Jobs fears as the retail bloodbath begins

Happy New Year!!!!!
Ok, confession time, I used to work for Virgin retail a year back but left because i found better employment. I personally liked the job itself in the beggining but then when it bacame Zavvi it went down and lost its appeal and the fact that they had no idea how to run a company, treat their staff respectfully and stopped doing regular bonuses and making huge cut backs including making some area managers redundant. They stopped having mystery shoppers, so staff stopped making an effort and i noticed how the service went down. A new manager came in who was incredibly rude to customers and staff. So i didn't like it and left. HMV all the way they know how to look after a company, it's employees and it's customers . Anyone with a complaint about it regarding service should contact their managers and complain because they care and will listen. Zavvi stopped caring a month after it got its foot in the door and is another reason why its going bust.
Anyway in answer to all questions. Anyone, whether it is supermarkets or high street stores that sell cds, are charged £9.00 per cd. Yes 9.00 pounds per one single cd. Yes it IS true. Anyone can snort and pull a face all they like, I know i worked there and have seen the REAL paper work and like i said before, supermarkets can fall back on food prices and rely on cheaper cds and dvds to make customers come in.
Some providers might charge less but at the time EUK was a good provider and that was the price for companies. Yeah it probably costs pennies to make the cds at manufacturors before they send it out to companies like EUK, but then EUK will prob be charged a copyright to be able to sell the product as it belongs to the studio as the creators of the songs/product. Plus theres tax and VAT (well VAT has gone down but before, you know) Whew! this is a long write lol. By the way PLay.com and Amamzon stock come from gurnsey and DON'T pay tax so they can charge what they like on products. There you go hope this was all a good education and puts peoples moaning minds at rest. I'm pleased i don't work for them any more, i'd hate to be worrying about jobs right now at xmas and new yaer time. I pity the workers but seriosly i don't care if it goes bust, it deserves to go bust and like a say, if you don't like the prices, go else where. Mac over and out.

Buy cds in sterling you'll save a fortune.

MAC i see your point about supermarket chains running with cd's so cheap. why then can xtravision offer the same said cd's for 13.95 and sometimes even cheaper.
in truth even at 13.95 we are still being ripped off so it does not matter!!

I'll justify it for you. Don't go. Simple, buy online. How can anybody justify anything in life, prices, crimes, laws, fate, etc... There is no way to justify prices on anything. Everything in life is a rip off. It's kind of like trying to justify a price of a house thats made purely out of plaster. Friend of mine bought a brand spanking new house from [vendor's name removed] Paid £175,000. The house is now in bits, Literally, as is the rest of the houses built on that street! Its just crumbled and worth nothing. Its crazy!
How can you justify the price of Booze and cigs? Cars, Petrol, Gas and Electricity, water, council tax, etc......... list goes on and on and on. Lets face it, if you don't wanna pay, don't complain and bitch about it, just don't buy it. Simple. Nobody makes people buy anything, but its human nature to bitch and whine about it because it gives people something to do. Something to talk about. And once Zavvi is either bought or closed down and time goes on people will find something else to complain about. Don't believe me? look above and on any forum. Right am outta here nice leaving blogs with you all but i gotta get out and live life and enjoy shopping before every single shop becomes extinct and the only way to shop is to buy online but find nothing fits me because i am too fat with sitting at the computer all day and find that the only job left in the world is to sit at a computer because there is no shops or bars or supermarkets to work at. Welcome to the future, Yippee. TTFN

HMV/Zavvi etc etc are dull boring shops with very little to offer except for whoevers the hottest new thing this year, the same old rubbish in all the shops, there are some great online shops/labels which get the custom of the people that want new music that tries something different, cut out the middle men i.e. these silly shops, pay the artists.

Putting a price on a DVD boxset for 25 euros a week before christmas and then having a "sale now on" for same item after christmas for 40 euros kinda puts people visiting that shop again. How can you justify that?

In reply to one of messages above. The reason why Zavvi or HMV or any other high street store charges 15.99 or 16.99 a pop is because unlike Supermarkets Zavvi and HMV dont have over priced food to sell to make up for any chart losses and so far in small towns the charts in our supermarkets are shocking and boring and have nothing else to offer except for recent movies like, Gone with the Wind or Shane (smile) hardly the newest of releases. Don't get me wrong they are good movies but after years and years you kind of wanna change. Though i admit some of the deals are good but then again i have noticed that even with NEW releases Zavvi and HMV regularly drop chart prices down to as low as 8.99 on certain days and then put them back up. Its the luck of the draw i'm afraid. However if i were to choose which company were to go bust I'd choose Zavvi as i have noticed the lack of customer service i receive whenever i go their stores where as HMV have always been very helpful and often have what i'm looking for. Long Live HMV!!!

AFAIK they will go into administration also. If PWC cannot find a buyer for the group, expect a big closing down sale and then they , well close down.

wats the story with the adams in ireland

How did businesses operate prior to the boom years. For example the car trade...its very bad at the moment - lots laying people off and many may close next year. But how did they stay afloat prior to the boom?????

my theory on things is as follows

a recession is a collective epiphany that we are paying far too much for what we consume.

zavvi hmv and a lot of these bigger music shops are really victims of their own greed. when you look at the new release cd's that go on sale the bigger music chains charge 15.99 or 16.99 a pop. why can dunnes stores and tesco charge 13.99 for exactly the same cd.you can also get them even cheaper on amazon or cdwow or any of these such internet stores. they are ripping us off and people are finally starting to realise it..

my 2 cents worth lol

Large retailers don't actually own what they sell. They get it on credit and pay it back when they sell the goods. If they can't get stock on tick, they cant operate.

retail chains being liquidated after one bad year??? where are the profits of the boom years.

No. What will happen now is that Price Waterhouse will try to find a buyer for the store, if they cannot do this the chain will be liquidated to clear it's debts. Woolworths went into administration in November and is now in the process of winding down a month later.

Is Adams shops closed so ?

Yeah and as a knock on effect from the distributors going under, there are hundreds of very small record labels like my own with one or two employees that get completely screwed when a distributor goes under. We have had 2 distributors and a record pressing plant go under in recent times and basically all we were left with were disconnected telephone numbers.
I love to press vinyl records as well as having to embrace the digital age so we have been forced to scale back the number of records we can press for fear that the plants will shut down midway through a project, leaving us scratching our arses and worse yet totally killing the royalties that go to the artist. The result is that even the people that make the music, even those that do it for the love of it. Can't make a living so we all suffer when music goes unheard.

Cheers Squid, looks like a domino effect from the credit crisis then.

actually their troubles have more to do with Entertainment UK, a part of woolworths, who are their main supplier, going under.

They couldn't get favorable credit terms elswhere when EUK went to the wall along with the rest of woolworths.

Zavvi's failure is due to the internet. More people than ever are listening to music, it's just that music, once it has been digitized costs almost nothing to distribute. Why would anyone buy a CD if they can get their music more conveniently off the internet at lower or even zero cost. Zavvi, and before them Virgin never got to grips with this.