Unfortunately earlier this week the Receiver of Blockbuster was granted permission to liquidate and close the remailing 253 Blockbuster stores. My heart goes out to those that will soon be jobless. Our location in my tiny town apparently was the biggest earning Blockbuster in Canada. (Read the only video rental store)
Dvdswapper has posted the details of the liquidation on our forum.
1: Rental option ends and stores close at 5pm Thursday, Sept 8th.
2: Stores reopen Friday, Sept 9th at 10am with the 1st wave of discounts. Sale end date: October 1st.
3: Monday, Sept 12, 2011, store hours change to 12-9pm
4: EVERYTHING must go. Yes, this means systems, games, food, skin off their backs and possibly the paint on the walls
5: Discounts start at 15 & 25%, increasing to 40, 50 and 70 by the last week.
6: All sales are final. No exchanges, returns or refunds. Caveat Emptor.
7: ALL stores are shutting down for good. There will be NO locations remaining in Canada.
8: Giftcards and coupons will NOT be honoured beginning Friday Sept 9th.
9: Here is a list of ALL 253 STORES closing
10: Sale percentages starts at 15% off game and systems/accessories, 25% off everything else
*Stores are now offering 40% off of everything, including games. A lot of stores are pretty barren now.
Looking at the list…that A LOT of people that are losing their jobs, on top of those that already did 🙁 If I was to pop in to check out the sales, I wouldn’t be able to look at any of the employees in the eyes without feeling horrible.
It sucks – but that is a reality of the working world. Not only that – but a reality of what happens when you download movies etc. and don’t pay for them. I can’t feel bad because I do go to rent movies from the video store. My local store is hurting and all I can do is to continue renting movies and not steal them like so many others.
I also know that some peopld do pay for them but rent through their cable service etc. – which also affects the stores. I don’t do that because they are so much more expensive and I like browsing thorugh the the store – and I can pick up a bag of chippies too! lol
thnxs for the info
wow, even Jumbo sold off our stuff cheaper in the beginning. Our movies were $4 a piece for old titles and $7 for new releases. Games never got sold though. I might have to swing by this weekend and give my condolences to the other video slingers about to join my fellow Jumbo Video employees on the unemployment line.
Does anybody know: what happens to personal information collected by a business after it goes bankrupt? I remember the process of signing up for a Blockbuster card meant I had to sign up for my first credit card because without it, the store wouldn’t give me a membership.
So, it has my name, mailing address, and credit card information. What happens to all of that?
This is super sad! I don’t know how I’m going to tell the kids that we can’t go to the “Movie Store” anymore to get a movie ;( We were pretty familiar with most of the staff so it really is a terrible thing to be happening to all of them.
One question:
The article states discounts escalate until the last week. Is this a weekly escalating rate? (i.e. stores close in three weeks)
I’m not sure.. my brother [an employee] and his wife assume so or every 5-7 days at least.. if they want to be finished by october 1
mandy, illegal downloads may have been a (huge) contributor, but it’s not the only reason blockbuster is closing. why bother driving to a brick and mortar store and pay MORE when you can pay less and not waste gas(via itunes or one of the MANY other pay rental sites out there) to watch on your computer or through your tv?! blockbuster didn’t make much of an attempt to get into the evolving online market, and thus, this is happening. it’s very sad for the many blockbuster employees, though, there are obviously going to be many jobless with that many stores closing.
dotty, thats a great question and i’d also love to know the answer
Dotty asked about personal info. If you use the link above, you will go to the receiver’s website which lists many documents. The latest court order stipulates that the new US company “New Blockbuster” owns all the Intellectual Property including customer info.
Also it should be noted that the receiver is able to consolidate inventory, so your local store may close sooner than another nearby store.
Happy bargain hunting to customers and to the staff best wishes to find other employment quickly.
Sad! My son loves blockbuster
Another reason blockbuster is having difficulties is stores like Wal-mart sell DVD’s for really cheap. Why pay 7 dollars to rent a movie when you can buy one for 5-10 dollars
Too bad it’s not closing here. 😐
from what I heard from a employee is that it will either close when all the stuff is sold or Oct 1st what ever comes first.
We will have no other video store here where I live. I guess I will have to start renting from the corner stores..lol.. Sad..
Haven’t rented from blockbuster for years and years, it’s just too expensive and inconvenient. The video market has changed dramatically over the years, and blockbuster never did anything to really face the competition. Never mind iTune and Netflix, just look at Redbox in US, which is thriving. It’s cheap ($1 per DVD), and convenient (two-thirds of the U.S. population lives within a five-minute drive of redbox’s vending machines). It’s sad for the employees, but shame on the top managers to let it run down like that.
Boo…these sales suck. Watching the flyers/trading in games you can easily score a better deal.
I’ll wait til the 70% off and get some kids movies 🙂
Just came back from my local BB store. The staff spent last evening pricing the (non-favorites) rentals only to be told this morning that any new rental that has never been on previously viewed sale (PRP) will retail for whatever the price is in the computer. This contradicts the signs that were posted in store for regular rentals to be priced at a max of 16.99 DVD and 19.99 BD. This can result in ridiculous prices for example one TV series that I was interested in was priced at $40/disk! This ridiculous situation is a result of the receivers (not the staff).
However, “Favorites” are 6.99 to 9.99 (DVD) and 9.99 to 12.99 (BD) less the 25% off. Some older TV series run as low as 2.66 per disk.
Make sure to check your disks before purchase as if the disk is non-playable it will be too bad for you. (No refunds, no returns).
It’s not just downloading, libraries also helped put the movie rentals places out of buisness. In Hamilton they have ‘express dvds’ (movies that came out in the last few months) available free for a 3-day loan. The new movies come out on tuesday the same day as the video rental places. Only problem by friday after lunch all the government and bank office workers have taken the good ones from the downtown library for the weekend. Monday has the best selection.
I went in just to peek and to make sure my friend (an employee) was okay. I got some dvds at an okayish price but went to see how much they were selling the big bang theory 3rd season for and it was $16.99 a disc plus 25% off for 3 discs, I could buy at walmart for cheaper and it comes in a nicer case.
Most employees at our store didn’t know when it was coming for sure, but they knew it was coming obviously, most have other jobs to go too, and the other will collect EI until they find new work.
It’s sad though as we as Canadians don’t have the Netflix that the States has, ours is a way slimmed down version with significantly less titles. Also RedBox is barely around here, well at least it isn’t in my town.
lots of people at my local one, but i’ll wait till 50%+ again, last time i went on the second last day it was open and everything was 80% off and they still had stuff including a just a released game. but i don’t think ill get lucky again, that blockbuster was the only one in my are to close in round 1, and not to many people knew about it. the one by my place everyone know about.
Everyone seems to think that Blockbuster is closing because they weren’t making money but that has nothing to do with it. Here’s a quote from an article when they were first put into receivership:
“Brahm Eiley of Convergence Consulting Group Ltd. estimated the company was profitable, and generated about $400-million (Canadian) in revenue in 2010”
Blockbuster in Canada was still making a ton of money. The only reason this happened is because the American division went bankrupt and left all of their debt to the Canadians.
@Dotty dot dot
“I remember the process of signing up for a Blockbuster card meant I had to sign up for my first credit card because without it, the store wouldn’t give me a membership.”
You got lied to or you misunderstood. All you needed was photo ID and a piece of delivered mail with a matching name and address on it.
Anyone notice that on the link for the stores list is says “Stores remaining open”…not closing?
Yeah I noticed that too, looks like the list is for stores remaining open as in its the old list of stores that didn’t close from the last slew of closures.
Rest assured I think all stores are closing now. It had to happen, the company failed to adapt to the changing market. I spent so many years working there.
1 years as a CSR, 1 year as a Shift Leader, 1 year as an assistant manager and 2 years as a store manager.
If they escalate from 25-40-50-70 that will leave about 2 days for the 70% portion of the sale. Last time around the 70% lasted for over a week and there was still a ton of stuff left on the last day.
I wanted to support Blockbuster, but their prices for previously viewed/played media were always so high compared to anywhere else.
In may as I was job hunting I got an telephone interview but didn’t get a call back, so glad I work at Payless
Actually I heard Payless is closing 250 low volume stores across north America..
A friend of mine used to be a Blockbuster store manager and back when Netflix first started up in the US they tried to come in to Canada too and offered Blockbuster first dibs on the Canadian side and Blockbuster refused… Who’s got the last laugh now? I feel sorry for the employees though… same thing happened to me once and it’s hard for the first little while afterwards… hope everything works out for all of them in the long run…
wow i wast just at my local on Thursday, everything was still 15/25 so i didnt buy anything. Wanted to go yesterday on my way to work, but since i work 12H overnight shifts it doesn’t leave much time unseals i sacrifice even more sleep. hopefully there is still good stuff left Monday as on Thursday about 60% of the stuff was gone
I went today and things had already been marked down and then it was another 40% off. I picked up a couple LOST dvds for $1.25 each which is more than worth it even if I only watch them once.
just some advice watch your totals, it might of been an accident but i was charged $60 instead of 55 for a used game before discount, luckily i noticed it, it ended up being a 3.39 difference
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