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Child Item

Zhivago... finito?

cfeeneyinterior

Just with all the threads about places that did or didn't go bang since christmas. I hear the last bastion of Irish record shops is gone Wallop. Sorry for all the staff but I suppose it's been coming for a while.

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bigtuna

Sorry to hear about your job. I always found Zhivago really good for cheap box sets and Irish bands that were not so well known. Hope the staff will find something else soon as they were lovely.

Fey!

I'm one of the ones who will miss Zhivago. I'm not a great online shopper, and the few CDs and DVDs I'd buy would generally come from there.

I worked there a lifetime ago, and several of the people I worked with are still there. Most of them were great people, and I feel sorry for them losing their jobs this week.

I'm surprised at the reports of 12 job losses; I would have thought that the number of people working there was a lot higher.

panama

In the last couple of years the store on Shop Street had literally feck all in there.

It didn't surprise me to hear they'd shut once HMV opened up, but I still went in there a few times browsing for fairly new releases and I was forced to either buy online or head ro HMV because Zhivago was so poorly stocked imo.

grumpytrousers

soundbyte wrote: »

The Zhivago shop in the Galway Shopping Centre will be re-opening under a new name.

Aye - and I wish them the very best of luck in their endeavours. As has been posted by the former employee, their chances of negotiating anything close to a Tesco/HMV style volume discount is negligible, and if the shop is as small as I think it is, their ability to actually offer a service that Tesco don't offer (like decent back catalogue) will be seriously curtailed.

I'll shut up. I sound like I'm revelling in this difficulty that record shops face, and I really amn't. I'm of an age where most everything I learned about music was from browsing the inlays/sleeves in shops - which is something Amazon/Cdwow/iTunes will ever be able to offer me...

UnleashTheBeast

roledog wrote: »

Hey guys, lost my job this morning too...:( been working there part-time for 5 years, supporting 6 children, have a mortgage also. LoL JK! I'm not half as ****ed as ye guys muahahhaheheheohohohooh :pac:

I wish there was a dislike button on here. :mad:

Shame on you!

Mars Bar

UnleashTheBeast wrote: »

I wish there was a dislike button on here. :mad:

Shame on you!

There is a report button.

Where is that post though? I can't see it!

amiable

mars bar wrote: »

There is a report button.

Where is that post though? I can't see it!

I looked for it too.
I'd imagine it was deleted

UnleashTheBeast

mars bar wrote: »

There is a report button.

Where is that post though? I can't see it!

Don't sass me boy...

He obviously deleted it.

Raging_Ninja

I see HMVs tactic of undercutting competition (even selling certain items at a loss) has succeeded in driving a lot of the competition out - Red Light Records, Golden Disks and now Zhivago.

pleasant Co.

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

I see HMVs tactic of undercutting competition (even selling certain items at a loss) has succeeded in driving a lot of the competition out - Red Light Records, Golden Disks and now Zhivago.

??? eh? I never found HMV to be cheap, certainly when they opened they were more expensive than zhivago, and they still seem to have been up until zhivago's closure.

That entire market is drying up, HMV will be lucky to be in existence in the next 5 years as itunes is absolutely hammering them anyway.

liabhroidi

I heard that HMV are paying 40k a week in rent in Edward square. That seems unsustainable, don't u think. Need a lot of DVD and game sales to get that in.

barryd09

Mactard wrote: »

That entire market is drying up, HMV will be lucky to be in existence in the next 5 years as itunes is absolutely hammering them anyway.

nail.on.the.head.

my nephew buys all his music from itunes,so do all his friends.
at their age i was constantly in zhivagos or golden discs.
the nature of the business has changed.sure you can even buy/rent movies from itunes now aswell.

everybody laughed when apple announced their itunes store concept,a good while ago they sold their one billionth download.

irishash

Only found out this morning the sad news that zhivagos has closed its doors. I worked there for about 5 years (2000-2005), and it was, without doubt, one of the best times of my life.

The people I am thinking about this morning are all my friends that were still working there up to the last minute. Some of them have been there over 20 years. When I joined at the tender age of 22, I had been living in Galway about a week, having just returned from the US to see what I could find on a short term basis. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would have stayed as long as I did. This was mainly due to the guys I worked with, all of whom loved working there and loved music. They would give you their opinion on music if they were asked, they would play the music you wanted to hear in the shop, and not just the album that had to be pushed because we had 1000 copies of it.

I worked in every store at one point or another, finishing in Shop St. Me and Dantbyhid always had a running battle on a Friday night over the music we could play. Dan wanted the hardcore death metal, I had to play something a “little” safer. But if you came into the store between 7:30 and 8:45 on a Friday, you would always see Dan rocking out behind the ticket desk. I did not mind losing, as he always picked something good.

I was going to say something about the pricing aswell, but Dan pretty much covered that off. We always knew the prices we were charging in relation to what others were, and yes sometimes we could be more expensive, but most of the time we were cheaper or the same price. There was still competition in the city before HMV came in, and the store did not have a complete monopoly.

I will just finish by saying farewell old friend, we had good times and we had bad times, but you will forever be a part of me.

Raging_Ninja

Mactard wrote: »

??? eh? I never found HMV to be cheap, certainly when they opened they were more expensive than zhivago, and they still seem to have been up until zhivago's closure.

That entire market is drying up, HMV will be lucky to be in existence in the next 5 years as itunes is absolutely hammering them anyway.

For the DVDs it is absolutely cheaper for new releases on the week of a new release. They jack up the prices the second week. Many of the new games are sold cheaper as well - Dragon Age Origins for instance was being sold for €5-€10 cheaper in HMV than Gamestop and Game on its release. The same goes for the preorder of Dragon Age 2 (€5 cheaper).

It seems to me that on the first few days of the release of a season of a tv show they tend to charge something like 50% before going up to the RRP.

I tend to do a bit of price comparison, for the stuff I'm into (dvds and games), they tend to be cheaper. Don't know for music.

eagle10

liabhroidi wrote: »

I heard that HMV are paying 40k a week in rent in Edward square. That seems unsustainable, don't u think. Need a lot of DVD and game sales to get that in.

Really 2 million a year?

I reckon that it more like 40k every three months

TheCosmicFrog

How long is that Zhivago store open, out of curiosity? I heard over 20 years anyway.

TheCosmicFrog

Also, €40,000 per week for HMV? No way. People almost had a heart attack when Cuba was reckoned to be €40,000 per month.

celty

According to The Sentinel on Tuesday, Zhivago's had been in existence for 38 years. They might not always have had the best prices, but it was sad to see them close. That whole culture of meeting people in record shops, swapping recommendations with staff and other customers, seems to have died. And a pity, too. Sitting at home downloading music is just not the same.

My sympathies to those who have lost their jobs.

Fey!

I think that it was Zhivago was above Card Boutique on Shop Street, around where Elles Cafe is now. Then you had Star Records just up the street.

I remember Lydon House being where Zhivago/Lynchs is now when I was a kid. I worked in the Eyre Square Zhivago in '97 (as well as Dunnes, Shoppin Centre and Blaktrax in the Eyre Square Centre), and the current Zhivago on Shop Street had been there several years at that stage.

Redlight was opened by Des, who had been the GM in Zhivago and my boss in Eyre Square; he had been with Zhivago over 20 years when he branched out on his own.

They always had a sound group working in the shops, and I can only wish them all the best for the future. As has been mentioned several times, a lot of the people there have been there for 20+ years.

TheCosmicFrog

For those posters curious about Ticketmaster's fate:

Pretty bizarre. But hats-off to Lynch's for giving up some of their floor space to another small business. Never thought I'd see something like this.

JohnCleary

You do realise that lynches will be earning a nice commission of every ticket sale though?

Amhran Nua

eagle10 wrote: »

Really 2 million a year?

I reckon that it more like 40k every three months

It would surprise me not at all. I was quoted something like €15,000 a month for the ground floor on a city centre premises that was quite small, a lot smaller than HMV. This is one of the reasons prices are so high in this country folks, rent seeking landlords sucking the lifeblood out of the economy, and it is everywhere. We need to start charging full rates on empty properties, that will take care of a few problems all at the same time.

TheCosmicFrog

JohnCleary wrote: »

You do realise that lynches will be earning a nice commission of every ticket sale though?

Of course, and I wouldn't expect anything less. But having A4 sheets everywhere pointing towards the "Ticket Desk" (trust me, there's loads of them) and a desk with a computer on it between dinner tables can't be too good for Lynch's image, especially after their change of decor recently - they went for a more upmarket look. I still think it's great to see two businesses working together in the hard times. Good for both parties.

Xiney

The update to Lynch's looks great!

branie

Zhivagos was good for films on DVD, but their soundtrack selection wasn't that great