Zavvi halts game/DVD/music sales

By Robert Purchese Published 2 December, 2008

Orders cancelled as supplier goes bust.

Retailer Zavvi has had to cancel all videogame, film and music orders as supplier Entertainment UK falls into administration.

Only books, calendars and "a limited range of other products" will remain on sale for the time being, according to the Zavvi website.

Customers with existing orders for these suspended products will find out by email if their delivery cannot be fulfilled, and, if so, receive a full refund.

"We have not taken this decision lightly, but we believe that this is the right course of action under the circumstances," read a statement.

"We apologise for any inconvenience. Please be assure that we are doing all we can to resolve the situation as quickly as possible."

Naturally, Zavvi high street outlets with stock will be largely unaffected, although new releases, such as Resistance 2, are absent - as GamesIndustry.biz found out yesterday whilst snooping around like Columbo.

Entertainment UK also supplied WH Smith, which now has the same supply problems. Other retailers such as GAME, Gamestop and HMV are unaffected.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Thunderbolt #1 3 years ago

    Its really starting to bite now, I feel sorry for those people affected.

  • Oh-Bollox #2 3 years ago

    Whoops!

    Ah well, bought everything I want from there anyway.

    Is this another effect of the dread terror that is the credit crunch or were the company just cack?

  • Sean.Aaron #3 3 years ago

    Isn't Entertainment UK part of Woolworths? I thought they were good through end of December?

  • Steroyd #4 3 years ago

    Yikes!

  • insincere_dave #5 3 years ago

    We'll all be huddling round campfires and drinking weak soup from samovars before long!

  • Steroyd #6 3 years ago

    Are you sure? That sounds expensive to.

  • LHH #7 3 years ago

    Dominoes!

  • presh #8 3 years ago

    This'll be a major problem for Zavvi - wave goodbye to a huge chuck of their projected Christmas revenues...

  • Tetsuo_Shima #9 3 years ago

    I'm not surprised; Virgin were overpriced to start with, once it became Zavvi things got ludicrous. £19 for a CD? Do behave. Credit crunch had sweet FA to do with it.

  • rudedudejude #10 3 years ago

    I'm not surprised selling Okami for £12 :p

  • PearOfAnguish #11 3 years ago

    This economic crisis is awful. I've had to start lighting my cigars with ten pound notes instead of twenties.

  • LHH #12 3 years ago

    I've had to start lighting my cigars with ten pound notes instead of twenties.

    LOL :)

  • Eighthours #13 3 years ago

    This is only web-based, right, rather than affecting Zavvi's high street stores? I don't see why Entertainment UK can't fulfil orders. I thought they were meant to be carrying on pretty much as normal under the administrators, because they're one of the more profitable arms of the Woolies business, and very likely indeed to find a buyer soon.

    EDIT: Yes, having read the story it looks like the High Street shops will be largely unaffected. It appears that Zavvi is taking pre-emptive "just in case" action for their web orders, whereas on the High Street they won't have to deal with any issues of customers reserving items for Xmas and not getting them.

    EDIT 2: Ah. According to the radio, Zavvi is now going directly to the manufacturers, cutting out the middleman. Asda has also withdrawn from ordering from Entertainment UK. Seems like the company could well be fucked now.
    Edited by 2 at 02/12/08 @ 14:35

  • Pastici #14 3 years ago

    How many Gamestops are there in the UK? I've seen 1.
    Edited by 1 at 02/12/08 @ 14:24

  • Lebowski #15 3 years ago

    Woolworths always whacked you with the full RRP, and although Zavvi were better (some good prices on older titles - BioShock, Orange Box et al) they never did much to get your custom. Makes you wonder how rip-off merchants HMV keep going (I saw Football Manager 2006 for £39.99 in there a few weeks back - bargain!)

  • Mr-Bozzey #16 3 years ago

    CRUNCH STRIKES AGAIN !!!!!

  • drxym #17 3 years ago

    Entertainment UK is part of Woolworths. What gets me is how Woolworths can supply a large chunk of the highstreet (3300 stores according to their website) and still manage to go into administration. They really must have made some incredibly incompetent decisions to get into that situation.

    The sad part is Woolworths was actually great value too for media & games. I bought Band of Brothers & Godfather blu-ray boxed sets from a branch on Saturday for less than it would have cost me to order online from Play.com. Now that's impressive.
    Edited by 1 at 02/12/08 @ 14:28

  • rudedudejude #18 3 years ago

    I'm pretty sure they spent a vast amount of money on their website and SEO, and crappy tv advertising, and I don't think it did very well.

    That's my take on it anyway as the shops are usually always busy.
    Edited by 1 at 02/12/08 @ 14:30

  • Triggerhappytel #19 3 years ago

    I hope Zavvi don't go under. I don't shop there too often, but always take a look in their store when I'm in my nearest town. They sometimes do some good prices on DVDs, too - hopefully that'll switch to Blu-ray bargains before long.

  • mingster #20 3 years ago

    Its nothing to do with Zavvi going under they've just swapped suppliers.
    (As their existing supplier is in the hands of the recievers)

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #21 3 years ago

    Glad that my copies of Okami and Ghost Squad turned up before this happenend.

    It's just inevitable that shops that deal in solid-state media will die a death, shame but true.

  • mikeck #22 3 years ago

    Such a shame - ahem. Poor, poor zavvi, couldn't have happened to a nicer company, ahem (I had the good fortune to be part of the Digital team that were made redundant from Virgin before they became zavvi, couldn't imagine working there now) - perhaps this will lead them to look for a decent supplier and manage to actually compete with other online retailers - they've always been the poorer cousins of the online world in regards to their website and prices. Too little too late with the new downloads site too...can't wait to see the hash job they'll have done with that.

    /disengage 'not really bitter' mode :p

  • Marviewarvie #23 3 years ago

    Add Tesco Direct/Entertainment/Jersey to this too.

    Just been told by a very lovely Jockanese woman that Tesco will honour all orders placed up until the 30th November. She didn't mention what happens to the orders after, but she put it down to EUK going into liquidation.

    According to said Jockanese woman, they hope to have a supply solution in place by the end of the week.

    At least we know why the ailing high street Woolies stores have been able to plod along for so long, their sister/mother/second cousin company has been supplying half the country's retailers with entertainment items.

    Oh, small possibility of Asda being affected by this too but can't say one way or the other.

  • Funky_dino #24 3 years ago

    Tesco are not effected anyway near as much as asda, sainsburys, Zavvi etc. The only stock Tesco receive from EUK are books.
    cd's, dvds, games etc come from another company called handlemans/oakwood
    Edited by 1 at 02/12/08 @ 15:24

  • Marviewarvie #25 3 years ago

    Corporate bullshit then?

    As said, the reason my order that should have been dispatched yesterday is still no nearer turning up at my house is due to EUK going into liquidation. That's what she said.

    Honest!

    However, if they aren't as adversely affected by it across all ranges, fucking typical the one thing I order is.

  • Marviewarvie #26 3 years ago

    Oh, and it is a game for the 360 - Forgot to add that.

  • superjag86 #27 3 years ago

    that kinda sucks - zavvi was pretty decent

  • JohnnyWashnGo #28 3 years ago

    Maybe explains why I received nothing but used stuff from them recently when I was paying for new stock.

    Hopefully they will be back in action soon and sending people what they pay for !!!

  • mcdrye #29 3 years ago

    Don't forget Woolworths Retail is also badly affected by it's sibling company, we (a branch in a v busy regional centre), haven't had any deliveries from EUK since last Monday whereas we'd have 20 boxes daily at this time of year to just about keep everything in stock. As you can imagine the only stock we have at the moment is a handful of DVDs, CDs and games, the filler being any remaining sale stock. The funny thing is we had a delivery of Hancock beanie hats that come free with the DVD, but no DVD to buy!
    Edited by 1 at 02/12/08 @ 16:09

  • louyfitz #30 3 years ago

    This economic crisis is awful. I've had to start lighting my cigars with ten pound notes instead of twenties.

    lol, same, except replace cigar with roll up and the 10 pound note with the entire selection of games brought out for phones.

  • kentmonkey #31 3 years ago

    For those that obviously can't be bothered to read the news article, I'll help you out.

    ZAVVI HAVE NOT GONE IN TO ADMINISTRATION, THEY ARE CHANGING SUPPLIERS WHICH MEANS THAT THEY MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO SEND OUT GAMES FOR A WHILE. THE SUPPLIER WAS ENTERTAINMENT UK, THAT WERE PART OF WOOLWORTHS.

  • mcmonkeyplc #32 3 years ago

    Yeah you dumb fucks.

  • chrisjm #33 3 years ago

    the administrators have made the whole thing worse, EUK was doing ok and could of been sold easily, suppliers wanted money so EUK couldnt get stock as adminstrators wont give it out, so they lose all their customers thus making EUK worthless and ensuring more redundancies.

  • yegon #34 3 years ago

    >>Entertainment UK is part of Woolworths. What gets me is how Woolworths can supply a large chunk of the highstreet (3300 stores according to their website) and still manage to go into administration.
    ---

    Woolworths rented or leased the vast majority (if not all) of their premises. This inevitably means that they're at the mercy of the prevailing housing/property market as well as their own (un)profitability. I'm surprised they've lasted this long tbh, for years they've had decent sales figures, propped up by other arms of the company, but minimal to non-existent profit. Unsustainable in the long term, particularly when you factor in the large size of the business and lack of property ownership.

    Edited by 1 at 02/12/08 @ 17:01

  • Gaol #35 3 years ago

    This explains why I had such an issue finding Resistance 2 at thye weekend.

  • Masarin #36 3 years ago

    Glad that my copies of Okami and Ghost Squad turned up before this happenend.

    Aye, me too. Okami that was.

  • itsfuzzy #37 3 years ago

    And so the ripple from Wall St continues. The biggest betting shop in the world run by white collar gangsters. And the big gamble failed. We are looking down the barrell of a gun here. I was made redundant 3 months ago. My brother and 5 of my friends have all lost their jobs since. We all work in different industries and have never been out of work. Its not just construction and retail as people would have you believe.And Its just the beginning. Fear would be a good word to describe what is going on.

  • Moribundman #38 3 years ago

    Temped at EUK in Hayes about 3 years ago. They had their fingers in a LOT of pies, suggesting/supplying DVDs, music and games to a lot of stores for inclusion in 2 for 1 or 3 for £20 type offers (pretty much a case of bundling in some crap but mainstream movies and some vanilla versions of excellent movies that were just about to be released as special editions/2 DVD sets).

    I recall them having ties with Tesco, HMV, Virgin (as was) and Woolies. All in all, the result is probably equatable to that which Booker or Palmer & Harvey going into administration would produce for newsagents & offies...
    Edited by 1 at 03/12/08 @ 12:42

  • sneetch #39 3 years ago

    @ kentmonkey

    Thanks, was about to say the same. :)