Musicland in chapter 11 - Trans World next?
January 20th, 2006 by Dave Allen
Just after the Holidays Musicland, owner of the Sam Goody chain of music stores as well as others, declared bankruptcy. Word on the street was that they might be purchased by competitor, Trans World Entertainment. Not quite yet it seems - industry mag HITS says that Trans World is not in good shape either - in ‘05 total sales were down 9%, same-store sales down 7%, music down 12% (hello!) videos down 2%, etc etc. Meanwhile worldwide digital music sales jumped 190 percent to $1.1 billion during 2005, making up 6 percent of all music sales, according to a report in Red Herring
February 19th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Hits may be right in assessing the overall sales picture for Trans-World, but check the facts, I think they’re referring to year to date Holiday sales…they haven’t yet released their annual performance results. Even if sales are down, don’t count out Transworld yet, they are relatively debt free, and still have a strong balance sheet. Higgins has been down this path of declining sales in Music before, and has a track record of pulling the company through.
February 19th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
I hope that Transworld does pull it off as it would be a disaster if retail were not to survive the digital onslaught. A serious makeover is required anyway, stores should take a leaf out Apple’s book with their Apple stores - clean, bright, easy to navigate, rather like a great web site! Too many stores, especially indie stores that I visit, are cave-like, dark and depressing.
February 21st, 2006 at 5:29 am
You’re right, I think a seroius overhaul is in order for the Visual team at TW…BTW, TWEC just announced they entered into a purchase agreement with Musicland…
February 21st, 2006 at 10:41 am
not just their stores, they need to work on their web sites too! Let’s see how the purchase goes if they win the bid….I posted the latest news, feel free to comment on that one too..