Bye-bye to Kmart, Hollywood Video

Woodstock is set to lose two retail stores. This morning's Northwest Herald carried stories that the Kmart store will be closed by Sears Holdings Corp. Hollywood Video will close as a result of a bankruptcy filing Tuesday by its parent company.

If you are looking for deals, try Kmart after February 21 and before it closes on May 9. I worked at the Sears headquarters until October 2002, which was before Kmart bought Sears and everything got wrapped in Sears Holdings Corp. The Woodstock store was, in my opinion, in a long decline and wasn't supported as a store that would stay in business. Frankly, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did after Walmart opened in Woodstock.

Hollywood Video had to be under a lot of pressure from Netflix. I'm not a heavy movie renter, but I switched to Netflix a couple of years ago. I liked the idea of creating a list of movies that I wanted to watch and then just waiting for the mailman. For me, it really beat going to the store and trying to figure out what I had already seen.

When Redbox popped up on the scene, I felt that was the death knell for Hollywood Video. Getting new and newer movies for $1.00, along with the freebies once a week (and, more recently, only once a month) had to be more competition that a full-service store could handle. Having a box with small square footage requirements for floor space and no employees on-hand is really tough competition.

First it was the videotapes that began to disappear from the retail scene; now movies on on DVDs or online. What's next?