Results 1 to 25 of 255
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3rd Jan 2007, 4:33 PM #1Pip Madeley Guest
High Street Closure - Nipper the dog is looking for a new home (HMV's Closing Down).
Music Zone enters administration
A shame really, I rather like Music Zone, certainly the best high street shop for DVDs and CDs...
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3rd Jan 2007, 5:20 PM #2Dave Lewis Guest
No wonder they're offering 80% off most of their stuff. The one near me only opened last year... I'm not really a fan of it, to be fair.
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3rd Jan 2007, 5:27 PM #3
I'm not a fan myself either. I was in there just this very afternoon looking at their 80% off stuff, wasn't very impressed to be honest.
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3rd Jan 2007, 5:36 PM #4Wayne Guest
I've hardly ever bought anything from Music Zone. I always have a look, but they never seem to have anything i want.
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3rd Jan 2007, 5:38 PM #5
I was quite impressed with Music Zone (the Liverpool branch, to be exact) when I first discovered it, picking up a few cheap CDs there. But since Shrewsbury got a store last year, taking over from MVC, I've been rather less impressed, basically because I realised that there not actually that much cheaper than anywhere else. In fact, I looked in there a few times when I was shopping around for stuff for Christmas, and in a lot of cases, their stock was more expensive.
I wonder if this is once again the result of the internet offering much cheaper home entertainment? For whatever reason, it comes rather soon after MVC going the same way, and I sort of feel sorry for the staff, many of whom at my local Music Zone also faced the same uncertain future at MVC just a year ago.
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3rd Jan 2007, 5:51 PM #6
The one in Glasgow (old Tower Records on Argyle Street) was only opened at the start of December by Matt's Willies. I was in there last week and there wasn't much to tempt me. The Fopp round the corner p*sses all over it.
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3rd Jan 2007, 5:55 PM #7Wayne Guest
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3rd Jan 2007, 6:59 PM #8Captain Tancredi Guest
I've only ever been in the Leeds one a handful of times- perhaps it's telling that they switched the shop around a few months ago so the DVDs went upstairs and the CDs came downstairs, as if they were hoping to make more on the DVDs than they eventually did (although it might equally be indicative of a shoplifting problem). The marketplace is just too competitive at the moment, I think, and the more people get used to buying CDs and DVDs online, the only high street shops to survive will be the ones like HMV, Virgin and Borders who can keep a good range of stock.
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3rd Jan 2007, 7:03 PM #9
I've always liked Music Zone, you can get a lot in there cheaper than you would anywhere else unless you went online. I got two series of Alan Partridge on dvd there for 9.97, it was twice that in HMV.
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3rd Jan 2007, 8:27 PM #10
Buying that bit of MVC might have been a mistake in retrospect.
Si xx
I've just got my handcuffs and my truncheon and that's enough.
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4th Jan 2007, 12:21 AM #11WhiteCrow Guest
A lot of similar shops seem to be biting the dust at the moment. I remember lovingly a local place "screenshop" (???). Where the guy there who thought he was Quinten Tarentino noticed my wife looking at Underworld, and started to tell her how he'd have done the film, and even tried to give her his phone number.
Fortunately I'm not the jealous type. In fact I gave her my full permission to have an affair with him if she wanted to. She said something about being a "freak magnet", which I didn't know whether to take personally!
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4th Jan 2007, 1:12 AM #12Pip Madeley Guest
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4th Jan 2007, 1:42 AM #13
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4th Jan 2007, 1:48 AM #14WhiteCrow Guest
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4th Jan 2007, 11:39 AM #15
to be honest I've never heard of Music Zone, or even seen a branch of theirs around Reading or Bracknell but I don't think it comes as any real supprise as these chains are never going to be able to compete against the established giants of HMV & Virgin.
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4th Jan 2007, 7:56 PM #16
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4th Jan 2007, 8:40 PM #17Captain Tancredi Guest
To give an example of just what they're up against, the other week I wanted to buy a copy of 'Million Dollar Baby'. Big film a couple of years ago, plenty of Oscars and so on- but still available for 4.99 or thereabouts from Play. The money is in the new releases, but everybody (even the supermarkets) is getting into that game.
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6th Jan 2007, 12:44 AM #18
and less face it it's much easier and far less time consuming to buy your DVD;s and CD's on internet shopping..
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6th Jan 2007, 2:10 AM #19
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24th Jun 2007, 9:04 PM #20Pip Madeley Guest
Music Zone died a death, will Fopp be next?
Swan song for Fopp?
Fopp, the third largest high street music retailer, has launched a strategic review with its bankers as it struggles to cope with tough market conditions, according to sources close to the company.
The company closed its 50 stores on Friday for an extra-ordinary stock take that rang alarm bells with landlords and advisers. The move came just a week after the company told publishers to halt book supplies on both new orders and range replenishments.
Set up in the early 1980s by Montgomery from a market stall in Glasgow, Fopp has grown into the largest independent music chain in the country with a flagship store on London's Tottenham Court Road. Over the past seven years it has expanded from five to 50 stores specialising in offbeat music sold at "no-nonsense" prices of 8, 10, or 12.
However a bullish move in February to take over 67 stores from the administrators of failed rival Music Zone is understood to have put pressure on cashflow. Rising interest rates have also put pressure on the company, which said in its most recent accounts that it had not hedged interest rates. In those accounts, for the year ended April 2006, the music chain reported a small profit of 184,000 on turnover of just over 40m. The previous year the company made a loss of 329,000.
The troubles at Fopp come amid a wider downturn affecting high street book and music retailers, with market leader HMV reported to be the most shorted share on the London Stock Exchange. Although HMV's shares have rallied recently on news that it could make 100m on the sale of its Japanese business, the stock has suffered from profit warnings and poor sales figures. In a trading update earlier this year the group, which also owns bookstore Waterstone's, reported a 3.5 per cent fall in like for like sales for the 12 months to the end of April.
In a strategic review in March the group made gloomy predictions about continuing falls in DVD sales as a result of competition from digital media, with high street book shops' revenues continuing to suffer from online retailers. To offset the fall in sales the group has proposed a 40m cost-cutting programme. After the closure for stocktaking on Friday, Fopp's 50 stores were open and trading this weekend.
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26th Jun 2007, 12:07 AM #21Pip Madeley Guest
From bad to worse for Fopp:
Fopp has stopped taking orders via its website, and is only accepting cash payments within its shops as the chain continues what it described as "genuine and lengthy negotiations with its bank".
The chain is now only taking payments in cash across its entire chain. A notice on the retailer's website said: "Due to circumstances beyond our control we cannot currently take orders online. Sorry for any inconvenience caused." A notice on the tills within it stores stated it was having trouble with its "authorisation systems". A sales assistant said that the situation was "indefinite", adding that it had not received the week's new music releases because of "problems with its suppliers".
Fopp told publishers to stop supplying it with chart and backlist titles almost two weeks ago due to "unforeseen circumstances". The chain later blamed the disruption on the relocation of its warehouse, but publishers claimed they had not been told of the move in advance.
Retail analyst Nick Bubb, from Pali International, said that Fopp's decision in February to take over 67 stores from its failed rival Music Zone could be the cause of current events. "Taking on Music Zone was a risky move considering the retail market in that sector this year," he said. "When even someone like Tesco is saying that entertainment sales are weak it's a sign of the times of how the music and book retail market is performing."
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30th Jun 2007, 11:45 AM #22Pip Madeley Guest
And now the end of the line:
Fopp closes doors as administration looms
29.06.07 Philiip Jones
Entertainment chain Fopp has officially closed down, it has been confirmed. It follows media reports today that suggested it was about to be put into administration.
A statement put out by its management at 12.30 today read: "It is with great regret that we announce the closure of Fopp. Our 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. We would like to thank staff and customers for their support over the past 25 years."
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1st Jul 2007, 4:31 PM #23
My friend was working in our FOPP which opened before Christmas, and apparently the staff haven't been paid yet, which isn't good.
Music Zone's original outstanding debts seem to have crippled it from the start.
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1st Jul 2007, 4:38 PM #24Captain Tancredi Guest
This sort of thing seems odd, I think because you generally expect large chains of shops to be run by people who know what they're doing and understand things like supply chains and overheads. But then again, now that it's not just online retailers but the supermarkets getting into CDs and DVDs in a serious way and discounting heavily, it may well be impossible to make money as a high street retailer in that particular area unless you have the buying power of a major player or become the specialist shop in a large town.
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1st Jul 2007, 5:36 PM #25
According to my friend, so don't hold me on this, but EMI called in a one million pound debt, which they just couldn't contend with. A last minute buy-out also fell through, so they're still in limbo.
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