CIVIC Video is closing its head office in Alexandria, but Windsor video shop owner Guirong Wu has not conceded defeat.
Mr Wu said he was contacted by the franchise organisation on Friday, June 22, alerting him its head office would close.
Mr Wu had previously made his plan known to the Gazette to be the last movie hire shop still standing in Australia.
The closure of his head office had not deterred him, he said.
“I’m still 100 per cent going to keep going!” he said on Friday.
“Don’t worry, if I know the end of the world is coming, I tell you!” he laughed.
Mr Wu said he had been dealing with distributors directly for over three years now, so he wasn’t bothered by no longer having head office to help him procure goods.
“I know the film companies to buy movies and posters,” he said, adding that head office offered to “keep trying to do something for us” to ease the transition.
He said if anything, the news had given him “more courage”. Plus, he would no longer have to pay franchise fees.
“I know the customers and know what they want,” he said, adding that his business - located at the carpark end of the Old Post Office Arcade off Windsor Mall - was still doing well.
In fact, he said business had improved since the Gazette began following his journey earlier this year.
He said locals were rallying around him, and collectors from Sydney had been driving out to Windsor to relieve him of his ex-rentals, which he sells regularly to free-up space for the new releases.
Mr Wu’s store is now one of only two Civic Video stores remaining in NSW, following the closure of long-term franchisee John Price’s two remaining stores in Five Dock and Bondi Beach earlier this year.
Mr Price had owned movie rental outlets in the Hawkesbury back in the nineties. At the time, he had an empire of 12 stores around Sydney, including Civic Video outlets at Richmond and North Richmond.
Mr Wu’s store in Windsor is now the only movie hire store left in the Hawkesbury, and one of only a handful in NSW.
Civic Video head office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.