Diary of a store
I recently came upon a listserv, ostensibly about a movie theater, which had a thread about the closure of a neighborhood video store, designated here as VS. There were a number of comments of sorrow: I saw a piece on the local news channel that VS is closing. They said they did not have enough business. I don't think we can persuade them to stay open. Even though I was a member, they somehow weren't on my radar screen and I would forget to go there. I bet the Internet video businesses took a bite of their profits, too. There were also comments about the competition from Netflix, Blockbuster, and video on demand. Then, there were more nuanced responses: I was in the store this past weekend returning 2 movies we rented and asked why VS was closing. The owner of the store mentioned his disappointment in our community, stating that there are over 10,000 households in our zip code alone and he had only 300 active memberships. He thanked me for being a member of his store, supportin...