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Branson Sells Virgin Megastores, renamed Zavvi

HMV are in a decline too, so we could end up with sod all record stores...:(
 
bartelby said:
HMV are in a decline too, so we could end up with sod all record stores...:(
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HMV are struggling but i think there's probably enough room in the market for one big chain,
without beardie around to bail them out Virgin/Zavvi look the weaker chain
 
Zavvi: crap name... but if they stop selling dance, trance, house and drum and bass CDs for about £20 each, I might pay them a visit.
 
Jaffa Cake said:
The big chains didn't give a flying one when they were putting the small, independent shops out of business, so I find it a little hard to have any sympathy for them now that they're feeling the effects of online sales.
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I have no sympathy for big chains. That's why most of the stuff I buy I order direct from the labels now. I'd rather support them than people who aren't actually interested in music.

Do you remember "A Chain With No Name" stores?
 
bartelby said:
I have no sympathy for big chains. That's why most of the stuff I buy I order direct from the labels now. I'd rather support them than people who aren't actually interested in music.

Do you remember "A Chain With No Name" stores?
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I worked for Our Price and Virgin and I can tell you that they were full of people who are passionate about music.
 
bartelby said:
HMV are in a decline too, so we could end up with sod all record stores...:(
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The indies (or at least the good ones) will keep going.

You're hard pushed to find anything outside of the top 40/main labels (that includes the big indie labels) in a HMV store, so it's not a major loss in my opinion.

That said, I give high street record stores (and places like Blockbusters too) 10 years, 15 max. Everything will be downloadable by then.
 
DAC47 said:
I worked for Our Price and Virgin and I can tell you that they were full of people who are passionate about music.
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What the board of directors who run the company?

I wasn't talking about the lowly retail staff.

iGav I've seen several extremely good indie store go bust because of big chain stores.
Vinyl Dreams in Cov being one example. Even Spin-a-Disc was good.

EDIT: Just go down Berwick St and see what's left... :(
 
Good for them. I'm happy to pay 9.99 to 13.99 for a new release on iTunes as compared to some of the horrendous 19.99 to even 49.99 cd releases(Those with extra features or b-sides).
 
bartelby said:
iGav I've seen several extremely good indie store go bust because of big chain stores.
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I think that the indies will survive the battle, but there will be casualties.

bartelby said:
EDIT: Just go down Berwick St and see what's left... :(
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There was a lot of mediocre record stores on Berwick Street, so in some respects, they were no great loss.

There used to be a great record shop in Inverness Street in Camden, but I forget its name, and there's a place over in Notting Hill called Minus Zero, that stocked some really weird stuff, and a lot of R.E.M., strangely.
 
It seems like losing record stores would be a bigger deal in the urban world, where you don't have our Targets and so on that we have readily available... we've been mostly without chain record stores for some time now. A good indie store, though, is worth its weight in gold.
 
iGav said:
I think that the indies will survive the battle, but there will be casualties.



There was a lot of mediocre record stores on Berwick Street, so in some respects, they were no great loss.

There used to be a great record shop in Inverness Street in Camden, but I forget its name, and there's a place over in Notting Hill called Minus Zero, that stocked some really weird stuff, and a lot of R.E.M., strangely.
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Of course, it's all subjective...
 
bartelby said:
Of course, it's all subjective...
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How many vinyl dance music shops does one street actually need? ;) :p

Consider the old adage, it's not the quantity but the... ;)

Still, there's much better places to buy records in London. :D
 
iGav said:
How many vinyl dance music shops does one street actually need? ;) :p

Consider the old adage, it's not the quantity but the... ;)

Still, there's much better places to buy records in London. :D
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There are vinyl dance music shops?

I was talking about Select-a-disc and Reckless Records and even SisterRay a few years back.
 
Tower Records went out here as well. It was only a matter of time for Virgin, who have been turning more and more into Hot Topic wannabes. Always seemed a little "me too" as it was. Actually, most of what he did seemed "me too"ish. The stores, the cell phones, the airline, the online music store. Been there, done that with all of them. Maybe if he brought something new to the table, it would have been different.

Mouth shaped toilets apparently wasn't it.
 
The decline of chain stores in certain sectors and the collapse of other sectors due to outsourcing make for some strange economic times ahead.
 
Southernboy said:
Well at least HMV are beginning to see the light.

link
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Not in Australia, HMV is officially dead.... HMV are in the office above my and they're clearin' out the office because they have gone bust here and the rest of the company have been liquidated or bought out by Sanity. Also the fact that HMV in Australia got caught selling pirates CDs didn't help the business either.....

JBHifi (Virgin, HMV and Sanity's competition) has absolutely obliterated all competition in Australia because they are cheaper, have more stuff and overall a better place to shop.
 
ezekielrage_99 said:
Not in Australia, HMV is officially dead.... HMV are in the office above my and they're clearin' out the office because they have gone bust here and the rest of the company have been liquidated or bought out by Sanity. Also the fact that HMV in Australia got caught selling pirates CDs didn't help the business either.....

JBHifi (Virign, HMV and Sanity's competition) has absolutely obliterated all competition in Australia because they are cheaper, have more stuff and overall a better place to shop.
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Sanity bought the Our Price chain in the uk and managed to drive it out of business in about a year.
The management was so bad that i know of one shop were all the staff quit on mass they were so sick off it.

anyway to some up music retail is a house built on sand
 
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