Cable broadband ISP Virgin Media recently confirmed that it intends to close 25 of its stores and kiosks across the United Kingdom, which will put around 110 jobs at risk. Once completed the move will leave around 53 stores and kiosks open across the country but staff fear that more may follow.
It’s certainly not the first time we’ve had to report on possible store closures (here). The latest round of closures is expected to start in March and run through April 2020.
As usual the main reason for shifting outlets away from the high street tends to be because they don’t generate enough of a return in terms of value (outside of Project Lighting areas, Virgin Media has recently been struggling to grow their customer base).
A Spokesman for Virgin Media said:
“We are now consulting with our people and are supporting employees impacted by the proposal, including identifying opportunities to move to new roles within Virgin Media.
Our proposal will see us retain 53 retail outlets across the UK from which we can continue to serve our customers and we’re focused on making those stores a fantastic place for our customers to engage with our sales teams and to experience first-hand our amazing products and services.
This is happening alongside investment in our online sales and customer service channels.”
List of Store and Kiosk Closures
Blackburn (store)
Blackpool (store)
Bournemouth (store)
Brighton (store)
Chatham (store)
Exeter (store)
Falkirk (store)
Gloucester (store)
Grimsby (store)
Harlow (store)
Huddersfield (store)
Leeds St Johns (store)
Maidstone (store)
Nottingham Victoria (store)
Swindon (store)
Wigan (store)
Worthing (store)
Dalston (kiosk)
Ealing (kiosk)
Edgware (kiosk)
Grays (kiosk)
Lincoln (kiosk)
Romford (kiosk)
Stoke (kiosk)
Walsall (kiosk)
Apologies for neglecting to cover this story at the end of last week, it slipped under our radar.
It’s no doubt the right business decision as sales and support are done mainly by the website and call centres. However spare a thought for the 110 people who will lose their jobs and some may well struggle to pay their rent and other outgoings.
Most likely they won’t lose their jobs as Virgin are quite interested in retaining employees so they’ll offer them jobs in other sectors such as Call Centre or anywhere else. Most likely the call centres since they’re always in need of more Staff.
Going to be a hell of a commute for some of these guys getting from those locations to Virgin Media offices.
@CarIT – no doubt, hopefully they do something though. The economy is quite tough just now so it’d be a shame for them to lose their jobs so early into the New Year. Unless they’ve known for ages & have had time to prepare
Hi there my name is Jon Shaw and I run all the sales channels in the UK for Vodafone.
We are opening stores in the UK as see them as key to our future success due the face to face interaction retail offers our customer
Please anyone send me your CV if you are affected and we will get the local retail teams or our franchise partners to reach out to see we have any opportunities we can offer.
My email is Jon.shaw@vodafone.com.
Kind regards
Jon
That is very cool, Jon, thank you.
While not affected by this personally it’s brilliant to see you on here trying to help.
Good riddance!
You like it when people lose their jobs, Max?
Delightful.
They’re like estate agents, will say anything to get you to sign up, good riddance.
@Mike – my experience talking to staff locally has been very different. Helpful, friendly, and polite. Luckily not affected here. Oh, and VM doesn’t serve my street so didn’t sign me up for anything…
(NB I do use their mobile network)
Virgin Media de-recocognised it’s staff’s unions some time ago. So sadly they have no representation.
Not just the stores and kiosks, Virgin Media are looking to make nationally 45 field staff redundant consisting of field engineers and their managers who look after the business sector side of VM. Not good all round for VM by the looks of things