It was the end of an era. Saturday marked the last day for in-store rentals at local Blockbuster outlets, after the company announced that it would be shuttering its remaining 300 stores last week. The final rental was made at 11PM Saturday, when this grinning customer rented the incredibly appropriate This Is the End. Blockbuster celebrated by tweeting the following this morning: 
 
 As to how the customer would go about returning the Seth Rogen-James Franco apocalyptic lovefest, that's still unclear. We've reached out to Blockbuster for comment. 
 
 Update 1: Seth Rogen got wind of the news on Twitter and had this to say: 
 
 Update 2: A spokesperson with Dish Network, which owns Blockbuster, informed us that customers who rented movies before the last day for rentals can simply drop their movies off at any Blockbuster drop box location. ||||| Alan Payne One of Mr. Payne’s Blockbuster stores in Mission, Texas 
 
 VHS nostalgia went into overdrive this week when Blockbuster announced it was shutting down the last 300 video rental stores still operated by the company. 
 
 But Blockbuster isn’t quite dead yet. About 50 independently-owned franchises of the chain will live on, and half of them are owned by Alan Payne. His company, Border Entertainment, runs 26 Blockbuster stores, evenly split between two very different and distant places – Texas and Alaska. 
 
 Blockbuster’s corporate parent, Dish Network, might be throwing in the towel on the video rental business, but Mr. Payne is far from giving in. In fact, he thinks that as the operator of some of the few remaining Blockbuster stores in the country, he might be able to cash in on happy memories of the brand, and maybe even open some new locations. 
 
 We had a chat with Mr. Payne this morning – here’s an edited transcript of what he had to say. 
 
 First off, how did you get into the video rental business? 
 
 In the 1980s, I was working for HEB, which is the largest grocery chain in Texas. At the time, Blockbuster was just getting started, and HEB wanted to compete and build up its own video rental business. They put me in charge, and they eventually sold off the chain to Hollywood Video in 1992. I stayed in the industry, and I joined my current company, which I ran and eventually bought. 
 
 When do you think the video rental business peaked? 
 
 I remember people saying the industry was not going to survive after 1995, when the internet was first coming out. People thought the internet would completely take over, but it has taken years to happen and really still hasn’t fully happened. Video rental was the main way to watch a movie on demand for many years, and it didn’t go into decline until after 2000. 
 
 The transition to the DVD was an important moment, and I really believe that started the real demise – Blockbuster didn’t make that transition well. 
 
 That’s interesting, can you explain a bit more about the switch to DVD? 
 
 Well film studios never embraced rental, they were dragged into it kicking and screaming. But VHS tapes were never priced as a sell-through business. Aside from some exceptions, like Disney kids movies, movies on VHS were sold at a rental price, the price was artificially high and designed to be sold to stores like us. 
 
 When DVD came along we had this push-pull with the studios, because they wanted to turn DVDs into a consumer sales product, they wanted sell the DVDs straight to the customers. So that was something we had to contend with, but on the other side, it was cheaper for us to buy the DVDs. Now we could acquire product for $18 instead of $40. So we got more aggressive on pricing, because the cost of product was less. 
 
 So once we determined early on that the studios’ goal of destroying rental through selling at $15-$20 was not going to happen, we looked at it as a huge opportunity. W could earn better margins, we could offer a lower cost to customers, it was a win for everybody. We embraced that, and our business continued to grow until 2008. 
 
 But the other thing we had to do was invest in completely new inventory. Remember that in a store we might carry 10,000-15,000 units. The switch to DVD happened over 5-7 years so in that time we had to completely change over our inventory, which was expensive. We chose to do that aggressively, but Blockbuster didn’t [Mr. Payne is referring here to stores operated by Blockbuster, rather than independent franchisees] 
 
 You said your business continued to grow until 2008. Why do you think that was a turning point? 
 
 We anticipated a downturn because of the internet, and we were feeling some of that competition, but from 2008 the decline just sped up exponentially. Like most business, our customers just didn’t have as much money to spend. We were hurting like everyone, and as the same time there was the internet. So it’s not surprising those two things combined hit us so bad. 
 
 I still haven’t found a way to stop the decline. It’s still there, and a lot of it is just the baggage of the Blockbuster problems. It went in and out of bankruptcy, it had some well-known problems, and there’s no question that it hurt us. The Blockbuster name became a whipping board, and it hurt all of us. 
 
 So is video rental still a money-making business? Is this profitable for you? 
 
 I’m certainly not losing money! Believe me, I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t making money. We’re very profitable and we expect to stay that way. 
 
 Can you share any numbers on this – how big is your profit, or your profit margins? 
 
 I can say this – it’s a bit like the restaurant business, it’s not worth doing if you can’t make double-digit profit margins. And that’s where we are, in the double digits. And 40,000-50,000 people are still visiting our stores every week. 
 
 It sounds like there’s still demand for this. What kind of person is your core customer, can you say a little more about who is still renting from you? 
 
 Well, I can’t describe my customer but I can say what we are offering. What we do is define the things we can do that nobody else can. So if you want a new-release movie, we don’t have much competition in physical rental, and if you go online, it’s going to cost more there than it costs through us. And I’d say more than half our customers don’t understand how to rent a new-release movie on the internet, or they don’t know how to online movies on their TV. Or they’re not interested in doing that. 
 
 Every new release comes to us on release date. On the physical side, Redbox and Netflix get some new releases on release day, but most are delayed about a month. And we can do prices you won’t get online – $3.99, and most online services charge at least $4.99. For most of our movies more than a year old, it’s 49 cents a day, or 99 cents for five days. It’s convenient, there’s a lot of choice, and there’s new and old. About 50% of our rentals are for our catalog products, films more than a year old. 
 
 And if you want to own movies, we’re the best place to buy them. We’re often selling them second hand, for half the price of new ones. It’s this kind of thing we’re focused on, doing the things that others cant. 
 
 You sound confident in the business, so tell us a bit about what you see for the future. 
 
 Well, for Blockbuster I’m the last one standing, and I think there’s some novelty to that – I think there might even be an opportunity. 
 
 We have the option to change our name, but I don’t want to. It could cause confusion, it would cost money, and I think in the long run, people have good memories of the Blockbuster name and there might be some opportunity to capitalize on that, maybe even in new places. ||||| Image caption Barratts first went into administration in 2009 
 
 High Street shoe chain Barratts and DVD rental chain Blockbuster have both gone into administration, putting more than 3,000 UK and Irish jobs at risk. 
 
 Duff & Phelps has been appointed as administrator to Barratts. 
 
 It said it was reviewing the shoe chain's financial position, as well as seeking a sale of the business. 
 
 Restructuring firm Moorfields Corporate Recovery has been appointed administrator of TS Operations, which trades as Blockbuster. 
 
 'No choice' 
 
 It is the third time in four years that Barratts has gone into administration. 
 
 Philip Duffy, Duff & Phelps partner, blamed "difficult trading conditions" for its most recent failure. 
 
 He said an investor had recently offered to inject £5m into the shoe chain, but withdrew this offer on 7 November. 
 
 "In view of the financial position of the company and withdrawal of that equity offer the directors were left with no choice but to appoint administrators," said Mr Duffy. 
 
 Barratts has 75 stores and 23 concessions across the UK and Ireland employing 1,035 people in total. 
 
 Neil Saunders, managing director at retail consultancy Conlumino, said he expected Barratts to survive "in one form or another". 
 
 "I would be surprised if it disappeared from the High Street altogether. It has a sizeable estate. I expect it to emerge as a much smaller business with fewer stores," he added. 
 
 Hope for Blockbuster 
 
 At Blockbuster, there were also suggestions that the DVD and computer game rental chain could survive. 
 
 Moorfields said there were parties that were interested in parts of the business. 
 
 "Our focus will be to secure a future for as much of the business as possible as well as trying to save jobs before Christmas," said Simon Thomas, joint administrator at Moorfields. 
 
 Mr Thomas said Blockbuster, which employs 2,000 people across 264 stores, would continue to trade in the meantime. 
 
 Last month, private equity firm Gordon Brothers Europe, which bought Blockbuster for an undisclosed sum in March, said it was filing a notice of intention to appoint an administrator to the retailer.
– Blockbuster ended in-store rentals for good last Saturday night. So what was the final movie rental ever? Incredibly appropriately, it was Seth Rogen comedy This Is the End, checked out at 11pm in Hawaii, according to a tweet by the company. The question now, notes the Verge, is just how the customer will return the DVD. Blockbuster announced last week that it is shuttering its remaining 300 US stores. Meanwhile, over in the UK and Ireland, there are still 264 Blockbusters, but the company has just gone into administration, the BBC reports.