For those who enjoy comic books, movies, music, novels and everything in between, get ready to look elsewhere for one stop shopping.
Hastings of Auburn is approaching its final days.
Back in June, a press release announced Hastings, along with its sister companies SPImages and Moviestop, voluntarily filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy allowed the stores to reorganize funding and to pay back debtors. In Hastings’ case, the company was bought out by Hilco Merchant Resources LLC and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners LLC, which for the past several months have overseen the liquidation sales across the country.
Nationwide, Hastings will close by the end of October and all merchandise will be discontinued in stores and online on their e-commerce website.
As a place that sold items ranging from books, video games, CDs and vinyl, apparel, collectibles, comics and electronics, customers had the ability to shop for many of their wants and needs under one roof.
Now with the end of new merchandise and promotions to sell remaining inventory, loyal Hastings customers must consider other options.
David Railey, junior in media studies, said he is frustrated with Hastings’ closing.
“It deeply saddens me,” Railey said. “I’m a comic book connoisseur, and I got my subscriptions exclusively from there. So I built up a [relationship] with the people working there. ... It created this feeling of community that you can’t really get anywhere else. And there is nowhere else to get this kind of stuff in Auburn ... so it saddens me.”
Railey also said without Hastings, he cannot support certain companies he is personally tied to. Railey said that he has tried venturing out to similar businesses including Auburn’s local comic book stores but claimed to have not felt “the community vibe” that Hastings had.
“I’m sad,” said Jonathan McGuckin, senior in software engineering. “I discovered it a few years ago. ... I’d go in there to see if they had anything neat and played a few magic tournaments when they started up there, and it’s really sad that it’s going. It was a nice meeting place for a bunch of a cool nerdy stuff for my friends here. Hopefully some other store will come up.”
For Johnathan, he will make future purchases online.
Around the corner from Hastings, Collector’s Corner owner John Mullyns said he welcomes the resurgence of business as the entertainment super store finalizes its remaining sales.
“I have been here a lot longer than [Hastings] has,” Mullyns said. “Things were fine for a while [at Hastings], they were doing great business. ... They were serving declining markets. Books don’t sell anymore … and music sales are down too.”
Mullyns said he believes Hastings’ mistake was to expand their comic book selection and to reduce the sales of other items in what he defines as the “declining market.”
Mullyns said that Hastings also had an edge because people could explore multiple genres and forms of entertainment.
With Hastings, people did not have to search for other stores to find their needs.
With no incoming inventory, some Hastings customers have already migrated to Collector’s Corner.
“Shelf sales have picked up,” Mullyns said. “I have picked up new customers from [Hastings]. If you like comic books, I am the place to go.”
Hastings currently will not disclose information about individual stores, so it is unknown what will replace the entertainment superstore.
In the meantime, other former Hastings customers said they’re trying stores such as Books-A-Million, Best-Buy and Target.
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