BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Walking into a store to rent a movie may become a thing of the past. Video rental stores are the latest retailer to have fallen victim to the changing industry and economy.

A few months back, Blockbuster Video announced that they may be closing as many as 960 stores by the end of next year.

One of those stores, the Blockbuster on California Avenue. The store now donning closing and sale signs, shoppers are looking to buy not rent merchandise.

The store is done renting and is now trying to sell their merchandise before they close their doors for good in January.

Just around the corner, Hollywood Video on Stockdale Highway wrapped up business and closed their doors about a month ago.

So what does this mean for the video rental business?

"If not totally obsolete it's not as popular as it was because there are many other competitive opportunities," said John Emery, Dean and Professor of Finance at Cal State Bakersfield. "When these stores opened they were a unique delivery method, very popular. I think many of us, probably most of us took advantage of the services we liked it, we found it to be a nice option."

But now Emery says there are too many options. The chain video stores have been struggling to keep up with its rental rivals Netflix and Redbox.

Tony Toone said he likes to buy his DVDs, but if he does rent he doesn't rent from chain stores.

"With online movies and Netflix, you can 3 Netflix movies for one Blockbuster movie so it makes more sense to do it online, there's no late fees," said Toone.

Emery said companies offering no late fees has really hurt the larger companies.

"For this industry, most years as much as a third of net revenue was coming from people being late in returning their rentals, and so there is no such thing as late with some other business models," said Emery.

Netflix advertises no late fees, and with the click of your mouse you can have your favorite movie delivered to your doorstep.

Blockbuster started a similar program to compete called, 'Blockbuster by Mail.'

You may have also seen Redbox kiosks outside stores. In seconds you can rent a movie for one dollar.

For businesses like Blockbuster to stay afloat, Emery said they will need to make changes and continue to make changes.

"It's a little bit of how the economy and how the word evolves, it's fairly straight forward, it's some kind of what makes our world tick and keeps things always interesting," said Emery.