Mega Sales

Virgin Entertainment Group (Los Angeles) announced its Virgin Megastores set new records for the holiday season. The North American chain of stores saw a 12 percent growth in retail sales over last year's holiday period. For the entire 2006 year, the music and entertainment retailer’s sales rose 5 nationally.

The brand contributes some of the growth to having a strong market share on new releases as well as the largest selection of specially priced CDs. Virgin Megastores also saw sales spikes in several departments, including a 28 percent increase in electronic sales.

“It's been a fantastic year for the Virgin Megastore brand, and it was the best holiday season we've seen in the past five years,” says Simon Wright, ceo of Virgin Entertainment Group, North America. “Our music and game sales outperformed our expectations and those in the industry.

“We focused on staying in stock in both new titles and deep catalog and we saw every genre from Jazz to Classic Rock increase in sales from the 2005 holiday period,” Wright added.

The company attributes the success in 2006 to the brand's continued commitment to shift the Virgin Megastores into an entertainment lifestyle store, offering larger DVD, electronic, games and apparel departments. The brand has spent over $1 million dollars in refurbishments on several of the chain's key locations.

“We set out a few years ago to create a 'store-within-a-store' concept, by creating shopping zones,” explains Dee Mc Laughlin, Virgin Entertainment Group’s senior marketing director. “By expanding our DVD, gaming, electronics, apparel and music departments, we are providing more choices in pop culture merchandise to customers. Our success is illustrating that the brand's move from the pure music model to a lifestyle store is working well.”

Over the past three years, Virgin Megastores has also focused on reformatting its retail operation, including closing some under-performing store, refurbishing the brand's more popular stores, such as the Times Square flagship as well as the San Francisco location, and opening a new West Coast flagship in Hollywood.