PMT Chain in UK closes with immediate effect.

rob aylestone

rob aylestone

Moderator
We lost GAK a while back and now another UK big chain of music shops had closed their doors - selling the stock to Gear4Music, but making all staff redundant. Not good to be a music retailer in the UK it seems. Our big suppliers are now all European.
story here.
 
I remember going to a place called Dawsons while I was staying in Chester. Are they still in business. That was 25 years ago. I also visited a store in Liverpool, not far from Mathew Street. I don't remember if that was also Dawsons.

The retail music business seems to be a tough area these days.
 
The little ones are closing too. We lost Music Room in Poole, so then I drove up to Music Room in Salisbury, and now that one is closed too.
We had Poole Percussion, been there for decades, and that went a few years back.
This is all part of the damage since the 2008 recession, where we've lost a lot of big high street names.
I heard yesterday that even Poundland has gone bust.
Online retailers are partly to blame, but I prefer real shops.
 
The PMT website now redirects to Gear4Music - but the wording is quite 'blunt'. (My bold italics)

What has happened to PMT?

The company has entered insolvency and appointed insolvency practitioners. Certain assets, including some stock, branding, and websites, have been sold to Gear4music Limited. The original company, however, still legally exists and remains responsible for its liabilities, but may not have funds to meet them.

Gear4music has purchased certain stock, together with certain intangible assets including websites and trademarks from the Administrators of PMT.

For clarity, Gear4music is not acquiring any part of PMT's trading business, nor any other assets or liabilities, and has no current plans to use the PMT trading name.
 
About a week ago I drove a few miles to visit "PC Supplies" on an industrial estate just outside my town. Really nice helpful guys and I wanted a USB hard drive, couple of ,memory sticks and some DVD-R media. All they had was one 32 G stick.

The chap explained that they can't compete with online prices. For example, to sell a USB drive at any kind of profit their minimum order would have to be 200 units.
He also told me they are closing down the retail side in 2026 as rent, rates and other ***t just make it commercially untenable now.

BUT!! I refuse to EVER use Currys!

BTW Our PMT is in THE most g'awful place to park!

Dave.
 
I remember when buying online usually came with a discount (10 to 15% was common). Now, unless there is a special sale, online prices are straight retail. Now that local shops have closed up, there's not much selection, so the online shops are the only resort.

I just redid my recording computer (older 4th Gen I5 based), upgrading to WIn 11. The boot drive is a Samsung Evo 500GB, so I checked locally but nobody had one in stock. So I ordered one from Amazon, with delivery to be on Tuesday (4 days later). On Sunday, I got a notice that delivery would be delayed until June 19.

I didn't want to wait, so I checked the local Staples and Office Depot stores, but neither had stock. Best Buy now showed 2 in stock, so I cancelled the Amazon order, and drove to Best Buy, picked up the drive (it was $2 more ... big deal!). I cloned the drive for a backup, and did the upgrade. About 2 1/2 hours later, I had a fully functioning Win11 machine.

Amazon was fine when they did the 1 day or 2 day delivery, but now if you aren't a Prime member, they don't even bother to look at your order for 3 or 4 days, then 2 more days to ship. There are some things that are hardly available locally, but most times, when I order those, they are from resellers who sell via Amazon. Those places will get the order and ship within a day. If it says "fulfilled by Amazon" I usually look further.

For me, the online model has lost much of it's advantage. Prices are up, delivery is getting longer unless you pay even more for membership. I still enjoy shopping in a real store, where I can look at things in hand.
 
That is not my experience in UK with Amazon Rich. I have ordered 3 items in the last 3 weeks and all have arrived within 4 days as promised and one came next day on a Sunday. I am presently waiting on a USB hub and card reader which are promised today and I am pretty confident. I don't have Prime either.

Of course, what happens in the States often follows in UK but, "bridges will be crossed...!"

Dave.
 
I'm a business customer in amazon. NOT Prime - I ordered a hard drive midday saturday and sunday morning it arrived. None of my orders have ever been more than two or three days, most two. I'm very pleased with amazon's system to be honest.
 
rob aylestone said:
The PMT website now redirects to Gear4Music - but the wording is quite 'blunt'. (My bold italics)
Click to expand...
It is the same when you type in 'studiospares.com'.
I had some good stuff from studiospares, but fear their lines will be dropped by Gear4Music.

ecc83 said:
BUT!! I refuse to EVER use Currys!
Click to expand...
I visited Currys last week to check out a couple of items.
They have now blocked off all the checkouts and you can no longer exit that way.
You have to exit through the same door you came in.
And the checkouts? .... "You can pay that one man on a cash register at the customer service desk, sir".
This is major winding down, and I predict that Currys are not going to have shops much longer.

On another point, I recently ordered some 500 series SSL modules from SxPro.
They only had one E-dyn module, but I really wanted two.
So I ordered the one they had, and monitored the website for new stock arriving.
Every time the new stock arrival date came, they pushed it back by another week.
Eventually they notified me of new stock.
So I went on the website to order my second unit, and they only had 1 in stock.
It is now sitting in my rack.
 
My stuff arrived a few hours ago but I have ****** up a bit. I had assumed the USB C hub would have a C to A adaptor. Not so, 3 now on order.
FYI Anker 332.

Dave.
 
Things might be different in the UK. Last year, I bought some parts off Amazon and it took several days to even pick the order. The really interesting thing was that they were all in an Amazon warehouse that is about 10 miles away as the crow flies. As soon as it was picked and tracking showed up, you could tell the source.

Delivery services in the US are going downhill in a number of areas. Back in Dec/Jan our local post office had priority mail packages sitting for over a month. People were getting Christmas cards in February. Lots of people had medicines that were many weeks late. I had a package that went from California to Kentucky in 3 days, was in the distribution center a mile from my house, and didn't get delivered for 25 days. It got so bad that the inspector general for the post office audited several locations, and found over 100,000 items that were delayed. Some items that had shipped in January were still sitting on April 1.
 
Sad stuff. I'm from a tech-driven -- and worse, AI-hooked -- generation, and this all breaks my heart.
ecc83 said:
My stuff arrived a few hours ago but I have ****** up a bit. I had assumed the USB C hub would have a C to A adaptor. Not so, 3 now on order.
FYI Anker 332.

Dave.
Click to expand...
Anker hubs are great products. Had a couple over the last few years, very reliable (y)
 
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