Virgin Megastores to close in Inland Empire and Orange County
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Come January, two of the three Virgin Megastores in Southern California will be gone, as record stores struggle with drooping CD sales and high rent expenses.
Manager Alex Alvarado of the Ontario location said the store was closing because its lease was expiring and that employees were informed several months ago.
Both stores are offering discounts of 50% to 70%.
The Ontario megastore has been in the mall since the shopping center opened in 1996, said Ronata Cameron, the mall’s director of marketing and business development. The store’s last official day is Jan. 31, but “the way they’re running out of merchandise, who knows if they’ll last that long,” she said.
Ontario Mills “chose not to renew” Virgin’s lease, and already has a replacement in line to take over the space, Cameron said.
Last December, just before the megastore in West Hollywood closed, Simon Wright, chief executive of Virgin Megastores North America, said the record stores were having a rough time competing with retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart and online services like iTunes.
“We’re trying to reposition the business, and a lot of our stores are too big for the future, primarily due to the drop in music sales,” he said then.
The chain has added clothing, books and other non-music merchandise in an attempt to diversify. The California closures leave Virgin with just eight stores around the country, although reports have circulated for months (Billboard and Reuters) that both the Union Square and Times Square branches in New York are also slated for shuttering.
Since 2003, more than 3,000 record stores around the country have closed, according to market research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail.
-- Tiffany Hsu
