Requiem for Free Record Shop

It now looks as though the long saga of the collapse of music, dvd and game retailer Free Record Shop has concluded in Belgium. Whilst the Dutch counterparts have apparently brought themselves back from the brink of extinction having gone through similar woes last year, it is reported that Belgian stores have now been cleared of stock, and that stock is being cleared at the Dutch stores. 

The saga began last year when the company entered administration, online sales were suspended and a small number of stores were closed. A glimmer of hope appeared in December when the capital group (Hilco) responsible for rescuing HMV in the UK took an interest in the ailing chain and managed to keep the majority of stores open until the end of the year. Sadly this proved to be just a stay of execution and in early January, Hilco released that they were expecting to close the remaining 68 Belgian Free Record Shops. Belgian press sources suggest this has now happened.

It is fair to say that the chain has had problems. Stock was most overpriced and stores often felt very sleepy. It is fair to say that online retail and supermarket discounting of high volume titles has led to the death of the high street book and record shop in the UK, whereas Belgium doesn't have a local Amazon service. National titles are not often easily available online, with the easiet source for Vlaams titles being Leuven's independent store Bilbo Records. The main competitors to FRS (Extrazone) went out of business in late 2009, leaving them with a free reign on the high street. These factors have clearly helped Free Record Shop survive as long as it has. Aside from supermarket offerings, the only remaining retail outlet brands for media are now the europewide Electro-supermarkets Media Markt and Saturn.

Anyway, enough of the business concerns. I will miss Free Record Shop. Being honest, it wasn't my primary source for buying media in Belgium, but it was always worth a visit to have a rummage around and occasionally find the odd gem. The presence of an FRS branch would often be a good excuse for visiting a town that we would otherwise have missed. Small town Belgium will be a culturally poorer place without it.