So farewell then Fopp! We knew you so shortly in London, with you nice big store being open all of nine months. Why only on Wednesday I was in there, returning some books – not knowing that the money I extracted out of them was coming from the poor salesgirls WAGES! Aggressive expansionism is often a dodgy business strategy, particularly one in a market where there are already considerable downturns. But Fopp’s USP as being a some kind of relatively cool remainder store seemed to be enough to keep it trading (mind you, massive TCR store did seem to buck the trend for small and packed). I blame the cheap decks.
Add this to the HMV wobbles and THE DEATH OF MISTER CD, and we are starting to see a trend here. Ebay has killed the second hand shop, but Amazon is killing the discount record purveyor too. Drunken browsing will never be the same again.