Why the video store isn't extinct - yet

Kent Bendall hears it at least once a day — someone will come in and tell him, "Oh, I can't believe there's still a video store in town."

He owns Pic-a-Flic Video in Victoria, one of the country's remaining independent video stores. But it's a tough time to be in the business.

Many longtime rental stores have shut down this year, in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Cape Breton. This week, Video Difference, the landmark Nova Scotia video business, announced it would be closing its two stores this fall.

"It's like looking into a mirror," Bendall said. "I'm like, 'That could be us. That could easily be us.' And you know, I try to figure out, 'Well why didn't it work for them?'"

• Has convenience killed the video store?
• Why this Yale librarian insists VHS tapes are worth saving

It's a struggle to stay open. Bendall relies a lot on loyal customers who keep him afloat by renting out British television series and older movies that aren't available online. He said offering niche content is key to survival and might even lead to a bounce back.

"If you look at things like books and vinyl records, those were proclaimed dead, and anyone who owned a bookshop or a record store, you know, were thought to be crazy, but they both made a comeback," he said.

"I think the video store can definitely make a comeback as well."

Writing's on the wall?

The decline in video stores has been blamed on streaming sites like Netflix, illegal downloading, waning interest, less product being offered to video stores, even the closure of chain stores like Blockbuster and Rogers Video. 

Peter Kilburn, who runs the Ontario company Movie Experts, links the decline to the period about five years ago when these chains started closing in Canada and drove many customers online. 

Kilburn's company interacts with a lot of video stores, providing them with magazines and posters showing new releases as well as ordering and purchasing information for some titles. 

He figures there are now between 250 to 300 independent video stores left in Canada, mostly in small towns. That's a drop from an estimated 600 in 2012. Beyond that, he said there are an additional 500 convenience stores, general stores and gas stations that sell movies. 

At its peak, Kilburn's business employed 14 people. Now it's three, but he stays hopeful about the industry.

"I could rhyme off 50 or 60 small towns where the video store is still thriving," he said. "We're still here."

'Enjoy it while it lasts'

Howie Levman is less optimistic. He said it's only a matter of time before the video store goes extinct. 

"It's not a happy story," he told CBC News. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

Levman owns Queen Video on Toronto's Bloor Street. He had two other locations downtown, but was forced to close them because of slow sales, including his flagship Queen Street location.

When that store closed earlier this year, Levman sold off 50,000 movies — which he likened to a resource library.

"I had movies literally from all over the world that were hard to find. And it was the last time that neighbourhood was going to have access to that massive library."

Bendall said that's one of the hardest parts of seeing the stores close.

"For the towns that had like one or two stores and they've closed, it's a huge cultural deficit," he said. "It would be like if a town library closed."

There have been efforts to re-energize the industry, including the launch of an independent video store day, similar to record store day. But Bendall said the future is up to the customers.

"People, if they care about movies and film, they should really support their independent video store if they are lucky enough to have one, because once they're gone, they're gone."