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Business News Retail
Fnac to close its primary music store in Paris
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 6 March 2009
French retailer Fnac has announced it is closing its Bastille Place store in Paris, which is significant because it is the only Fnac in the capital that specifically focuses on music over the other entertainment and consumer electronic goods the retail brand sells. That said, the company denies the closure is a sign that they are “getting out of music”, rather, they say, it is part of a global cost-cutting programme, and music will continue to be part of the wider Fnac offer.
Elsewhere in Paris, the retailer is introducing a ‘centre of excellence’ system whereby the music departments of different stores around the capital each focus on one specific genre, so that those stores will offer a more expansive range of releases within that genre, matching to an extent the range that may have previously been found in the relevant section of the Bastille Place store.
The 60 staff at the Bastille Place shop will be offered jobs elsewhere in the Fnac chain when it actually closes down later this year. As part of its cost cutting programme, the retailer is looking to cut 400 jobs across its French network of stores, though given the firm’s socialist roots they are hoping to achieve that through the natural turnover of staff rather by than forcing any redundancies.
The French music industry more than most has suffered from a significant slump in record sales in the last ten years.
