Oh, also, Zavvi is in administration
A tumultuous end-of-year for the UK physical music market has been capped by breaking news that high-street chain Zavvi has been placed into administration. It appears to be a domino-style knock-on effect from the collapse of Woolworths, whose EUK subsidiary was a key supplier for Zavvi.
There have been persistent rumours around Zavvi since that news, focused on how much it may or may not owe EUK. It’s more bad news for physical music distribution in the UK, although it’s not clear yet whether a buyer will be found to keep Zavvi’s stores open in the long-term.
As a sign of how things are developing around the UK, once Woolworths closes in a few days’ time, the only place to buy CDs in the decent-sized town I live in will be one Sainsbury’s supermarket, which only sells the Top 40.
Tags: zavvi
December 24th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Zavvi was just the result of a management buyout by Virgin directors at the behest of Mr Branson who effectively paid for the staff to rebrand the company before it tanked. Zavvi was going down whatever – it was just important it didn’t go down under the Virgin moniker.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Its a real shame about Zavvi. However very strange that Branson sold it 6 months before and now it has gone under. Amazing timing or something else.
December 31st, 2008 at 10:47 am
I work for Zavvi, the seeming collapse is the result of the knock on from EUK, and that alone. There isn’t a retailer on the high street that isn’t operating in some form of debt. The inability to obtain stock over peak trading would finish any company. There had been many positive changes and improvements to the company since it left the Virgin brand. There wasn’t a single member of staff who wasn’t initially concerned about the rebranding, but I can honestly say that I’ve never worked for a company with such devotion to putting our customers first. Now the administrators have destroyed all our good work by removing our ability to accept our own gift cards!! I cannot stress enough how upset and distressed the staff are over this. We really have been given the sharp end of the stick. I still hope that we find a buyer. You would not believe how many of our customers are still without Internet access at home. This would simply leave HMV as the only credible high st option. Zavvi has earned it’s place out there.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
One thing is for sure, Branson isn’t as sweet and kind in business as his PR machine lets on and he saw the fall on the horizon so went through the saga of rebranding. Clever but sly.