Blockbuster is closing two more Hawaii stores next month in the wake of poor sales and fierce competition.
The troubled video rental chain is shutting down locations at 140 Hoohana St. in Kahului on Nov. 8 and at 26 Hoolai St. in Kailua on Nov. 18.
Blockbuster spokeswoman Sara Blue said in an email that Kailua employees will be offered positions at other stores "based off of their desire to relocate and if we have positions open."
She didn’t say how many employees were affected by the closures and whether the company plans to close any other Hawaii locations in the future.
Kahului store manager Cory, who didn’t want to disclose his last name, said there are four Maui workers who have obtained jobs elsewhere.
"The movie industry has been real tough for the last couple years," said Cory, who has worked at Blockbuster for more than seven years. "Due to competition within Hawaii for digital media between cable and Redbox, all of that combined, rental traffic has dropped significantly."
LONE SURVIVORS
There are only five Blockbuster stores remaining in the state:
>> Oahu: Kahala, Ewa Beach and Wahiawa
>> Maui: Kihei
>> Hawaii island: Hilo
Source: Blockbuster
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He said business at the Kahului store dropped 60 percent over the past 18 months, as consumers choose vending machine companies such as Redbox, whose newly released DVDs cost just over a buck a day. Blockbuster charges $3.
"It’s America, everybody’s moving on," he said. "They want cheap stuff, so they’re going to go for the cheap avenue. Because of that, the stores are all closing. This industry is dying. The printed DVD is on its way out, period. Disks are going to be gone within probably two years. Everything is going to go digital. You’re going to have to stream it or download it. That’s just where technology’s moving."
The chain’s remaining outlets on Oahu are in Kahala, Ewa Beach and Wahiawa. There are also stores in Kihei on Maui and in Hilo.
Blockbuster owner Dish Network Corp. closed stores in Pearl City, Kaneohe and at the Kamehameha Shopping Center in Honolulu in July 2011. Earlier that year, outlets in Mililani, Waianae and Salt Lake were shuttered, along with a Hawaii island store in Kailua-Kona.
Locations in Kapiolani and Kapolei closed earlier this year, and a Waipio outlet shut down in September.
A Blockbuster spokesman told the Star-Advertiser last year that leases for the stores were not assumed by Dish Network as part of an auction sale in April 2011, after a lengthy bankruptcy that began in September 2010.
Dish earlier this year announced it would close more than 500, or a third, of its remaining 1,500 stores nationwide in 2012, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The company, established in 1985 by a Dallas software entrepreneur, has lost market share in recent years and put itself up for sale after a failed attempt to reorganize in bankruptcy.
