Town and City centre high streets are beginning to look bare. What were once the central shopping hub with independent retailers, butchers, bakers family-run businesses, and grocers in the past have, in recent years, been replaced by chain stores. However, this trend seems to be ending as quickly as it began.
Today it was announced that long standing DVD rental firm Blockbuster has called in the administrators after struggling to compete against it’s online competitors which are becoming more and more popular in the digital age. Blockbuster is the latest in an ever growing line of stores to close down following HMV, Jessops and Comet. There may be a variety of reasons why these firms aren’t doing as well as they once were, but the biggest influence has certainly been the increase in online shopping sales.
Blockbusters have been struggling to compete in an online world, with competition from huge online film entities Netflix and LOVEFiLM. With consumers able to stream films and get films delivered to their doors, there has been no demand for a DVD rental store on the high street for a long time.
The new approach to consumerism has been spurred by the easiness of buying online. For consumers, online means they can do things quickly, easily and from anywhere they can get an internet connection. For businesses, online means they have low overheads, reduced staffing costs and their products/services are available to their customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Search engines and social networks have become the new high street, making them the centralised hub for consumers. Since LOVEFiLM deliver the films to your door as well as streaming them, there is no void for a physical product and the fact that people now spend more and more time watching TV shows and movies on their phones and iPads means that a disc is not necessary, all that is required is an Internet connection.
Whilst DVD stores and rentals were a centralised hub of the past, especially during the heyday of the 90’s, the future seems to lie within the world wide web with interactive players being the new hub for TV and film enthusiasts.