Virgin closes in Paris

Who knew - besides the French - that there was still a chain of Virgin Megastores in France?

Not for much longer, though, as the Parisian flagship branch is closing and management are struggling to come up with a plan to keep the other branches going - although it admits this will involve closures and downsizing, even if they can pull it off.

The unions are, understandably, unhappy, blaming the owners - Butler Capital - for not having adapted quickly enough.

Although it's lovely to put the blame on a private equity group (Butler own all but 20% of the company; the other 20% is held by Lagardère, who bought the shops from Branson's Virgin back in 2007), it's selling records in a shop. It's increasingly hard to see how that can work as a mass-market proposition.

Brighton already treating Borders like a dead man walking

Panic in the centre of Brighton as they watch Borders struggle for life:

A prime shopping site could lay empty for months following the collapse of bookshop Borders.

This despite the chain (currently) still being a going concern. But the worry - which seems to come solely from the Evening Argus looking to fill a square on its pages - hasn't been helped by Churchill Square's failure to fill the slot left by Zavvi. Ah, if the Virgin Megastore had remained in its gorgeous building along Western Road, the hole might have been less apparent.

Spare Snare weekend: Live at Virgin

Who would have thought, watching Spare Snare do Wired For Sound and Smile, It's Sugar at the Virgin Megastore in Dundee in 1995, that Spare Snare would be around longer than the chain?



[Part of Spare Snare weekend]

Virgin closes New York store

There is one store left winding up, in Hollywood, but the closure of the Union Square Virgin Megastore in New York is effectively the end of the retailer in the US:

“It’s clear that the model of the large entertainment specialist working in a large space is not going to work in the future,” said Simon Wright, the chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group, North America.

Perhaps part of the problem was a mindset that saw "entertainment" as a specialisation in itself, rather than a top level description.

Virgin Megastores: Now we are three

Tick, tick, tick: Virgin Megastores shrink further in the US, with more closures announced. The chain will now consist of just three stores, and you wouldn't put bets on them lasting much longer, either.

Zavvi runs away from the Circus

Yesterday, the flagship Virgin Megastore was axed in the US; today, as part of the latest slew of closures announced by Ernst & Young as they battle to keep Zavvi afloat, their flagship, in Piccadilly Circus, is going.

By the end of the latest round of closures, 40 stores will have gone, ranging from Piccadilly to the Cheshire Oaks outlet village; nearly two-thirds of the chain remains trading though, and E&Y are upbeat about the possibility of finding a buyer.

Virgin Megastores shrink in US

With Zavvi closing swathes of the former UK Virgin Megastore chain, it's perhaps unsurprising that the American Virgin Megastores are struggling as well. In the dying moments of 2008, two of the three LA branches were being wound down; today the company announced that it would close the flagship Times Square store by the summer.

Zavvi endings?

Obviously, the timing of the collapse of Zavvi has been sped up by the failure of Woolworths' distribution, but it seems that all that has done is sped the inevitable, rather than brought destruction where there was only light. Even Zavvi's management team seem to tacitly accept that:

The group's founding partners Simon Douglas and Steve Peckham said: "We have done all that is possible to keep the business trading, but the problems encountered with EUK, and particularly its recent failure, have been too much for the business to cope with."

- that there was much else to cope with besides is certainly implied.

It's sad - who wouldn't rather buy music in a shop that at least once used to understand it rather than at Tesco? - and, for the staff, you'd have to hope they can salvage something in the New Year. But nobody who's shopped in a Zavvi since the ugly frontage first appeared on the High Street is going to be that surprised by this one.

Zavvi in one hell of a mess

Zavvi isn't having a good time of it right now - the unlovely chain was reliant on Woolworths for most of its deliveries and has already had to close its online store right at the busiest time of the year. Oh, and while bunches of prebooked and preprinted adverts were sending customers to the place.

It's getting worse: the company have had to bring Ernst And Young to help them pick their way through the minefield of their current trading. Zavvi owes £106 million to Woolworths' Entertainment UK subsidiary, and could be forced to hand over the money (which it doesn't have) or give back the stock in its stores:

Suppliers could claim they have "retention of title" over millions of pounds of stock, potentially allowing them to reclaim the goods from Zavvi stores.

People working with Zavvi are concerned that the company may be forced to choose between returning some stock at its most crucial time of year or continuing to sell it in defiance of the music labels.

Oh, come on, Zavvi - surely you don't think entertainment industry companies would be as short-sighted as to demand return of unsold stock right before Christmas, thereby making inevitable the collapse of one of the only two major record chains left trading? It's not like the BPI companies are bungling and can't separate short-term cash from long-term best interest, is it? It's not like they have a track record of that.

At the moment, the whole thing is balancing on a line of credit underwritten by Richard Branson - a man who must have thought he'd never have to worry about those bloody stores when he offloaded the Virgin Megastore chain back in September 2007.

The Zavvi.co.uk website is like a bizarre Mary Celeste webspace right now - you can go through, look at items: there's just no way you can buy them. "Pick up instore" is the best the website can offer, allowing all the convenience of a high street store with none of the convenience of not having to go into a poorly-lit digital rummage souk. That link, by the way, takes you to the Rubiks Cube page:

It's the no.1 Christmas present this year and the best selling puzzle in history! It has 43 quintillion combinations, but it can be solved in under 30 seconds.

The number one Christmas gift this year? Really? Perhaps in households that are relying on Zavvi for their income.

I don't want to blame the Rubiks Cube page for bringing down the whole company, but is "hey, this is a puzzle which you can solve in less than a minute" really a great selling point for any product? "Hours of fiendish fun", maybe; "seconds to learn, a lifetime to master" - that could be good. But "buy your kids something that has an even shorter lifespan than our company" doesn't sound like a sweet spot for your consumer goods.

Last weekend I happened into a Zavvi for the first time since they grew ashamed of their roots and started to hide the records behind the service elevator, to buy a DVD box set as a gift. "Would you like a bag?" asked the assistant. Normally, I'd decline but I had other shopping to do, and it was a gift needing concealing, so I said "yes, please."

The assistant disappeared under the counter and re-emerged holding the sort of brown paper bags greengrocers would use for mushrooms, shoved the box into the bag and handed it over.

So I'm left holding a package which is same size, shape and weight as it was before, and still equally as difficult to carry as it had been before the bag became involved. Only now: it looked like pornography.

Success! Virgin Megastores grow

Here's a story that might take you by surprise: Virgin Megastores are doing quite nicely, thank you. Of course, they're now only found in the US, and much of the growth - sales 11.5% up year-on-year for 2007 - is going to be down not so much to the rude health of Virgin as the closure of Tower in December 2006. You might even wonder if, with the loss of their main competitor, the sales rise is a little disappointing.

And the sales rises are being driven by fashion, DVDs and computer games - the latter nearly doubling in value over the year.

Nevertheless: a music shop that is feeling confident in the current market. Even if the music is now tucked away in the corner. Good news.

Lost Virginity

The now-no-longer-part-of-Virgin Virgin Megastores have snuck out a glimpse at their new, Zavvi branding. The corporate look is living up to the new name, then.

[via DJ Martian]

Virgin for sale?

Following on from the collapse of MVC, MusicZone, Fopp and Tower and the struggling of HMV as it tries to adjust to being a juice bar rather than a record shop, the Telegraph is reporting Richard Branson is thinking of offloading the UK Virgin Megastore chain.

Apparently, the chain's management are hoping to organise a buyout of the "roughly breaking even" chain. Presumably you can enjoy the downward spiral more if you've paid for your ticket.

HMV realises unable to beat them; join them

Last week, HMV was one of a bunch of record shops wailing about plans by Prince to give away his new album with copies of the Mail On Sunday - "absolutely nuts" was HMV chief eexcutive Simon Fox's response.

This week, they've decided to turn themselves into a newsagent and flog copies of the paper instead.

Virgin are livid:

HMV's move was attacked today by rival Virgin Megastores, which "expressed disbelief" at the company's decision.

"We're stunned that HMV has decided to take what appears to be a complete U-turn on their stance towards covermounts and particularly in this case, as only a week ago they were so vocal about the damage it will cause," said Simon Douglas, Virgin Retail managing director. "Simon Fox [HMV chief executive] labelled the Mail on Sunday deal as 'devaluing music' and 'absolute madness', now they appear to have joined forces to sell more copies of the very same paper," Mr Douglas added.

"It's not only retailers that suffer; the public will suffer in the long term by restricting choice on the high street. Of course people will take a free CD by a platinum-selling artist like Prince but you only need to look at what's happened to Fopp going into administration to get an idea of the potential long-term impact."

We're surprised to hear the impact of the Prince deal was so enormous that it managed to bring Fopp to its knees a month before it even happened, but those, we guess, are the apocalyptic forces we're dealing with here.

To be honest, we don't quite see why HMV is bothering - it's not like people are going to go out their way to buy the paper at HMV - "we could stroll into the village and get the paper, but instead let's drive to town and fight our way through the crowd of goths to get it"; they may pick up a few sales from people impulse-buying the paper at the checkouts, but we're not sure how many of HMV's customer base would be interested enough in Prince to buy the Mail On Sunday on a whim. Still, it's nice to see yet more consistent and joined-up policy thinking in the music industry.

Virgin tried to save Fopp

There had been some last-minute attempts to save Fopp from closure, the most notable of which was a proposed merger with Virgin Megastores. The deal fell through because the figures "didn't add up" and Fopp's suppliers weren't keen to embrace dealing with a Virgin-Fopp force.

Of course, Virgin's track record of running a smaller chain, one more enthusiastic about retailing music, alongside its main business isn't great - Our Price went from cool-for-a-chain, to couldn't-care-less, before turning into V-Shops and disappearing completely.

Even more surprisingly, Virgin had also had talks about a link-up with fellow struggling high street musical chain HMV.

Fopp issued a statement marking their closure:

"It is with great regret that we announce the closure of Fopp. Our store chain is profitable, well regarded and loved by our loyal customers and staff.

"However we have failed to gain the necessary support from major stakeholders, suppliers and their credit insurers to generate sufficient working capital to run our expanding business."

Got the new Suede album yet?

We know you're lying, we've seen the sales figures. This link will let you get it for two quid off at a Virgin Megastore. Hurrah!