Music and Video Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Music and Video Club or MVC was a British retailer which sold DVDs, VHS, audio cassettes, video games and CDs of popular and specialist titles. At its peak it had 82 stores in the United Kingdom and also sold products over the Internet. The club was an important point of emphasis for the business, and anyone could join by sending their details to register for the free club card. At first each item on sale displayed two prices, the normal retail price, and a slightly lower price for members, but this policy was dropped in 2003 for the more commonly used single price point and the club cards were used to collect 'points' that could be redeemed against future purchases.
Originally started by former staff members of Our Price who left after WH Smith bought the company. MVC itself would go on to be bought by the large Kingfisher plc, which latterly became part of the Woolworths chain. It was sold to venture capital company Argylle Partners in August 2005 for £5.5 million, but poor decisions at senior levels leading to legal complications with its main supplier led to the company entering administration.
[edit] MVC in administration
In late 2005, MVC went into administration. In January 2006, 41 of MVC's stores were bought by one of its competitors, Music Zone.
Seven stores were bought out by a new company, EA Music, owned by Garry Taylor, from the band Electric Avenue—after which the company is loosely named. EA Music began trading in January 2006. Stores were located in Basildon, Southend, Coventry, Barnsley, Wrexham, Winchester and Gloucester.
The stores offered a wide variety of products including CDs, DVDs, sheet music as well as instruments.
On May 24, 2006, following a significant lack of investment in stock, all stores closed due to EA Music going into administration itself, thus ending a long 4 months for the EA Music staff.
Music Zone, who purchased 41 of the stores from MVC when they went into administration, suffered the same fate and went into administration itself and on 25 January 2007 ceased trading. 67 Music Zone stores were taken over by music and book retailer Fopp, including some of the former MVC stores. However, Fopp itself then went into administration in June 2007. A small number of the stores survived under the Fopp brand, run as part of the HMV Group.
[edit] External links
- Official site now redirects to hmv.co.uk
