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Branson Sells Virgin Megastores, renamed Zavvi

i just want to add that all my opinions on this subject are coloured by the experience of working for over a decade (on and off) in music retail. (yes the big, nasty, soulless, corporate, soon-to-be-extinct variety exemplified by Our price and Virgin)
 
DAC47 said:
i think Fopp was doing ok but the Bank lost confidence in the chains management. the problem they had is that that their margins were really small you don't make much profit from a £5 back cat CD!
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I imagine you can make a good profit selling LOTS of £5 back cat CDs. I know a lot of people who use FOPP to fill those cassette-shaped holes in their CD collections.

I can't remember the specifics, but I seem to remember the issue was that the FOPP management bought up all of the Music Zone stores when they went bankrupt, but over-extended their finances to do it.

I buy almost all of my music (and a lot of DVDs) from FOPP in Manchester it's a great store. Now Zavvi... The Virgin stores were always overpriced, and I've not seen a change. I pick up the odd sale item, but for new releases, I'm straight back to FOPP.
 
DAC47 said:
but that's subjective also
a lot of people would prefer to go bright well laid out megastore than spend Saturday afternoon flicking through photocopied CD covers in Spllers
(you and I might prefer the latter but the great unwashed probably wouldn't agree)
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I can't stand Spillers. Diverse in Newport isn't any better.
I generally go direct to record Labels now as I'm not paying a £5 markup for a shop to have to order in what I want anyway.
 
I just have a something to throw out there for thought. I have been a comic book collector and I have seen the same thing happen to the comic industry. With the beginning of the "direct market" In both records and comics it not only saved both respective industries, it propelled them to new heights of success. But I think both industries suffered from the same thing, the lack of producers marketing product that met consumer demand.

For anyone who doesn't know what I talking about the gist of the direct market is this... previous to their conception, product like records, would be distributed to larger stores to be sold in their record departments. The store would sell what they could and return the unsold merchandise along with the payment for what they were able to sell. The direct market allowed retailers for a much lower cost to purchase the merchandise however they paid for it and kept what they didn't sell.

This also allowed producers to increase their market production because all was now a guaranteed sell. This is where I believe producers lost sight of meeting consumer market demand. The over saturation of product on the market which consumers have no interest in has eventually caught up on the market exchange rate and hurt retailers first, like Virgin.

Todays music, comics, DVD's (I talking about the "straight to DVD" movies) and entertainment in general (like the product sold in Virgin stores) is horrible. Not ignoring the very talented and deserving performers but there are still way to many talentless and undeserving performers that are out there riding this gravy train that quite frankly shouldn't be there and in the previous more demanding market (go back to the early eighties and before) would not be. Like wise the whole industry has suffered for it and the stores at the bottom of the chain are the first to take on casualties.

But that's what I think. What say you?
 
DAC47 said:
fair point
but that's subjective also
a lot of people would prefer to go bright well laid out megastore than spend Saturday afternoon flicking through photocopied CD covers in Spllers
(you and I might prefer the latter but the great unwashed probably wouldn't agree)
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The market is proving you wrong. Those people you speak of are downloading their music and throwing it on their iPods or other mp3 players. The people who buy Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera aren't buying vinyl copies of their albums. They're downloading singles.

People who want different music are going to small independent, niche market record stores. Been to those lately? They're thriving. The days of the huge, corporate record store are over- plain and simple. That model doesn't work anymore.

william sire said:
I just have a something to throw out there for thought. I have been a comic book collector and I have seen the same thing happen to the comic industry. With the beginning of the "direct market" In both records and comics it not only saved both respective industries, it propelled them to new heights of success. But I think both industries suffered from the same thing, the lack of producers marketing product that met consumer demand.

For anyone who doesn't know what I talking about the gist of the direct market is this... previous to their conception, product like records, would be distributed to larger stores to be sold in their record departments. The store would sell what they could and return the unsold merchandise along with the payment for what they were able to sell. The direct market allowed retailers for a much lower cost to purchase the merchandise however they paid for it and kept what they didn't sell.

This also allowed producers to increase their market production because all was now a guaranteed sell. This is where I believe producers lost sight of meeting consumer market demand. The over saturation of product on the market which consumers have no interest in has eventually caught up on the market exchange rate and hurt retailers first, like Virgin.

Todays music, comics, DVD's (I talking about the "straight to DVD" movies) and entertainment in general (like the product sold in Virgin stores) is horrible. Not ignoring the very talented and deserving performers but there are still way to many talentless and undeserving performers that are out there riding this gravy train that quite frankly shouldn't be there and in the previous more demanding market (go back to the early eighties and before) would not be. Like wise the whole industry has suffered for it and the stores at the bottom of the chain are the first to take on casualties.

But that's what I think. What say you?
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I also agree with this post, except from what I'm seeing, the stores at the bottom (the independent stores) are making a killing. It's the big ones that are taking the hit.
 
leekohler said:
The market is proving you wrong. Those people you speak of are downloading their music and throwing it on their iPods or other mp3 players. The people who buy Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera aren't buying vinyl copies of their albums. They're downloading singles.

People who want different music are going to small independent, niche market record stores. Been to those lately? They're thriving. The days of the huge, corporate record store are over- plain and simple. That model doesn't work anymore.



I also agree with this post, except from what I'm seeing, the stores at the bottom (the independent stores) are making a killing. It's the big ones that are taking the hit.
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That might be that case in the U.S. but i don't see any areas of physical music distribution thriving
maybe this is case in London. But don't see anything but pain for everybody big or small round here.:(
 
leekohler said:
The market is proving you wrong. Those people you speak of are downloading their music and throwing it on their iPods or other mp3 players. The people who buy Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera aren't buying vinyl copies of their albums. They're downloading singles.

People who want different music are going to small independent, niche market record stores. Been to those lately? They're thriving. The days of the huge, corporate record store are over- plain and simple. That model doesn't work anymore.
Click to expand...

Don't know whose market you're referring to.

I don't think physical music stores, large or independent, are doing very well these days.

Sure, you could probably reply with a, "But there's this music store in Chicago that......" which (you believe) is doing well. Maybe there is. But overall, the market still isn't buying a heck of a lot of albums. There are some albums that sell really well. There's always 1 or 2 each year that sell like they did 10 years ago, and they're almost always hip-hop albums. Doesn't mean that independent music stores are thriving though. Not generally, anyway.
 
DAC47 said:
maybe this is case in London. But don't see anything but pain for everybody big or small round here.:(
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I think the problem round here is there are no decent music shops.
Diverse in Newport will order stuff if they like you, if they don't they just keep stringing you along.
Rock-a-Way in Newport (if it's still going) is ok but expensive and he hasn't got accounts with some of the big distributors.
Spillers in Cardiff is just rubbish with the photocopied crap.

Then you've got your generic HMVs and such. All overpriced and limited in their selection. I've never tried ordering stuff through a large chain, but I'm betting it's not cheap or easy.
 
Abstract said:
Don't know whose market you're referring to.

I don't think physical music stores, large or independent, are doing very well these days.

Sure, you could probably reply with a, "But there's this music store in Chicago that......" which (you believe) is doing well. Maybe there is. But overall, the market still isn't buying a heck of a lot of albums. There are some albums that sell really well. There's always 1 or 2 each year that sell like they did 10 years ago, and they're almost always hip-hop albums. Doesn't mean that independent music stores are thriving though. Not generally, anyway.
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I mentioned the market earlier- it's niche/independent/vinyl. Those places are doing very well here and always seem to be quite busy. Laurie's Planet of Sound, three locations of Reckless Records, Gramophone Records and several others that I pass from time to time whose names escape me at the moment. Gramophone is especially hopping, being that they specialize in vinyl for DJs. These are the businesses that have found ways to keep going and even thrive.
 
bartelby said:
I can't stand Spillers. Diverse in Newport isn't any better.
I generally go direct to record Labels now as I'm not paying a £5 markup for a shop to have to order in what I want anyway.
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Spillers was always a cool shop, but the photocopies were annoying.

Everyone could have predicted this as soon as downloads started to dominate. Supermarkets will eventually be the only physical retail place to buy CDs and DVDs.
 
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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Agreed. Good riddance to these big chains. I either buy my music straight from the labels or a local independent record shop.
 
eluk said:
They're not dead. There has merely been a glitch in the supply chain due to Woolies going belly-up.
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"its not dead, just sleeping"

if you can't get stock in December, in this business you may as well be dead.
 
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