that Netflix doesn’t have. A longshot but pretty much their only route to survival.
“Even the IBM computers are running the same floppy disks from the 1990s, she said, shocking the younger employees.
“No one can hack these computers, so that’s a good thing,” she said.”
LOL
Especially Sears. They were the Amazon of their day. Both didn't want to cannibalize in-store sales.
I would think that if customers wanted to park in front of your store you would be better off letting them do so. Rather than chasing them off so people can take pictures of your failing business.
They would also build a time machine to go back 10 years and do what you say when it might have helped.
I remember buying a DVD player sometime back in the very late 1990’s and there was a coupon for the new Netflix. I was a bit leery about it so I never joined but as Netflix grew I often wondered why Blockbuster didn’t try to do something about the competition. Redbox too.
They had enough corporate muscle and finances to move into those arenas yet didn’t make a move. I guess they didn’t learn from Sears.
I hope Starbucks will be next.
No luck. Customers flooded the store and called to ask if Harding's store had them in stock. Of course, Harding told them.
Gene Wilder died?
Once upon a time Blockbuster execs mocked Netflix as Netflix offered itself to BB for sale at a nominal price. Reminds me of the media mocking Trump back in 2015.
Exactly! Sears was just a middleman selling products through their catalog. Why they did not have the foresight to transfer this to the internet the way amazon did we will never know. They had the capital and reputation to do it.
I remember the first time I heard of walmart in 1989. I said they would never get a big as k-mart. LOL!
Blockbuster did exactly that about 10 years ago...and failed at it. Netflix ate their lunch.
Now the game is not just streaming delivery, but creation of new content.
Blockbuster tried doing exactly what you said, they failed — miserably. By the time they did Netflix was already well established and on its way. Blockbuster is a textbook example of too little, too late.
Polaroid is another example. Although never as big as Kodak, Polaroid was a large, well-established company. They were about the only significant player in the “instant photography” marketplace.
They developed instant movies in the 70s — just as Betamax and VHS came out.
They had little interest in digital photography when that was new.
Today, there is some “retro” interest in Polaroid, but the company is a shell of what it once was. It was a failure of vision.
My husband’s from Arkansas and remembers the first four Walmarts. I’m from Atlanta and remember the first four Home Depots.
They’re 15 years too late, and out of runway.
I’m from the Boston area and remember the VERY first Staples.
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My husband’s from Arkansas and remembers the first four Walmarts. I’m from Atlanta and remember the first four Home Depots.
...
Imagine buying stock in both at that time.
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