I’m genuinely saddened by the closure of Fopp as it was my favourite music shop. I work near the Tottenham Court Road ‘Flagship’ shop and every day there is a little gaggle of people furtively trying the doors or just gazing forlornly into the darkened ‘pantheon of the £5 punt’. Where will I buy my £1 books? Where will I go to spend £20 on five or six completely random CDs? Is there no justice in the world? HMV I would gladly see closed. Not only is it the B&Q of music retail right down to the warehouse setting it is also too expensive. Worst of all they have no loyalty scheme. Fopp induced loyalty because of not only the price, but also the range, the marvellous décor, the music, the whole ambience. They had no loyalty scheme apart from having a great shop. HMV have no loyalty scheme and have a shite shop and deserve to go buy bust. Problem is that if HMV do go bust they’ll drag Waterstones down with them.
Virgin have a loyalty card where for every tenner you spend you get a little stamp, and for every ten stamps ‘earned’ you get a tenner off your next purchase. Economically it makes no sense as invariably things are priced 50p below the tenner threshold and you end up spending more just to get an extra stamp. But I keep going back for more.
And for the last word from Fopp:'It is with great regret that we announce the closure of Fopp.
Our store chain is profitable, well regarded and loved by our loyal customers and staff. However we have failed to gain the necessary support from major stakeholders, suppliers and their credit insurers to generate sufficient working capital to run our expanding business.
We would like to thank staff and customers for their support over the past 25 years.'
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