Former THG-owned retailer Zavvi enters administration and cancels all orders

Zavvi, the successor to Virgin Megastores that was owned by THG between 2009 and 2023, has gone into administration. All trading has stopped and customers have been told their orders are cancelled.

The retailer sold music, Blu-rays, toys, trading cards and pop culture collectibles. Its operations have closed and its website homepage now shows a notice about the administration.

“As a result of the Company’s financial position, the Company has ceased trading with immediate effect,” Zavvi said in the statement.

“The Company is unable to fulfil any outstanding orders or pre-orders. Customers should not place any new orders through the Company’s website. Please also note that we are unable to accept any returns for items of any kind.”

Zavvi was created in September 2007 when Virgin Megastores was rebranded, and at that point its 125 stores made it the UK's biggest entertainment retailer. It went into administration in December 2008, and THG bought the brand and relaunched it as an online-only business in March 2009.

In July 2023, investment firm Gordon Brothers provided a £5 million facility that allowed Zavvi's management to buy THG's OnDemand division, which included Zavvi and collectibles brand Pop in a Box.

More recently Zavvi had competed online with HMV, another former high street giant. HMV has largely taken a different route by growing its physical presence, and last year announced plans to open more stores in the UK and Europe.

HMV reopened its flagship store on London's Oxford Street in 2023, but said this week it will close the site after three years. It cited a doubling of its rent and the need for extensive renovations, which it said make running the store “commercially unviable.”

Virgin Megastores began in 1971 as a small London record shop opened by Richard Branson. The first full-scale Virgin Megastore followed on Oxford Street in 1979.

By the 1990s it had become a global entertainment chain, with more than 100 stores in the UK and international expansion into the US, starting with a Sunset Boulevard store in Los Angeles in 1992, as well as Japan, Australia and Europe.

Virgin Group's sale of its UK and Ireland stores through a management buyout in 2007 led to the Zavvi rebrand and the business's first collapse into administration in late 2008.