The rolling downhill "ZAVVI are actually Discounting before closing FOREVER!!!", ahem, thread.

Because 10% off don't make it.

Because they could, potentially, just shut up shop and redistribute the stock back to suppliers (like Fopp sort of did).

Or they could host a big bang shutdown sale a'la Woolworths.

And if/when they do, we need to know about it, right?

http://soundbiteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/vultures.jpg

Fair point, but then I never liked Zavvi, and never really ventured into Virgin Megastore since they changed emphasis from music to mobile phones.

I got that Monty Python all the films and all the TV series box ridiculously cheap from Zavvi.

I keep going in there and picking up the Friends boxset. I need help.

So are they actually discount now?

er, discounting

i wandered in, saw nothing desirable and left swiftly with a somewhat sullied soul. should probably have taken advantage of the WestWing box set for £50 before christmas though.

That WestWing box set is about £50 in HMV and from Amazon (where I bought it from...) so not really a special offer in Zavvi. If they're actually discounting I hadn't noticed. The shop I went into seemed to be full of the same crud at the same prices the last time I looked (about a week ago)

they had all five peep shows for £15 and yeah that west wing box, but otherwise not much to report.

xpost

I went into Sainsbury's at lunchtime and they were still selling individual DVDs for £15 and CD albums for a tenner, like they were mocking the high street.

I went in yesterday and most things were still more expensive than Fopp even with 10% off.

I was in Zavvi in Argyle St just before xmas and it was as shite as usual. I walked straight past the huge one in Buchanan St, as last time I was in there they had hardly any cds as they were only on the top floor while dvds took the other floors. Fuck them. I wont miss them like I'll miss woolies.

I do wonder if HMV can last. I'm surprised anyone is still asking £15+ for new CDs and DVDs.

HMV at least have some decent back catalogue cds of lots of bands, but yeah the prices suck.

Seven or eight big boxes of sealed smooth jazz and obscure AOR cut out LPs in the basement of the Tottenham Court Road store. £2 a pop, with loads of copies of each. One of the most curious lots of stock I've seen, but there's one or two decent albums to be had.

I had a flick through some of the £2 LPs but the only one that grabbed my attention was a Dobie Gray LP just cos I know the name from some Northern Soul comps. I didn't bite.

They had the £2 selection in my local Zavvi ages ago and I got http://www.discogs.com/Chuck-Brown-The-Soul-Searchers-Any-Other-Way-To-Go/release/376048 which is pretty good

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7815396.stm

I got luck with one or two good comps, went back for seconds and got burnt with a bunch of duds. Straight to the M&VE.

I may well pick up that Chuck Brown LP if there's any in the Picc C branch. Need more go-go in my life!

I tried to buy some music in Zavvi last week. Totally failed, and found myself laughing out loud at FOURTEEN POUNDS for one CD all over the place. Honestly, they'd shift three times as much if they halved everything. I did buy this for six quid though, which is in my bag ready to be read.

Might check out TottCtRd Zavvi on Friday.

Because they could, potentially, just shut up shop and redistribute the stock back to suppliers (like Fopp sort of did).

Well, as I said on another thread, most of their classical stock (ftom the Piccadilly branch anyway) seems to have disappeared already

I don't understand this. Music sales on actual physical formats are back to the early 90s numbers. And yet, what is the point in stores that were around in the early 90s closing now? Most of the decline has been for compilations anyway.

I noticed the same as Tom D. I go in there for classical CDs every now and then, and when I went in last weekend a lot of stuff seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. Lots of gaps, and I very much doubt through sales.

I don't understand this.
OK, lets' have a go.

Music sales on actual physical formats are back to the early 90s numbers.
OK...

And yet, what is the point in stores that were around in the early 90s closing now?

Zavvi were 'around in the early nineties' inasmuch as they were called "Virgin", but their emphasis changed to promote their mobile phone biz at front of store. (loads of branches, you had to go up or downstairs to get to 'music'). Subsequently, Virgin phones split and became separate shops. Then, the emph changed to DVD sales.

When the mamageement takeover happeneed, Zavvi came into being, but still the eemphasis was on the 'bulky/cheap' items with big profmargs, again you had to go further in to browse and/or find something specific. The likes of Debenhams do this with perfume at front of store, because people will venture in for what they want, and the casual browser will buy perfume, then comee back when used up.

DVD's / phones / Boxsets etc, do not get used up, they hang around taking space in yr house. Eeventually, you reemeember that that DVD got playeed onece, and the box set not even that much.

So, browsing gets easier online, and more difficult instore, guess what happens?

Most of the decline has been for compilations anyway.

How do you mean, decline, there?

(Apologies for rubbish spurious 'e' keyage)

Then, the emph changed to DVD sales.

Entire UK music retail industry to thread

yep.

Entire UK music retail industry up shit creek. Now, is there a connection there?

How do you mean, decline, there?

In sales. The music bizz started making hit compilations in the 80s, and they increased sales by a lot.
Then people discovered they could download the hits instead of actually having to buy compilations, and compilation sales dived again.

But sales of actual full albums by longtime artists with an empasis on lengthy careers sell now as they have ever done, because those of us who are into albums rather than single tracks will still prefer physical format CDs. So there is still a need for record stores, although of course I do realize that people also use online stores to buy their physical CDs cheaper, so there is a change regardless of downloading too.

Are you basing that on actual sales figures or some kind of Opium dream?

Citation needed.

Compilations are easy money, if sales slack off, the reccomps can just make less of them. But have sales 'deeclined'?

Are you basing that on actual sales figures or some kind of Opium dream?

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

"No thanks, I don't do the horse"

Zavvi announces 22 store closures

ZAVVI STORE CLOSURES
Ashford (Designer Outlet) (8 staff)
Ayr (5)
Bideford (Atlantic Village) (7)
Braintree (7)
Braintree (Freeport Village) (7)
Bridgend (Welsh Designer Outlet Village) (8)
Castleford Outlet (8)
Chatham (13)
Edinburgh (Cameron Toll) (4)
Hempstead Valley (9)
High Wycombe (Octagon) (8)
Huddersfield (7)
Liverpool (Clayton Square) (28)
Livingston (McArthur Glen Outlet) (5)
Manchester (Salford Quays) (5)
Mansfield (McArthur Glen Outlet) (6)
Newcastle (Royal Quays) (6)
Sterling Mills (10)
Street (Clarks Village) (7)
Swindon (Great Western Designer Outlet) (8)
Torquay (5)
York (McArthur Glen Outlet) (7)

The remaining 92 stores will stay open, with a sale of up to 50% off beginning on Friday, Ernst and Young said.

I was in the Newcastle Royal Quays one, not much. Think Tank, Blur, £2 but I have one already, you know...

The remaining 92 stores will stay open, with a sale of up to 50% off beginning on Friday, Ernst and Young said.

"Happy days are here again, la la la la la la!" That is if they've got any stock left worth buying.

Most of those closed ones are small units, what used to be XS Music/Video...

Other than the Piccadilly store, I'm not sure if any other Zavvi's are any good, the one in Glasgow is utterly shite and that's a big shop.

Right, what of the things that you might actually buy givene a decent discount?

I did see Bill Drummond's "17" book, I'd possibly buy that eventually. But, the 10% discount (i.e. one pound off) wasn't enough to make me buy it ahead of when I'd be having time to read it.

There's a ton of classic soul LPs in the Piccadilly branch I would be all over if they were discounted.

The £7 ones? Been wondering what the deeeeeal is w/ them for a while - overstock from somewhere?

I want a non-bashed-up "This Life" Series 1 & 2 boxset and a whole slew of classical CDs at knocked down prices.

I think the Buchanan Street, Glasgow Zavvi (nee Virgin) got rid of all its interesting musical stock in the big £3.99 sale a couple of years ago. Even coming late to the party I still managed to spend just over £120 that time and was seriously gleeful about a lot of what I got - dream come true when I went in and saw the kind of things they had included in that sale. My best purchases were 3 or 4 Necks CDs at £3.99 each with the original >£20 price tags on them to make me feel even happier about it, along with a bunch of the lesser-spotted Kranky & Constellation titles. Oh happy day!

Yep those are the ones. Lyn Collins, Curtis etc. I've been eyeing them for a while but I'm skint. £6.30 is a decent price but it's above my current budget for an album, at least for the next few months.

xpost

I think Zavvi's main problems are a) shit name and b) their supplier went bust, so they didn't have the stock to sell at Christmas, which is when they make all their money, and they couldn't return stock they had overordered, and they couldn't negotiate new lines of credit with other suppliers on favourable terms.

HMV should be fine, in a last-man standing kind of way, shouldn't it? IE Zavvi, MVC, Fopp failing = less competition.

Their vinyl selection is plain weird. I guess they got a good deal on a really random bunch of represses, but why would they buy thousands of special effects records? Don't people only buy those things because they're rare/collectable, so what's the point in a shitty repress?

I bought Lonnie Liston Smith Expansions, though, and If all the £7 ones are going to be £3.50, I'll pick up some more of the soul and jazz things.

The word which comes to mind with Zavvi (see also Woolies, M&S etc.) is "tired."

We went into our local branch (Fulham Broadway) last week to look for bargains but it was a painful experience going in there.

The same old mass produced rubbish that everyone's bought a thousand times over and the same rubbish overhyped indie stuff being discounted. The few decent things we saw were all £14 or £15, non-discounted.

And a total absence of atmosphere and friendliness - endless misfiling of albums, misspelling o of names on browsers, the detritus of a business that just doesn't care.

Clinging on to the exhausted old fifties idea of "retail" and they wonder why they're going bust.

Clinging onto the nurse of the tried and tested rather than risking the new.

Suggestions for all remaining record shop chains, including HMV:

Make your shops places that people want to go to. As the Apple store in Regent Street has managed to do. Places with atmosphere and feeling. You can't induce any atmosphere by creating a bottleneck at the front of every branch because of rubbish DVDs and Guitar Hero boxes that won't sell even if you gave them away.

And sort the prices out. Whatever anyone has to do to achieve it.

What about making every CD album in HMV the same price - say, £8? That would encourage people to delve deeper into the shop, find the unexpected, make random purchases, take chances that they can afford to take.

Yes, the shareholders wouldn't make as much profit. But how much more do they expect to make if the business collapses because people decide that Amazon etc. is overall much less hassle?

nb: my wife came up with the "every CD the same price" idea and we are both sure there are many sound economic reasons why this will never happen (as Grouty has underlined upthread) but driving people away from shops isn't exactly sound economics either.

Places with atmosphere and feeling.

this.
it has worked for bookshops surely it cant be that far removed to think a similar thing will work for music.

It generally strikes me as symptomatic of the standard British disease of unwillingness to serve others.

would guess that about 80% of the UK's angry customers are pissed off unemployed guys who were fired as a result of Carlin checkout tantrums

i doubt two guys were fired on the basis of one angry customer

Did they assign each other the seperate tasks of mocking Wendy and Lisa respectively?

It generally strikes me as symptomatic of the standard British disease of unwillingness to serve others.

I hear this sweeping generalisation made about Britain quite often, but in my experience customer service in britain is not much worse (or for that matter better) than other countries.

I hear this sweeping generalisation made about Britain quite often,

Anyone's "Sun: 50 Golden Years 8 CD Box set" arrived yet?

No (unless it's waiting for me at home) but HMV sent me a 'how was it for you?' email so I assume they at least intend to deliver the thing as arranged

I have a reasonable expectation: Fopp having it cheap (£15), there must be a lot of unsold stock of this.

The Hut Group seeks agency for brand awareness work
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=64516
Online retailer The Hut Group is to start looking for agencies to work on a brand awareness campaign after buying Zavvi’s brand, rights and 1 million-strong customer database this week.

Hut Group is looking to compete with HMV, Play and Amazon for the “£5-600m” sales displaced by the collapse of Woolworths and the former entertainment retailer Zavvi.

£5 closer to reality methinks.

Moulding admits the Zavvi brand has suffered some “damage” in the last few months

like the administrators refusing stores to accept Zavvi gift vouchers

I didn't realise they were still using the name online so they definitely need to get some of that brand awareness back up and running.

Nor did I know that they sell lingerie.

compare and contrast

Zavvi
http://www.zavvi.co.uk/zavvi/home.dept

TheHut.com
http://www.thehut.com/hut/home.dept

Anyone's "Sun: 50 Golden Years 8 CD Box set" arrived yet?

Yes! Mine arrived this morning, haven't had a chance to rip off the cellophane yet but it looks the business.

Jealous as hell, hope it's a rickroll in a box.

One Sun box set in mail, claimed by father as his.

if you want bad customer service, then high street fashion shops are the place to be. I've found the staff at Mango to be particularly sneery. I'm a loser and I've never had record store people be anything less than pleasant. The standard of service is really much higher than any other kind of shop. Not often that Tesco employees big up your bagels and recommend some other bread products.

Dundee Zavvi hasn't noticed that it isn't closing down and still has everything in the big sale, but despite the shop being full all the time the shelves don't seem to be getting emptier.

Zavvi’s and Woolworths’ new owners may struggle to restore brands’ reputations
http://tinyurl.com/c7dqrd

In my extensive experience I have never witnessed an incidence of a customer being rude or unpleasant. Perhaps I just went to the wrong record shops.

I think that might be the case. In a generalist high-street retailer one is far more likely to come across rude/unpleasant/disgruntled customers - I can count quite a few in my time as a ground floor sales assistant with a major music chain. All it takes is one git with a chip on his/her shoulder to ruin your day, no matter how many happy customers cross your path.

My Sun Box arrived also.

Blimey, it's a bit good, innit?

Also mine... talk about your loss leader, it must have cost about the price I paid just to post the thing

Still no further word on mine than:

"Item deleted - we are trying to obtain this item from alternate sources"

Bummer

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;-1;-1;-1;-1&sku=683061

full price

I wonder if someone got sacked for the mistake over the £3.99 box set. I hope not (please put the miles davis box sets up at the same price please)

(prepare to spend an unfun hour retagging any mp3s you make of disk1, the ones in cddb are of a low quality. disks 2-8 are better but he always misses the 'The' off the front of bandnames even when it's Dickey Lee & The Collegiates)

£15 from fopp leicester square yesterday. two on the shelves when i got there, none when i left (someone else had the other one in the 10 minutes i was there). saw 1 behind the counter but maybe they had a pile back there. odd given it's a limited edition of 5000 from 7 years ago.

My dad wants them on his ipod. I can always retag it with this program http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html I can try it with the database on discogs or amazon if CDDB is wrong. It's a handy lil prog.

desperation kicking in in the last remaining zavvi in bristol.
dig out your soul : £5 with that all important 25% off = a massive £3.74.
mountains of them left over.

Aw, I've been feeling a bit mean about knocking Selectadisc for occasional staff surliness.

So, please take this as my penance!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/13/selectadisc-nottingham-record-shop

Nice one! Way to go.

I didn;t know they did that 'Black Magic' label. Got a few of them, back in the day.

If anyone's miffeed at missing out on that Sun box set....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Various-Artists-Sun-Record-Company-50-Golden-Yea_W0QQitemZ150330916368QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CDsDVDs_CDs_CDs_GL?hash=item150330916368&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

.. is running very cheaply at the moment...

.. £0.99 + £2 p&P

Dear krakow,

We’re getting in touch to let you know that all or part of your recent order from hmv.com has been cancelled:

Qty Format Artist Title Price
1 CD VA SUN RECORDS: 50 GOLDEN YEARS: £3.99

We have been informed by the suppliers that this item has been discontinued from their catalogue, as the manufacturer is now longer producing the item. It has therefore been cancelled from your order. Please note that you have not been charged for this item.

hmv.com has one of the most complete and up to date databases in the world. However, obtaining confirmation of discontinued titles can take time to be communicated to us from the distributors. We always endeavour to keep our catalogue as up to date as possible, and the product page on the web site is being updated to reflect this deletion.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience or disappointment that this may have caused.

Regards,

Online Customer Service Team
hmv.com

Sympathies.

(got mine)

my Zavvi has turned into a Head (whatever that is, if it's really anything - same sign font and colours as Zavvi) and they seem to be trying to get quickly shot of everything that they don't think anyone's going to buy. Allegedly from 75p, but I didn't see anything that cheap. But for about £17 I got:

New York Noise Vol. 2
Caetano Veloso - s/t (Tropicalia)
Gilberto Gil - Nightingale
Prince - Purple Rain (that wasn't in the big discount, it was just £4 for no reason)
Ornette Coleman - Ornette on Tenor
Viking Moses - Swollen & Small

plenty more I'd have bought, but I really shouldn't have been spending even this much, no Wolf Eyes dudes and Richard Youngs and so on for me tomorrow ayayay.

I hit up the Head Dundee clearout a couple of times, got a few things probably of no interest to anyone on here, and only 1 that I'd actually been looking for - a Laura Veirs album. That said, the Early Day Miners and British Expiditionary Force albums I got were pleasant surprises, as was finding a Magnolia Electric Co. album. Annie and Erlend Oye DJ Kicks, £3 each.

Almost bought that Viking Moses EP, but decided against it. Glad it went to a good home. Did you see him when I put him on at the Rep a few years back?

I was sad when Virgin, as it was, was moved from the back of the Wellgate to the front, never as much fun working there. Though my Sunday hangovers improved greatly when i wasn't subjected to the heady cocktail of smells from McDonalds next door and the public toilets above the classical section...

Head took over Fopp in Leamington. I thought they were a one shop deal, turns out I was wrong.

bristol is now head.

moutains of random boxes full of clearout stock.
glorious way to kill a lunch hour.
most of the stuff is gubbins, but a dig today got me :

ame - coast 2 coast - £2.25
mlle caro & franck garcia - pain disappears (buzzin' fly artist album) - £3.75 [loving this on first listen]
a mountain of one - collected works (already got it, but decided was good to have spare at this price.. ) - £2.25
freelance hellraiser - waiting for clearance (already got it, but decided was good to have spare at this price.. ) - 74p

Could Selectadisc be returning? Same premises, new management, sounds like they want to retain the old ethos. One has to wish it well.

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Selectadisc-set-return/article-945250-detail/article.html

Dundee Head has a couple of boxes of vinyl that appeared recently, mostly 7"s and 12" singles but there were a few LPs, picked up the following for £1 each:

Stereolab - Margerine Eclipse (sealed)
Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward (sealed)
The Presets - Apocalypso
Colder - Heat
Harrisons - No Fighting in the War Room
Shirokuma - Moonlight in the Afternoon (double 10" single)
Wax Stag - Short Road EP (10")

Plus Lindstrom + Prinz Thomas' "Reinterpritations" on CD for £2.99.

Been rinsing the £2.99 CDs in the last week tbh, cheers imploding music retail industry. Got that Lindstrom/Prinz one, Fairport Convention 'What We Did On Our Holidays', Cathedral 'Forest of Equilibrium', Tood Edwards 'New Trend Sounds 2004' and Method Man 'Tical'

I went through all the CDs a couple of times when they were 20% off and bought a fair bit, just don't have the patience to go through them again just in case any new stuff has turned up.

Head in bristol are in meltdown mode.
£1.74 for last Primal Scream, Dido albums and several other recent high profile albums that they clearly cant shift.

today £2.99 got me some 1974 james brown produced golden funk :

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61IQvj7oAmL._SS500_.jpg

Prince Far I 2xCD comp for £2.99 yesterday in Cardiff. That dept has presumably got a closing date as the ppl I know who work in there were chssed off about losing their jobs (in one case that its closure was on Wikipedia (!) before he was told), but still seems to be plodding on

Talking to an ex-colleague in the Dundee one a while back I got the impression they were expecting to be done in a few months, maybe Sept/Oct. Every time i skim the £2.99 stuff I still manage to find something I haven't spotted before, nothing that exciting though.

going going ..

last week Zavvis replacement in bristol, Head, had a 20% reduction on their lucky dip section.

today, everything else is £4.99

i dived in and found the following goodness :

bomb the bass - future chaos (2 cd edition),
hatchback - colours of the sun,
d.lissvik - 7trx + intermission,
tobias thomas - please please please

chuffed.

the Dundee Head is closing down and has enacted comedy discounts - 40% off of stuff that was already only 99p, etc. I got:

Prince - Prince
HEALTH - HEATH//DISCO
Julie Doiron - Woke Myself Up
Simon Joyner - Lost with the Lights On
White Magic - Dat Rosa Mel Apibus
Yoko Ono - Yes, I'm a Witch
Michael Cashmore - The Snow Abides
The Fiery Furnaces - Remember
Studio - Yearbook 2
Herman Dune - Next Year in Zion
Anni Rossi - Afton
James Jackson Toth - Waiting in Vain
Abe Vigoda - Skeleton

for a total of £16. Worth the thigh muscle damage from all the crouching I did. Dunno if I was more surprised to see that they once had (the dividing cards told me) a Simon Wickham-Smith album, or that someone had apparently bought it.