As a Virgin Retail Employee I am totally shocked to find out that the M.D and Finance director have bought the company!

Having just called around a few "friends" in diffrent depts at Head Office, they are also shocked. I must say tho, that the company has been cutting back and laying off people for the past few years, as apparently the boss (Richard), Is tired off constantly bailing us out every year with a fat cheque!!

Id like to be able to say that I feel my job is completely safe... but I cant. I mean, If the mega rich billionairre is tired of throwing money at us to keep us going, How long are two guys at head office going to last????

They've already closed all Xpress stores and afew megastores, made redundant a good few people from all depts
Time to update the C.V and get it circulating me thinks...

Anyone need an experienced, cheery, hardworking young man?? anyone? please??? :(

well at least there's one beardy old man laughing all the way to the bank.......
mr B has always been look on as a visionary, someone who can make trends almost....
so if he's pulling out i cant see a rosey future for the high street record shop

"I am just going to Zavvi to buy my cd"- does not quite have the same ring to it does it

why don't Virgin Retail or should I say "Zavvi" do us a favour and close down! What makes the management team think that Zavvi will do any better than Virgin Retail as far as sales are concerned. At least before we have the Virgin brand that gave us the delight to be part of the group .
Employment agencies... here I come!!

Who owns the non UK/Irish stores. Anyone know?
I gather Bransom is also selling Virgin Media. Has the Midas touch faded?

For those who are employee's as I am. Im sure you will agree things are tough in the entertainment market for everyone. But If you are so negative about the change at this point then perhaps another place of work is better suited for you. Maybe you forget we performed better than any other retailer last financial year (inc HMV) and are set to take it further with the passion of the guys in control.

Can't say i was that surprised as the focus instore has been turning more to dvd & games then music which severs the last 'emotional tie' Branson had to the company that started it all off for him. You'd have to question the sense of repeatedly bailing out a business because of any emotional value.Should be an interesting christmas for the new Zavvi brand - lets hope we can all make it work without the comfort of knowing we'd be bailed out otherwise !

looking forward to getting that new Zavvi uniform and having a very Zavvi Christmas, god help us.

hahahahahahahaha.....you're all doomed. It's all down hill from here.

Zavvi didn't they used to be Fopp ? I'll think I'll stick with VAT free Play purchases. God I'm good

US stores were bought by Zavvi too i think
although i think that was announced yesterday
so maybe it was a last minute thing to get rid of the UK stores.
We got told last week that our uniforms might be changing to plain black teeshirts and neck thingys
i hope this is still the case with Zavvi
and i hope it works out, no repeat of MVC, music zone and fopp on the books.

I don't want a Zavvi uniform,
i gather this means we all loose our tribe cards!
If virgin cant do Zavvi won't be able to no one will trust it has a brand!

Left the company nearly two years ago after 16 years and managing many of the stores. really sad to hear the news that the brand is leaving the high st. The name is questionable in my opinion. I hope it succeeds as the country needs choice. The thought of only ever buying music online or at a supermarket is more than a little depressing. Good luck to everyone still employed.

Will the brand really leave or will RB bring it back without the debts? And that name is rubbish. Does anyone know were it came from. Imagine the focus group coming up with that. It sound like those 3 blokes who do the bank advert came up with it. Yes boss great boss back of the net boss!

I worked at Virgin/Our Price for about 5 years, and then Head Office. In the year I was there, so many stores closed down and the rest weren't making much profit. I think anyone still there should get out now, it's very demoralising to see the place just waste away. And having been there at shop closures, it really isn't nice!

Hmmmm

I wonder why Virgin and HMV our suffering when they charge £10+ more for a HD / BluRay dvd that Gamestation or Tesco

They are going to have to learn that if they are going to survive then they need to have a rethink on how much markup they put on the items that they sell, 10 years or so ago people only really went to Virgin or HMV to buy there CDs DVDs etc but now they have a vast choice of shops and online stores where they can buy from but Virgin and HMV haven't seemed to grasp this. they think they can carry on ripping off the public.

The writing is on the wall for HMV and Virgin / Zavvi, Richard Branson can see it coming that's why he's pulled out.

I don't mean to put a downer on it but if you had a choice would you spend £30 a HMV/Virgin or £15 at Tesco??

Maquis, It's not quite as straightforward as you make out. Margins are tighter than ever at HMV and Virgin, supermarkets make a loss on most entertainment titles, simply to get people to buy their weekly shopping there.

Maquis - spoken like someone who knows nothing about retailing and entertainment retailing in particular. Ferociously competitive with margins tight on most of the products sold. Good luck getting those non chart Films and Dvd's from the supermarkets in 10 years time. They will decide what you will be buying if they bother selling entertainment product at all once the life has been squeezed from it. After all there is much more money in clothes and bog roll.

The problem is, it is still the large superbrands that are booming. The supermarkets have already closed down the majority of independantly owned businesses, and now they are beginning to close down the specialist companies. Very soon, with the additions of motor insurance and the Tesco catalogue which they have recently released, there is going to be no more of these companies such as Argos, Game and Virgin Megastores/Zavvi as it will now be called, and the whole market will be dominated by both the internet and supermarkets. The best thing that we can do is support these independant companies and specialist stores, and shop as less as possible in places like Tesco and Morrisons!

Virgin did NOT perform better than HMV last year. They've been running at a loss for years whilst HMV nets a cool £50 million a year profit. As for mr "I buy my stuff vat free @ play - god i'm good....!", HMV run exactly the same thing online shipping from guernsey.
Here's wat I think....HMV want to buy out Virgin, but that would be a ral blow for the man who started his empire with this chain. So what do you do? you re-brand it, and sell it off under a new name - saving face face for mr virgin branson. Why do you think they aren't bothering in wasting £££ on expensive uniforms - coz it'd be a complete waste when they close the zavvi chain down which is whats planned.

Obviously most comments written by uneducated people (exc Brian - who understands the long term dangers).
Having worked for HMV & now zavvi - I can tell you there is more passion to succeed now than ever before. HMV (employed 20 years) had one focus margin on everything - overprice from day one because we can - their arrogance was amazing and the staff where sucked in (& often ripped off & bullied)
Also in respect of who performs better yes HMV make a profit 3 years ago that was in excess of 125m now 49million Virigin (under Simon Douglas's direction) went from 80million loss to around 35 million - think Virgin got it more right
i have had hours of joy reading the death chimes from 'the public' on blogs since this was annouchned and trust me it has been fun because the only people *****ally want to comment are the ones who hate success (jealousy maybe?)

Here are some facts from a dsitibution side.
Virgin charges for racking.
Virgin charges for tagged adverts.
Virgin refuse to stock smaller titles unless tehy drive the profits of teh label down. Their profits will always remain at the same percentage. They then add on 100% mark-up.
Virgin will basically do anything they can to make money. The from labels and thier customers.
That is teh way a business works.

As for a consumer or a distributor. They will also do what is best for them. The distributor will stop selling hard-to-market music if profit is it's primary agenda.

Consumers will not buy **** that is cheap, yes, but **** none-the-less. That is all that is available in a Virgin store. Lazy, unimaginative. Fashionable music.

Richard branson sold the company as it was music and profit that were his priorities. Now that neither of them exist, side by side, I don't blame him for getting out. Zavvvi will deal with computer games for a little while and then they will give up. The same as MVC, Ourprice, Music Zone etc...

Music is not a traditionally profitable commodity anymore.
If it is, it will take someone with a bit of imagination to do it which is better than being force fed ****.

I like that people are finally realising that business would not exist if it were not for consumer. Consumers have more power than any corperate giant. If one day, everyone woke up and said. Do you know what, I don't think I am going to buy stuff anymore because I am happy with what I have, Business would stop altogether. Nobody would have to work and we could all be in holiday spirits for the rest of our lives. Not gonna happen as long as greed continues to be a human trait.

I run an indie opposite virgin who have been open for 1 year. The manager tempted my asst manager away by offering more money. She obviously wasnt capable of traing her own staff as i did. Virgin has been around for a while. They always lack 3 things when you go in there.
1 atmosphere/passion
2 knoledge
3 personality
this is why i have not been affected by them for the last year or the years before they repositioned opposite me.
As for zavvi , give me a break. We have heard this story before. I have 4 games shops in a small city and i undercut them , not to make money. But just to get people through the door. If zavvi aim to dominate the games market, they will need to make the games them selves to make the margin.
I rub my hands with delight and look forward to the battle.

Comming out of the tube station at Oxford Street, I was looking foward to heading into my first port of call for a game and a dvd - Virgin. What do I find? Some green italics begining with 'Z' that I can hardly make out.

I buy the game for £37, get it put in a bag with no label on it, move down Oxford Street and see the same game on sale at Game for £27. My first experience of this 'Zavvi' place was getting a refund. Not a good start. I couldn't even remember the name until I came across this site.

HMV & Game all the way.

Zavvi have got alot of work to do if they want to carry on. I mean, people used to know and trust virgin, but zavvi is new. Customers would rather go to a name that they know, like HMV and who blames them. if zavvi had told people about what was going on before it happened I think that people would be more inclinde to carry on shopping there. The only real people that shop at zavvi now are those who knew about the change over and those who wandering in just because it looks like a new shop.
Zavvi have certainly got there work cut out if they want to make it as big as virgin megastores did.

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