Amazon is to finally close its Lovefilm movie rental service on 31 October.

To soften the blow, it is offering existing Lovefilm customers £15 off an Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote. They can each snag one for £25 instead of the usual £40.

The DVD and Blu-ray rental service has been running for more than 15 years, in one guise or another, with members paying a subscription fee to rent and exchange discs by post.

It launched a streaming service in 2010 and was subsequently bought out by Amazon in 2011, but while the postal rental option has been under threat ever since, it remained active. Until this autumn, that is.

Streaming services, including Amazon's own Prime Video platform, have slowly whittled down the number of members renting DVDs and Blu-ray and the Lovefilm arm of Amazon has finally given up the ghost: "We have very much enjoyed delivering the Lovefilm by Post service to you," it said in an email sent to customers.

"However, over the last few years we've seen a decreasing demand for DVD and Blu-ray rental as customers increasingly move to streaming. Due to this, we will be closing the Lovefilm by Post service on 31 October 2017."

It is hoping the customers will stream content via its Amazon Prime Video platform instead, hence the offer on the Fire TV Stick.

Lovefilm customers should have already received individual money-off codes by email.