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

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.

trying to buy those stores was totally foolish though.

also Fopp opened a new Fopp store in Cumbernauld earlier this month.

http://www.fopp.co.uk/news_archive.php/article/47
FOPP comes to Cumbernauld!
general fopp news posted at Fri, 08 June 2007 17:40

Good news, we have just opened the doors to a brand new store
in the West of Scotland's newest shopping mall – The Antonine Centre,
our 11th Scottish store, since opening our first in Glasgow 26 years ago!

Also the acquired Music Zone stores have not been converted into the Fopp brand yet.

"yet" !

i guess i just don't understand the desire for wild expansion. surely they would just say, ok we have 25 stores, thats enough.

was it a public company?

i think it was privately owned - that's why i can't understant it.

my mate was in FOPP in glasgow on monday or tuesday. So it's def not been shut since the "stocktaking"

ward f says it was closed today.

i mean that it was opened since then. Someone said it hadnt been open since last week.

Fopp is a privately owned company - ltd company, Gordon Montgomery is the main shareholder.

I would say the Fopp brand is much stronger than MVC or Music Zone - a shrewd private equity company may be willing to take a majority ownership stake in Fopp - for a significantly reduced price - if it can be agreed with the administrators / existing Fopp private share holders.

Would Gordon Montgomery want to give up that ownership for the sake of the survival of the company that he has built up over 26 years? He would have reduced ownership and control, and in theory would have to work on behalf of the new private equity investors?

stirmonster, was Gordon Montogery the red haired guy that used to work in A1 sounds (and presumably owned it too)?

he sure was. he was a pretty nifty jazz dj too. his brother in law was terry hall. i am a mine of useless gordon montgomery factoids.

haha, i loved that store.

it was the best record store glasgow ever had (probably).

It was closed on Friday, Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday when I passed. It may well have been open on Monday but it seems a bit odd if it was.

xp to pfunkboy

I think it was monday my mate emailed to say he was in it. he said he was hoping to get some cds in a closing down sale but everything was normal. he didnt buy anything.

I tracked this personal account about the circumstances at FOPP

http://www.the-engine.net/forum/?webtag=ENGINE&msg=9753.1

...but the third largest record chain went out of business today, the day before they were due to pay their staff, after stringing them along for a week or so.
All of this comes via my girlfriend, who worked for them, but this'll certainly have a lot more info than anything else currently online........

Glad I bought them stooges CDs yesterday.

RIP Fopp. The best record store Leamington Spa ever had for sure. This stinks.

inside info on the Plan B forum:

Fopp Closing Down?
http://tinyurl.com/36lqd5

another update by The Times: 29th June

Fopp in talks with bankers after music stores close
http://tinyurl.com/39jzn2

Fopp, one the country’s biggest music store groups, is preparing to appoint Colin Dempster of Ernst & Young as administrator as it warned some staff not to expect their monthly pay

the man that will try to save Fopp:

Colin Dempster, Ernst & Young, Corporate Restructuring
http://tinyurl.com/2kq4mw

It's over for FOPP, I am told.

well thats it for bristol then.
nothing left now that all the indies were run out of town.
just crappy HMV (for a few more months) and Virgin.
oh and Woolies of course.

The 184,000 profit on 40 mill turnover posted upthread I can believe -- the Fopp business model has presumably always operated on low margins, and obviously the only way to grow a business like that is to take a little bit of money in a lot of places, hence I can see why expansion might be attractive, esp. if you thought you would be dancing on the grave of HMV / Virgin. But can't see this business being attractive to anyone else, particularly.

Maybe successful stores will continue if chain is broken up?

swallowing the higher than expected debt of MVC (£20million+ according to one person in the know) was the killer.
sounds like someone did some clever accouting during the MVC deal and now Fopp (and its staff of course) are paying the price.

So, what do we do now?

Returning to the original 'question', are we spoilt now? Heck, I did wait for those Nick Drake 'new' cds to come out at a cheap price. In truth, I was even planning to wait for the new 'family tree' to do the same. But, what do we do now? Stump up? Or end up saying "Actually, I didn't really need it anyway" and go along not thinking about it, like Baloo says.

So, I have a reasonably decent backlog of stuff I haven't quite played enough, some not played at all yet.

For opening up and bucking the trend of selling CDs cheaply without selling pure quizi-hallmark crapola, against the trend of 'all sales to centre on downloads', we thank ye.

So, are they open today or not? And does us circling like hawks waiting for panic sales help or hinder their cause?

Should think they'll be shut. If you worked there and found out you weren't gonna get paid, would you turn up for work?

If I was in charge of marking down sale stock, which I could then purchase with a staff discount, yes.