Real Groovy goes into recievership?

As of yesterday???

Anybody else know the details behind this?

hope you got your one love ticket money!

credit crunch?

don't know many details but the reports are true

welly and chch stores brought out by management

another nail in music retails coffin

Shit that'd be a nice Closing Down Sale to rape!

Sad news though.

Inevitable, they've been up shit creek for months.

I don't shop there much, but losing RG will be a crying shame for Auckland's retail & music scenes.

it was the only decent place in auckland selling dance party tickets.. most dance events sell 70% of there tix through here. it will hurt the dance scene a lot

I was like 20 bucks off getting a points voucher...

route 66, jb hi fi sell tix?

Noooooooo

Will JB Buy it?

darn! lucky I just got mine a few weeks back.

RG was cool, not anymore, everytime I go in I don't find much stuff I actually wanna buy, maybe that's just me.

I stop buying vinyl and the place goes under. COINCIDENCE MUCH?

yeh ages ago there was an article about them needing a substantial capital injection after a failed forex deal.

that's right peat

yeah & illegal downloads ...

Real Groovy collaspe is interesting.
Times are changing in the music scene. Real Groovy didnt get on board and get goods similar or the same as JB HI FI. Tickets for the gigs sold there couldn't be purchased online. Location of Auckland store is not the best (would do much better being furthur down queen street). It would be sad to see RG go but hopefully an experienced entrepernuer will buy it and bring it back to life. I read the forgein deal is what brought it down??

NZ Herald story: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10537688

The end of an era, what a huge loss for Auckland.

Yeah they didn't adapt to JB Hifi entering the market, but did any of their customers want them to? JB Hifi are a big faceless Australian corporate, the Warehouse of music, the sign of New Zealand music retail heading back towards the chain-shop globalisation that is rampant internationally.

Real Groovy is part of Auckland's history and has a unique feel and vibe to it. I've had lots of fun times there - digging around in the sample piles for hours and walking away with 6 CDs for 20 bucks, queuing outside for the Big Day Out bus, waiting in lines to get tickets, queuing for hours waiting for U2 tickets.

I would certainly be worried about purchasing tickets from there at the moment. Best to buy direct from the promotor.

Definalty sucks big time.

Havn't shopped there as much lately as there hasn't been much new stock comming in which makes sence.

Thank god theres still beatmerchants

Well this is pretty damn suckful.

I loved sifting through row upon row of vinyl and finding a classic 80's gem for $5.

Where will I sift for my gay 80's fodder now?

to be honest the prices I've seen on some identical items has a difference from $10-$20, and on that note RG is usually the more expensive one.

In relation to the trade, they don't really give you much for it cos they have to resell it to make another profit, which means driving more people away to the more popular trademe, where they usually get more bucks for their items in general.

I think I even saw an ex-RG staff working for JB Hifi now

Couple of guys have come from Real Groovy to JB, one of them was at Groovy for years.

So anyone know when they will stop taking internet orders? It turns out I only have $12 dollars to spend till I get a voucher...but I have no available funds on the mastercard

Well, when JB first landed, people here were crowing about how awesome it was that JB sold stuff for half the price of RG.

But what could they do? As the Herald article says, JB and Warehouse can sell cheaper than RG can buy, with their massive buying power.

http://www.biggie.co.nz/interaction/forum/viewtopic.php?t=182553
http://www.biggie.co.nz/interaction/forum/viewtopic.php?t=183257

Yep, that's what it comes down to. a) the buying power and b) the ability to afford increasing building rental prices in sought-after shopping districts. That's why every high street in all of Europe looks like it's been built from the same identical Lego kit.

omg maybe it's going to turn into a music town?

Yak should steal the cash from the safe, put it all on black... "I know this, that if I win this roll I will save the place that I work from being sold, and the jobs of my friends that work there. Thus striking a blow at all that is evil and making this world a better place to be in."

RG is a destination store; their location had fuckall to do with it. And there's a basic reason why they "couldn't get" goods similar or the same as JB Hi Fi.. lol.

The foreign exchange deal was the major fuck-up.

But....where will the vinyl live?

Other than Page-3 no one buys vinyl anymore. And he imports his own shit straight from China!

Weird thing is about this is the competition with JB/Warehouse shouldn't have made such a major impact... Groovy sold about 70% 2nd hand music from memory.. and their non-music products were over half of their turnover. The games and clothes departments may have been the ones with the highest local competition in that place.

Still - it'll be a sad day when I don't have the opportunity to go and spend an avo looking through thousands of 12s to stumble across an obscure Faze Action or Shep Pettibone record which has eluded me for years.

R

exactly man, the fact RG is on top of the hill on Queen St doesn't really bother me I know I could have a big selection to browse at even though I might not get anything there's still more various stock than any other places.

Just lately the car parking (no spaces at all nearby) and their stock seems to be pretty old, it was a bit hard to buy something everytime I go in there.

note too that the primary competitor of RG is JB Hi-fi , an Australian listed company (doing very well they are too from all accounts) and that it was Westpac (an Australian bank) who appointed the receivers. Sticking it to the Kiwi competition instead of financing them through a rough patch?? I'm not really a conspiracy theorist but still , there may be an element of truth here..

Peat: It's not a good business anymore. The forex deal and other market conditions aren't the problem. They've just highlighted it.

People calling for the saviour of Real Groovy are like the people that picketed outside the Cadbury factory wanting to save types of lollies nobody buys anymore.

The same people that probably switched to cheaper lollies from the warehouse 3 years ago.

New Zealanders care more about price than anything else, just because 10 people a day wander in to buy old vinyl that there's fuck all mark-up on, doesnt mean the shareholders of Real Groovy should do them the charity of running at a loss just to keep going.

I'd personally love it if Realy Groovy stuck around, I think it's a great piece of Auckland culture, but I can't say i've bought anything from there in years and nor have many of the people blaming "big banks" or those "australian listed companies" or "the warehouse".

Also, a lot of people buy their music online now, eg: iTunes. It's the way of the future oooweeeeeoohhhhhhhhh

V.sad to see the place go but I've only been there once in the last year or so.

CBD-centric people might think the location is fine, but I think it's shit. There have been quite a few times when I have wanted to buy something and wanted to go to RG to purchase it, but it's a pain in the arse to park anywhere near there, especially when all I want to do is grab something in particular and maybe have a quick look around.

Just one of many reasons why it is faltering, I'm sure.

They were lauded for their stock management and web store system but I think they needed to take it a lot further, which the presumably would have if they hadn't lost a fortune in the forex deal (I can't remember any details of it).

*sigh* thats not real groovy for them at all is it?

Found many treasures in the bins over the years. It is sad to see it go but because RG is big I never felt the personal connection to it that I do to smaller record stores.

That's a dam shame. Sign of the times...

agrees with pskunk ( ) and andrew

The location aint THAT bad. The old RG store was further up the hill, closer to K'rd. I prefered that spot tbh.

regardless of the business reasons for the closure (and I am sure there are many reasons as opposed to the assumptions that this thread shall be littered with) the demise of Real Groovy a shop I cared little for and spent little money in is a sad thing for Auckland and music retail in general

Real Groovy was a store that was as good and often better as any music store you'll find on the planet

I recall many a time an international band and/or DJ would arrive in Auckland and demand to be taken directly to Groovy, the likes of Thurston Moore who'd buy up all the old Flying nun vinyl he could find, Jello Biafra demanding to see the stuff 'not on display' and going ga ga over weird 7"s, the english DJs who'd buy up on the second hand stuff they knew was worth mega pounds back home etc etc...

JB Hi Fi will never replace the experience that is/was Groovy - JB is a souless discount market that whilst a shoppers paradise has little connection to or for the music it sells - its all just widgets

many hundreds of titles you could find in Groovy are not to be found in JB.... and as such music fans (the retarded anal compulsive kind) will be forced to spend their money with offshore etailers for their weirdo music fix

bye bye groovy, ya cunts

...and bob d

we took DJ Shadow in there...he turned around and said "you guys might as well leave me Im going to be all day."

Groovy got the stuff you usually could only read about before the internet opened everything up to everyone. I remember going in there when I was a young bogan teenager on a trip to Auckland and picking up the Sepultura "Chaos AD" boxed set and thinking I might just have been the luckiest boy in the world.

Gmans record bag?

They need to clear out the vinyl section and build a cafe in there. That should keep it afloat! Trendiest cafe/clothes/cd/dvd store in Auckland!

Their cds are pretty expensive, so meh.

DIE.



What a sad sad day, best store on the planet imo...got so many cool memories of that place. Spent so much cash there over the years, their loyalty scheme was unparalleled.

Gutted

**lighter**

It's funny how people are still blaming the location - but for entirely the wrong reason. That land is prime real estate - they were obviously paying shitloads on the lease, although at least half of it was wasted on that pointless b-grade book area downstairs, plus big storage/stock-holding/admin/office areas that could've been placed outside of the CBD in far cheaper territory. They were losing $ per square metre of store space no doubt.

Been all sorts of speculation about what was to happen with the downstairs section for years (café was obviously one of them, although the costs involved were out-of-this-world, apparently).

yeah groovy was certainly an icon of nz music culture.
ashley beedle, xpress 2, lucien foort, andy weatherall, justin robertson etc all spent hour after hour rummaging through the bins.

a sign of the times i guess and perhaps a reflection on the changes between past and present. 15 years ago the better djs lived in there scrounging around for the latest, rarest tunes to drop. with the internet anyone can have any track instantly making the difference between djs seem irrelevant.

yes ppl moan about it closing, the way they moaned about asta closing, calibre closing etc but as andrew mentioned they closed for a reason. if everyone who loves groovy were spending money there they wouldnt have closed. i probably spent 100k in there over 15 years but admittedly havent been in there for maybe a year.

its very sad to see them go just as it was sad to see the demise of the horse and cart in the 20s and spacey machines in the 90s but life goes on.


viva le technology!

This

MY gay 80s fodder came from there...

not at the mo and prob not in the foreseeable future


Not ever


we would probably be able to order in most of the stuff you are after if you asked, we can also order in vinyl as well

I think it's sad because of the vinyl they have there and not being able to sift through that anymore, but vinyl is dying anyway (isn't it?). You probably cant find that many things cheaper there than at JB - and the price is what it comes down to for most people really. Id say they would be having trouble paying rent at that space compared to their income at the moment, it was just a matter of time before it happened really.....

^^ Spoken like a true employee

Lots of people did spend money there.. more people spent money there than i have heard complain. Same goes with those clubs. It obviously just wasn't enough.

^ Yeah. Sif the amount of people moaning on Biggie has any relevance

was pretty sad having to remove real groovy vouchers from the websites my work runs today.

Whens the huge monster sale?

the shops will continue trading for the next six week and the initial recievers report is due just before Christmas - don't expect a firesale before then

According to PA - www.publicaddress.net/5418#post5418 (they've linked to us, lets return the favour!)

"...The huge purchase of old vinyl from the US a year or two ago only enhanced its reputation as a place where treasure might be buried. Ironically, it appears that it is a bad currency transaction around that purchase that have helped tip the business into receivership, after fruitless attempts to sell it over the past four months..."

It all goes to show how fragile running a small-medium music business is in these changing times.

Wont be buying tickets or anything from them in that time if they are not going to honour their agreement with the ticket sellers.

they haven't said they won't honour their obligations to promoters, only that they can't payout monies owed at this time - saying that promoters may still be out of pocket and any delay in payment will hurt some considerably...

now recievers have been appointed processes must take there course and the process is way slower/longer than anyone expecting money will want/need

Fair enough..

please note I'm not defending them...and they're not getting any of my money either... even if Metal Box comes down to $5

The more money you give them for product, the more they can give to creditors. What is the problem?

Or would you prefer to wait for the receiver's fire sale so you know the money will be distributed fairly?

secured creditors you mean - I have no problem with that

as for the firesale, its not something I am waiting for nor would attend, I have no interest in benefiting from someone elses misfortune (for personal reasons)

why not? rg built a business around it

You'd rather the weird items no one but bob_daktari would purchase were left sitting in a warehouse somewhere and eventually destroyed rather than purchased and the cash going towards creditors?

Do you have personal reasons for your prejudice against secured creditors?

oh and you might just be helping them trade their way back into the black

nothing against any creditors and this isn't the place for me to rant about how this sort of thing can be very unfair (or seem so) when it comes to whom gets paid and whom doesn't

as for any sale they have, I've been in a similar place that RG is today - nothing more soul destroying than seeing something you have worked ya arse off for but didn't go the way you'd have liked being snapped up by bargain hunters...

that's business bob and rg will have profited just dandy many many times over the years in like fashion helping others to pay their debts in the process

so bury your finer feelings and GEDDIN YA DIRTY

What about seeing it not snapped up by anyone? As may well be the case for a large amount of their second hand stock + vinyl.

I suspect someone might buy a large amount of it as a bulk lot though.

yep it is,doesn't mean I have to engage in the after effects of

well maybe if Metal Box drops to $1

me looks forward to summer of love as overseas dj's flock in for rg fire sale

Yeah I saw Kerry in JB (littel dude with heaps of tats). I think he worked at RG for about 10-15 years on and off.

I have probably been one of those bargain hunters

And I will be one in groovy's case, they may be closing but my lust for vinyl is not satiated!

sad times.

Poor RG

Very sad, i spent thousands there.

Great bunch of peeps that used to work there!

From their email to clients:

You may be aware that Real Groovy is in receivership. We thought that we should let you know what this may mean to you.

WEBSITE
The Real Groovy website www.realgroovy.co.nz is still operating - the only difference is that we cannot issue or redeem online vouchers at the moment. As always, if you place an order on the website, your credit card IS NOT CHARGED until the goods are sent, so there is no risk to you.

REAL GROOVY STORES
All Real Groovy stores are still open. However, we are not purchasing or trading your unwanted items at the moment and we are not issuing vouchers or credit notes. We are still taking special orders and our bins are full of bargains - we encourage you to keep providing your valuable support.

REAL GROOVY CLUB
The Real Groovy Club is still operating - you will continue to receive points and bonuses, when they are due.

INSURANCE CUSTOMERS
If you have an insurance claim to be fulfilled by Real Groovy, it has been temporarily put on hold. We ask you to be patient, and we will advise you by email once we have resolved the situation.

THE FUTURE
We are committed to keeping Real Groovy going and are working hard to ensure that this happens. We hope to be able to start accepting Real Groovy vouchers and credit notes again and, while we cannot make any promises, we recommend that you keep them safe until you hear from us.

YOUR SUPPORT
We have been overwhelmed by the support that we have received from a lot of our customers, and our staff are really grateful for the patience, understanding and courtesy that has been shown to them in this difficult time. We're all hoping for a really positive outcome and for Real Groovy to continue well into the future.

Thank you

The Real Groovy Team

On a rude side note (no offence RG)
Where can i now get Outrageous fortune series 4 when it comes out, I'm in aussie atm and rg was my saviour)

thoughts?

Just let me know.

The final was last week so it's not due out till near Xmas I think.

ok i will hold you to that, i'm an addict

Real Groovy says it's trying to ensure its shops survive

6:48PM Friday Oct 17, 2008

The nation's biggest retail chain selling new and second-hand music, Real Groovy, says it is working hard to keep its four shops open.

"We are committed to keeping Real Groovy going," it said in a newsletter for customers.

"We're all hoping for a really positive outcome and for Real Groovy to continue well into the future.

Real Groovy Records Ltd went into receivership earlier this week, with Auckland receivers, John Cregten, and Andrew Mckay, of Corporate Finance Ltd, taking control of the Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch shops.

But the business said today that its shops were all open and its website was still operating.

"The only difference is that we cannot issue or redeem online vouchers at the moment," it said. Meeting orders paid for by insurance companies was also temporarily on hold.

If people placed an order on the website, the credit card was not charged until the goods were sent, "so there is no risk to you".

"We hope to be able to start accepting Real Groovy vouchers and credit notes again.

"While we cannot make any promises, we recommend that you keep them safe until you hear from us".

It has stopped buying in second-hand items and is not issuing vouchers or credit notes, but would still take special orders, and giving points and bonuses to members of a loyalty scheme, the Real Groovy Club.

Staff had been overwhelmed by the support from customers, the chain said.

- NZPA