Virgin Megastores have found a profitable way to beat the music sales slump: sell less music. Clothing, DVD, video game, and book sales all went up for the company in 2007, nicely offsetting the decrease in CD purchases. "For the first time in five years our store traffic is up over plan," said Virgin Entertainment North America CEO Simon Wright. Promising news for music retailers willing to sell something else. [
Rolling Stone]
The other night, I was doing a little bit of last-minute holiday shopping at the soon-to-be-closing Virgin Megastore and I noticed something: Staff members were wearing T-shirts touting Radiohead's
In Rainbows, complete with a reminder that the album would be available in the store where I was standing on Jan. 1. Not sure if this t-shirt is only being worn by people who work at the
rapidly shrinking chain—and aren't top-down wardrobe edicts an
excellent way to keep up employee morale?—but I did find it kind of interesting, if only in an "allegedly forward-thinking band embraces the oldest promotional tactic in the American book (casual Friday edition)" way. Anyone want to bet how high a price one of those shirts would fetch on eBay?
Speaking of Virgin Megastores
closing up shop, apparently the chain's Sunset Strip outpost will be shutting down next month, thanks to "the high rental levels required for any sort of renewal of the lease." [
Hits / Photo: Getty]
Idolator
We all figured it would happen eventually, but now it's been confirmed: Vornado will close the Times Square outpost of the Virgin Megastore during the first quarter of next year, in hopes of getting a rent much higher than the $54-a-square-foot rate being paid right now. "We bought the Virgin business to wind it down to get a hold of the real estate," Retail Real Estate Division head Sandeep Mathrani told Reuters. Well, at least they were honest about it. (Related, which holds the lease on the Union Square outpost of the store and co-owns Virgin Megastores with Vornado, hasn't announced its plans for that store yet, but the property's lease expires next February.) What tenant will go in there next remains something of a mystery—especially when you think about how the space that once housed the Dave & Bustery video-game-bar Bar Code, which is right next door to Virgin, has been vacant for a few years now—but we have some suggestions!
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