With video renters getting their fix elsewhere in an increasingly competitive market, Blockbuster Video is shutting down two underperforming stores in the Oak Park area.
The Dallas-based chain plans to close its only remaining Oak Park location (200 Lake), along with another just south of the village in Berwyn (6601 Roosevelt). But after the stores are gone Jan. 10, the company is pointing customers to several nearby locations, such as those at 109 Harlem in Forest Park and at 6101 W. Cermak in Cicero.
Blockbuster is also providing customers with discount cards to go rent videos at those alternate spots, says spokesman Randy Hargrove.
The video-store chain announced in August that it posted a $36.9 million net loss in the second quarter of 2009. The company lost $38.9 million during the same period last year. Same-store sales for Blockbuster were down 17.8 percent compared with last year – which Blockbuster blamed on the bad economy and increasing competition from the online rental service Netflix and from Redbox, a company that provides movies through self-service kiosks.
The company is evaluating whether it wants to close between 810 and 960 of its stores in the United States by the end of 2010 to save about $30 million, according to a September filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Eighteen percent of Blockbuster’s stores are unprofitable; 276 stores have been closed as of mid-2009.
Hargrove could not say whether other stores in the Oak Park area would be closed, or how many have gone out of business in Illinois.
Blockbuster plans to roll out “express” boxes to rent videos, similar to those used by Redbox. The company had 497 in operation as of September, and plans to roll out 2,500 more this year and 10,000 by mid-2010, according to the SEC filing.
Hargrove said no plans have been announced yet as to where the video vending machines will be placed locally.
-Marty Stempniak