Major UK Music Store Closes

Aural Fixation · **Posted:** Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:00 am

NME:

Quote:

Record shop chain Fopp closes
Music shop shuts its doors after 25 years

Music chain Fopp has closed, the company announced today (June 29).

The firm which was knows for its cheap CDs, DVDs and books was recently in talk with Ernst and Young about the possibility of going into administration.

However the company issued this statement: "It is with great regret that we announce the closure of Fopp.

"Our store chain is profitable, well regarded and loved by our loyal customers and staff.

"However we have failed to gain the necessary support from major stakeholders, suppliers and their credit insurers to generate sufficient working capital to run our expanding business.

"We would like to thank staff and customers for their support over the past 25 years"

Fopp had been in talks with its bankers, HBOS, about the future of the struggling firm.

Employees said that they had been informed by management that they will not receive their monthly salaries.

Last Friday (June 22) Fopp closed about 50 shops including its flagship central London branch, when they reopened stores were only accepting cash only while online sales were stopped.

However, branches were closed - with phones remaining unanswered at stores around the UK.

Analysts said that the chain has been hit by the rise of supermarkets and online retailers selling CDs and DVDs as well as surging popularity of downloading music from the internet.

Similar factors led to HMV announcing on Thursday (June 28) that its annual profits had more than halved.

red · **Joined:** Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:34 am **Posts:** 5009

I bought a Radiohead cd and Porno by Irvine Welsh at a Fopp in Glasgow. That was a great store. A little overpriced, but what record store isn't these days.

Sketch · **Posted:** Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:30 am

I was just in the Reading store a few weeks ago!!! It seems every other time I was in there, they were playing one of my Listmania albums...

Dalen · **Posted:** Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:34 am

damn shame, cool stores with people that actually knew about the music they sold.

Billzebub · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:26 pm **Posts:** 6459

25 years ago was only 1982--hardly a landmark establishment. Apparently not known for vinyl either--don't seem like such a great loss. And 50 shops? That's a fucking chain store.

Diggity Dawg · **Posted:** Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:47 pm

Quote:

"Our store chain is profitable

Quote:

Employees said that they had been informed by management that they will not receive their monthly salaries.

If they're talking about monies owed for previous hours worked, this is really, really lame.

Evil Dr. K · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:51 am **Posts:** 6327

Billzebub Wrote:

25 years ago was only 1982--hardly a landmark establishment. Apparently not known for vinyl either--don't seem like such a great loss. And 50 shops? That's a fucking chain store.

Fopp was very indie and obscure friendly. You'd be lucky to find a Britney Spears album in one. They had excellent 'specialist' sections (Soul, Blues, Reggae etc).

They branched out (perhaps too much) and opened a lot of new stores but you could never really bracket Fopp in with the Virgin Megastores and HMV's of the world. Certainly most of the staff in the Glasgow shops were people involved in the music scene and not schoolkids with name tags.

Pretty depressing really. A few years ago there were maybe a dozen good record shops in Glasgow. With Fopp going, we're down to the last one, Avalanche.

Evil Dr. K · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:51 am **Posts:** 6327

Diggity Dawg Wrote:

Quote:

"Our store chain is profitable

Quote:

Employees said that they had been informed by management that they will not receive their monthly salaries.

If they're talking about monies owed for previous hours worked, this is really, really lame.

Seems like a colossal fuck up by the management. Apparently they bought up the cheap stock of another record chain that had recently gone bust called Music Zone.

But Music Zone was heavily in debt to their distributors so Fopp set up a different company with a different name to buy the cheap stock from Music Zone.

However the distributors weren't fooled and demanded the Fopp pay Music Zones debt for the stock.

Fopp refused and were cut off by the distributors. So Fopp had no stock and a huge debt thanks to the Music Zone venture.

Also the staff won't be paid their monthly pay this month and have been effectively working for nothing for four weeks.

Diggity Dawg · **Posted:** Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:08 am

Wow...I'd be takin' a shitload of records.

duckyboy · **Posted:** Sat Jun 30, 2007 3:27 pm

I liked Fopp. Bought a lot of their £5 CDs. I wish stores here would sell that same quality at that price.

FT · **Posted:** Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:24 pm

This doesn't bode well for Dapper Dan.

Flying Rabbit · **Posted:** Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:52 pm

FT, unemployed Wrote:

This doesn't bode well for Dapper Dan.

Major UK Music Store Closes

Who is online