After 8,500 store closings, iconic chain down to less than 50 stores
You might be shocked to learn that this chain still exists, but its number of stores has dwindled below 50.
Imagine a retail chain so important that every well-populated area with at least a middle-class income had one.
In some cases, chains that had this level of penetration died for a good reason. Blockbuster was that big, but it had a core product that ultimately became unnecessary.
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Who would go to a physical store to rent a movie when they can easily stream one? You can talk about all the mistakes Blockbuster made (like not buying Netflix) but ultimately streaming was going to replace physical rentals no matter what the company did.