20 businesses that died in the 2010s

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The bull market in stocks of the last decade hasn’t been without its headline grabbing downfalls of once formidable corporate titans.

Remember when Sears ruled retail in the 1950s and 1960s? Well by 2018, the company was a shell of its former self as it entered bankruptcy. How about video rental pioneer Blockbuster? Thanks to the rise of streaming movie service Netflix, Blockbuster went belly-up in 2014. Over at one-time leader in Twitter video production Vine, the service was shut down by 2017 amid changes in how Twitter operates, the spread of video on Facebook and the rise of Snapchat.

Sad stuff. But by and large, all are tales of companies that didn’t do enough to stay ahead of competition and adapt to changing market dynamics.

Yahoo Finance took a look back at some of the notable corporate busts from the last decade.

20 businesses that died in the past decade
20 businesses that died in the past decade

The Borders Group

  • Founded: 1971

  • Died: September 2011

It’s easy to dismiss the demise of bookstore chain Borders as yet another casualty of Amazon’s (AMZN) ascent. But to do so would ignore some systemic issues the brick-and-mortar chain faced for years as customers increasingly eschewed the book megastore model.

The original Borders was an 800-square-foot store opened in 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By 2007, Borders had 567 superstores across the U.S., U.K., and a number of other international locations, averaging 24,800-square-feet each.

Borders invested in its sprawling locations with refurbishments, new physical plants and a dizzying assortment of DVDs, CDs and gifts, just as customers were beginning to shop for all this merchandise online instead. It outsourced e-commerce sales to Amazon, redirecting online customers to Amazon.com in a move that ultimately diluted the customer base and Borders’ ability to catch up in direct online purchases. It never created an e-reading device, as Amazon did with the Kindle and Barnes & Noble did with the Nook. And by December 2010, it was crippled with debt, listing $1.29 billion in liabilities and $1.27 billion in assets.

The company ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2011. It later held a going-out-of-business sale at all of its 399 remaining locations in July that year.

Blockbuster

  • Founded: 1985

  • Died: January 2014

Before viewers were scrolling through Netflix (NFLX) looking for the latest TV show or movie to watch, they were perusing the aisles of their local Blockbuster.

Ultimately, Blockbuster’s business model was disrupted by a number of tech developments, as much from new hardware developments as from competition. Blockbuster launched and proliferated in the era of VHS cassettes, which were typically rented, and wallowed after studios began rolling out DVDs as retail products for direct consumer purchases. As former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco wrote later wrote in a Harvard Business Review essay, “the adoption rate soared,” and also enabled Netflix’s rise since these could be mailed easily.