They either owe £100m or they don't.. if they do then no amount of 'spokespersoning' from Zavvi is going to help

The 106 million owed is from stock bought on a "pay on sale" agreement, yes, zavvi owe 106 million but until the stock is sold zavvi do not have to repay this as yet, should zavvi fail to make the money required to repay, then as part of the deal which saw Virgin Megastores move over to Zavvi and the ensueing deal with EUK, then Mr. Branson will make up the shortfall, be under no illusion, Zavvi will be trading in new year and possibly be in a stronger position for this

Why then have Zavvi removed all gift vouchers from sale. This to me looks like a bad omen and a serious doubt that long term trading will continue. Think of all the money lost over christmas that could have been used to pay EUK back. Don't think they'd have made that decision lightly!!

do you actually know this? because it may be the situation where zavvi aren't on pay on sale. and tbh zavvi arent going to turn around and say yes we're finding it hard now are they.

do you actually know this? because it may be the situation where zavvi aren't on pay on sale. and tbh zavvi arent going to turn around and say yes we're finding it hard now are they.

What anon said!could not have put it better myself! The Times has misreported this. Zavvi will be ok. the Virgin group are just about to clear 70 million of the money owed to EUK.

Yes the stock is there on sale or return but if euk decide they want there product back next week where does that leave Zavvi, they certainly wont be getting much in the way of credit from new suppliers as i am sure they will want cash up front give zavvis current state.
Also to have there website out of action in the 2-3 weeks running upto xmas is hardly going to have a positive effect on the business is it.
Zavvi may keep going into the new year but i cant see them making the summer

Branson not covering any shortful on this. This is Zavii and zavii alone. £106mil is 106mil be it pay on sale or not. I very much doubt they are on a pay on sale deal, but either way its not good. EUK admistrators will either call in the 106mil cash or the stock returned, either way Zaviii need to find 106mil to pay EUK or 106mill to buy stock to put in the big empty space left by the EUK adminstrators removal team. I'm sorry but i cant see Zavii being here next year let alone in a stronger position

I love how the fact that zavvi is using Ernst & Young for advice automatically means they are in administration. If you look at what Ernst & Young actually do, they are business management advisors which doesnt mean they are in administration, i would assume they are simply reacting to the emergency of EUK going under, and rather than dealing with it from their internal staff in head office, they are taking the time and spending the money on advice from experts in this area - it's disaster management and infrastructure management.

yes you are correct anon they are really stable right now just look at all there stock on the shelves.

must be having a bumper Christmas and why don't they use all that spare cash they have to buy product upfront?

cos they have none shame to see more staff go as i feel this ship is sinking

Backing all the negative points, Zavvi how now been advising managers that no christmas temps will be kept on to fill full time or part time positions... usually xmas is a great way of finding the good staff members to fill a position you have vacant but not this year, even if the store is barely manned, all temporary staff will not have their contract renued... trust me i am one!!!

Christmas Temps in the West End stores only worked for one week before their contracts were terminated. Vouchers were taken off sale weeks ago. Every year millions of pounds worth of stock are bought in during the three months before Christmas and the majority of it is returned in the months after Christmas. It is a shame that as per usual, Zavvi Head Office/old Virgin Management don't have the balls to just admit that things are a bit shady. They would probably get more respect and customer loyalty if they admitted that things were really tough and they didn't know what the future held for them.

I work for Zavvi in one of its stores. All this doom and gloom speculation is making things worse.
The media report a struggling company and people hold back on purchases to see if they can get bargains later if the company has to sell off its stock. While i dont expect anything less, (as no matter what brand loyalty people have, their first concern is their pocket), the situation is unknown.
If you want there to be a high street to shop in, then stop speculating and start supporting us. Its all too easy to laugh when big corporations struggle, but think of the people who may potentially be unemployed at Xmas.
You cant ask a website for advice OR get the service you can in our stores, so stop circling like greedy vultures and find it in your hearts to back us.
Obviously were here to make money, but the best and most fulfilling part of the job is HELPING people. Help us for a change!

The majority of media interest in Zavvi is on the internet and newspapers. The articles are spurious and only have a few facts to run on. It hasn't really hit the mainstream so if people aren't going to the stores it isn't because they are waiting for it to close down, it's because they are over-priced and don't have any stock. Also, the last thing people care about at the moment is maintaining the local retail industry. People care about feeding their kids and paying the gas bill. They don't care about other people's jobs because they are too busy trying to pay the mortgage. If Zavvi thinks its tough now, if it makes it through to 2009 - which it might if Richard Branson continues to pay for their stock and pay off that big debt to EUK - then thats when the real trouble is going to hit.

zavvi's a great shop amd one we need. They seem fine to me, plenty of stock, happy staff - something you never see in HMV!
If they did go under then all we'd be left with is HMV, so no real competition to the PLC run business where the shareholders are only interested in their money. I know somebody who works for zavvi and all the staff are shareholders which probably explains why they're so much more enjoyable than the corporate dog!!
As a consumer we need choice and with the demise of the smaller indies then we need zavvi.
Half glass full for me, zavvi will be fine, Branson can't affor to lose Virgin Media from the high street so if nothing else he'll get them through this

i work in a zavvi store, heres what we no. our staff xmas party was cancelled. gift cards were removed from sale, the the virgin mobile concessions pulled there zavvi gift cards they were giving away free for xmas with phones. we have been told all hardware must be sold by xmas eve, temps are being let go, this is the stock we have had in wiis, wii fit, lee evans, batman, mama mia frankie boyle, guitar hero packs wii games, all alledagly paid upfront in cash, no petty cash is allowed at the moment, we go into a sale on monday the 22nd, all stock rooms must be empty by the 22nd and all stock on shop floor. liverpool clayton square is aparently closing for a refit two weeks after xmas, but this has only just been announced. and thats all for now, not looking great is it? help... also plythouth aberdeen and tallagaht closed laely.

How are Zavvi gonna pay that £1million pound rent on 1 Piccadilly? I wish Richard Branson was my sugar daddy, although obviously not in a sexy way, that would be disgusting.

I used to work for Zavvi.
Zavvi is not part of the Virgin group, it has no connection with Branson, he washed his hands of it more than a year ago when it rebranded.
Zavvi has always run the risk of going bankrupt based upon ridiculously long shop leases it took out in the 90's in areas that don't make money, selling low-priced, low-margin items to a public that increasingly buys those items in digital format in a highly competitive online marketplace.

Virgin management were given monies to take the company away, rebrand it and see if they could make it work. Though I suspect Branson always knew it was doomed, otherwise he'd have kept it.

Senior people in the company are looking around for alternative work right now. It's all over for Zavvi.

I work in one of the Zavvi Stores, as far as I have been told in various discussions with managers and other members of staff, all stock is not paid for upfront from EUK, and never has been. There is a period of 90 days where we sell what we can and then pay them for it, or we send the products back. So the big song and dance being made about Zavvi owing 106 million to EUK has been blown far out of proportion because Zavvi is always in debt to EUK until the 90 day period is over and whats been sold is paid for/what has been sold is sent back. So there is nothing new there.

Richard Branson is also, as I have found out still closely linked to Zavvi and is still there to back us up. Unlike HMV, who are also in a very similar position to us, and are also no longer selling gift cards, and ALSO have not got the security of having someone with such financial power as Richard Branson behind them when times get hard.

Simon Douglas wants to take Rupert Murdoch to court over the stories published in The Times, The Metro, The Sun and also on Sky news for gross misrepresentation of facts.

This is a huge misunderstanding. A couple of weeks ago things did look worrying because the situation had not been explained to us properly and our stock rooms were nearly bare as our deliveries completely stopped. Now our stock rooms are full with all new release, the most popular consoles and chart games, chart DVDS, Chart CDs, and bulk sale boxsets which are the most popular items to sell anyway.

Ernst & Young are Zavvi's solicitors and any business would be sensible to call them in an unstable situation such as this. We have not gone into administration.

At my store, despite what the management tell us about the company doing well and being in great hands we're all pretty much convinced that Zavvi's all but over. I hope it's not but what can you do, eh?

I'm sure it's a harrowing time for a lot of people but for many of us it's a minimum wage retail job that we'll do cheerfully until it's time to go home. None of us want Zavvi to fail and we're all still here, helping customers as far as we can despite the obvious problems.

Oh, and just to clarify a comment 'Reality Check' made; no, the staff are not shareholders. We have a share option scheme which (to quote the literature) "gives an employee the right to aquire shares in zavvi at a specified time in the future. This will only be in the event of a sale of zavvi occuring during the next ten years." So no dividends for us!

Also, Virgin won't be losing Virgin media on the high street even if we close, it seems Virgin media will be opening their own stores in a few months.

I'm a Zavvi staff member, and we've just given a Christmas temp a part-time position so I don't know where that piece of information came from.
Yes, the Christmas Night out subsidies were cancelled but if you cast your mind back to the end of the hugely-successful Sale back in July, you'll recall we got £100 bonuses each. The company give us quite a lot, so we can't complain. As far as I know, most Xmas nights out still went ahead.
The clearing of Stock Rooms is to ensure we're maximising the potential of the shop floor. With a lot of stock probably going to sell in the ANNUAL Clearout next week, we need to ensure we've got as much out as possible. The clearing of the Stock Room has been mainly used to fill staff time since we have dramatically less deliveries and new release to process.
Mr Branson's Mate - that is exactly the stock you want to have in. All the big titles in the run-up to Christmas. My store has had very few problems with the re-stocking of key titles, Head Office seem to be doing a good job in sourcing exactly what we need. All the stores in my region are working together to make sure we're all adequately stocked, which is great.
As for all hardware being sold by Xmas Eve, that sounds more like your store managers target than a company one becuase I've never encountered anything like that in the e-mails or updates. We've got excellent availability of consoles and some of our bundles are the best in the market atm. Oh, and we got Wii Fit boards and Professor Layton in this week.
I'm not worried for my job. Douglas knows what he's doing, we'll get through this OK.

"I'm not worried for my job. Douglas knows what he's doing, we'll get through this OK."

Still confident about that?

Well, it's all over. Zavvi is in administration.

I see people are trying to focus on the EUK issue. Zavvi was always going to find it difficult succeeding in such a competitive market.
If the high street media retail market was capable of making money Virgin would never have let it go.

Unfortunately, as soon as Virgin sold the company for £1 the writing was on the wall.

As an employee of zavvi entertainment, my christmas was one of sorrow and still is a time of uncertainty. I feel that as an employee it is my duty to apologise to the many customers who are unable to reedem gift cards/vouchers in our stores.
I regret that i cannot be more of a help to the customers that have helped the buisness over the last year. But because of the restrictions placed on staff by the administrators these are rules i must abide by.
Unfortunately as a member of staff i could loose my job, one that i have had with virgin and then zavvi for a period of 5 years.
i just hope that somebody will help me and the other 2500 employees of the company in this somber difficult time.

Being a member of the general public who has a £50 Zavvi gift card I decided to run a survey to find out how much money Zavvi has stolen.
I have therefore setup a survey at http://zavvi.computernetz.co.uk" onclick="window.open ( this.href ); return false;" class="comment_url" >http://zavvi.compu...co.uk where members of the public can enter in the value of their giftcards. The site will then show how much has been registered and how much Zavvi owes the owners of the giftcards. Please note that this is by no means related to the administrators or Zavvi, you should still try to get your money back from the administrators

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