Oh, Monseur le Fopp, you are really spoiling us...

Where is TCR? What is it?

Tottenham Court Road, Mark. Da big Fopp.

Vouchers still valid, Rockford. Also the receipt for goods purchased with vouchers is the same as any other receipt, so if absolutely desperate you could buy something and then take it back under the "suck it and see" clause.

Ach, TotCtRd.

Guess Rdg won't have an "FavShop" for £3. Will check tho.

TCR update? time's a wastin.
-- Roughage Crew (Enrique), Monday, July 17, 2006 1:36 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

What's TCR, my friend?
-- mark grout (mark grout), Monday, July 17, 2006 1:39 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

The stop on the Northern Line between WS and LS.
-- Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, July 17, 2006 1:51 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

or GS and LS.
-- Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, July 17, 2006 1:51 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

Tottingham Court Road.
I wish to vist Fopp today.

-- PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, July 17, 2006 1:51 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

dvds in hmv are mad cheap right now. it does look like fopp has overextended itself.

re "closing down all but the top 40 performing stores." -- amazed they have even 20 anyway. it wasn't so long ago that they had about six.

OK, so I keep thiinking it's some sort of "Total Control Retail" named shop about to go under. Baah,,,,,////....

Reckless in Berwick Street is temporarily "back" though - even if they're calling themselves Revival Records; it's the same stock and the same staff, but it looks as though they're simply selling off the stock they already have and then will probably go 100% online.

this has already happened with 2nd hand bookshops a lot, but regular bookshops still seem to survive -- unlike, apparently, regular record shops. hmv and waterstones are in the same company. i suppose the advantage of a bookshop is you can go in and check the goods before purchase, but with cds there's no real advantage over the internet unless they've got a bbig sale on. which can't be good for profits.

re "closing down all but the top 40 performing stores." -- amazed they have even 20 anyway. it wasn't so long ago that they had about six.

i'm amazed they have so many too, it seems a bit foolish, really. fwiw, the first 6 fopps were in scotland before you had even heard of fopp.

can't download a book

So is Revival/Reckless any cheaper or are the prices the same as before they closed?

Anyone been to TCR Fopp today?

I went to Reading Fopp, it's like they say: No sale other than cash, no price reductions, noticeable thinning of stock.

what a palarver.

It shows what I know, but I thought that if I had to pick one music chain store that might not see a long-term decline of sales and/ or revenue, it might be Fopp, since their prices were just about rational. This is all a bit of a pity.

I still feel like it was "our little secret" as HMV is madly packed at weekends and evenings/late shopping days.

So, at the risk of this thread having not much longer to run:

What's cheap at Fopp still?

The Sly/Family Stone remasters are still a fiver, although they only had "A whole new world" left.

(Special TCR offers don't count: Help the UK here)

Revival/Reckless - same prices and in most cases the same price tags.

I still feel like it was "our little secret" as HMV is madly packed at weekends and evenings/late shopping days.

-- Mark G, Monday, June 25, 2007 6:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

yeah -- even though it's huge and everywhere, i still meet people who havne't heard of it. i guess it doesn't advertise as much as hmv.

i am so there for the sly remasters.

You may be too late tho.

It's still there, isn't it? Was on Sunday anyway.

i'm going to the cambridge branch in a bit. i am sure i went to TCR on friday and that it was open, tbh. my memory may be shot, i guess.

I think I'm going to take a look at the TCR one at lunch today.

If they've got a cheap "Our fav shop" grab me one?

Well that was rubbish. Same as usual except they only take cash. Supposedly a sale on but it was one aisle of crap.

However, if you're looking for Twisted Sister live albums, today's your lucky day.

I also went to day, marvelled at the aisle of crap, and left empty-handed. I did have a look for Our Favourite Shop though, and they had four copies @ 15 quid a pop. Makes me wonder if that feeding frenzy was all a dream.

There was a recenet Bert Jansch album for a quid, if anyone digs that kind of thing. It boasts Bernie Butler, Hope Sandoval and Dave Swarbrick among its guest appearances. I bet it's quite good, but I couldn't be arsed.

they didn't have very many sly albums in cambridge. they also had a sale o'crap.

Ah well, all I can say is:

GET WELL SOON, FOPP!

Well, I went to get (or find) what may be gone forever if I don't buy it now:

The first two Stooges CDs with the extra discs, £6 each.

May be the last time, I don't know.....

couldn't find the general thread about british record shops dying so i'll put it here

HMV on the slide

In the heart of London's record-collecting district, more and more small shops are pulling down their shutters for the last time.

But note that sales are up by 3.8% by value, so it must be their costs that are the problem. Or just that margins are being squeezed by having to sell things at a more reasonable price. Given that prices are falling, that 3.8% increase must equate to a much larger rise in volumes.

All this is further evidence that we're actually doing OK in the UK, especially in comparison with the US. We now buy the most music per head of any country in the world.

And Fopp's troubles seem entirely self-inflicted.

(They lost £15 of my business with this cash only lark. I left my CDs on the counter.)

I do hope the Oxford Street HMV keeps its range, though. It's pretty special.

It has got noticeably worse recently, though. The singles section was pretty amazing and is now not, although you can understand that.

You'd think it could make sense to keep it as the (possibly loss-leading) flagship store, even if sales migrate online.

So if the distributors are refusing to deal with Fopp, who exactly are they selling to instead? You would have thought they'd be glad of the business in the current climate, or maybe I'm misunderstanding the way it works.

If Oxford Circus HMV loses its range we may as well shut the door on London and turn off the light.

I DID think it was strange that they didn't have the new Pet Shop Boys album in both TCR and Cambridge Circus Fopp's that I went into last night! Oh...

They're out of the Wilburys too.

the fopp in central glasgow was shut today

tcr fopp had fewer sly LPs than cambridge ;_;

<i>He (HMV spokesperson) added that efforts were under way to "reduce our dependence" on the sale of physical music such as CDs.

These efforts include selling digital downloads in store and continuing to expand its online business. </i>

Is there any demand for digital downloads in store?

supposedly it's all over. gone. kaput. adios.

The Glasgow one has been closed since the initial "stocktaking" thing.

From: http://www.retail-week.com/nav?page=retailweek.news.detail&resource=6897573

In its accounts for the year to April 2006, Fopp posted a £184,000 profit on sales of £40 million.

That is one shitty sales:profit ratio.

The Times:

Music chain in talks with administrators
http://tinyurl.com/29d99x
Fopp, one of Britain's biggest music retailers, is readying to appoint Ernst & Young amid crisis talks with bankers

after telling some staff that they would not receive their pay packet tomorrow

Let's hope the staff emptied those cash only tills before going home.

what a mess :(

this is our tower records

the chain of ruin...

Woolworths sell MVC stores to a new private company who run into cashflow problems and go into administration, who then sell the stores onto to Music Zone who run into cashflow problems and enter administration, company is wound up, after this Fopp agree to acquire 67 Music Zone stores in February and now in June 2007 it seems Fopp have called in the administrators.

Classic case of expanding too fast without the necessary finance.

There are three likely outcomes now:

1 Fopp are sold to a private equity company who inject cash into the company with Gordon Montgomery staying on [the current Chairman and founder]. This could be an option of agreeing to taking ownership of a company for a significantly reduced price but taking on existing debt and short-term cashflow problems. Gordon Montgomery would see his shareholdings in the company significantly reduced.

2 another retail? company acquires Fopp, but who?

3 The administrator cannot find a private equity partner or a company to buy Fopp as a going concern and the company is wound up.

i hadn't realized they'd taken on MVC/Music Zone. doh!

Music Zone opened a shop on the ground floor of the old Tower Records building in Glasgow in December. It lasted about 5 minutes.

this is a real tragedy.