Worked at the office for Musica. Few things stuck in my head seeing this. This is not new, because the Musica business was on the verge of being sold almost 10 years ago to some company which name slips my mind.. the business itself was probably less profitable than the Discom brand, which clicks sold to the Edcon group. (This was a huge mistake imo)
10 years ago, we suggested a digital pipe/platform, to move the business slowly from CD and DVD to an online digital type environment, where one could purchase individual songs or a full album. However, i dont think it was that easy due to certain royalties etc that would have had to be paid.
Business carried on. The lifestyle dept was brought in, which had tshirts, Speakers, docking stations, Headphones, even blank dvds and cds to try and recover losses on cds and dvds. Piracy played a huge role in the slow demise of Musica and even places like CD Warehouse
The whole business model were wrong, because more Musica stores were being opened, more expenses, and each store build became more and more extravegant aka The introductions of the Mega Stores.
There wasnt very much forward thinking at the top, and to realise that years down the line, like Vinyls and Lps etc, that those would start to fall away slowly. I wasnt a senior staff member, but i remember sitting there thinking that this isnt going to work at some point.