Fat Buddha Store Blog // All the News

No visit to Berlin is not complete until you have visited the best retail store ive ever been in, the legendary 14oz , they take haberdashery and retail fixtures to a new level. On the 25th of October, the guys opened their newer and much bigger store in the Ku'Damm area of the city, this new store is a massive step forward for the store and cements its place as the world's best retail space. The brand list is eye watering, Nigel Cabourn, Trickers by the wall full, every great denim brand and some very brave buying, next visit to Berlin, then go visit the 14oz store's .

If you're lucky enough to live in the States you'll maybe have got a chance to experience the legendary 'Black Friday'. Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, many retailers open very early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but many employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers! Some of Fat Buddhas premier brands got in on the action and had some crazy sales (50% off at The Hundreds , 30% off at Rebel 8 and 30% off Benny Gold etc etc) After all the comotion of 'Black Friday' - it was a suprise to wake up to what i'm calling 'White Saturday' Baffled by this weather I thought I'd be a good sport and stick up my favourite coat from the Carhartt Winter collection, to tackle these conditions, the Hickman...

USC, the fashion chain backed by Sir Tom Hunter, today became the latest high street name to enter adminstration. Branded casualwear chain USC has 58 stores, and Hunter's investment vehicle West Coast Capital is to immediately buy 43 of them out of administration. The remaining 15 stores wil close following the latest so-called "pre-pack" deal. The pre-pack will save the jobs of 1,127 of USC's 1,400 staff at the business which is based in Dundonald in Scotland. Bryan Jackson of PKF has been appointed administrator. "As has been well publicised retail operators are facing extremely challenging times. Given these circumstances this is a positive deal which retains the majority of jobs and shops," he said. USC in its day was a haven for bams, the place was mobbed, the one on Argyle Street was always rammed full, always seen guys getting chased out with 7 or 8 staff in hot pursuit, the guys who sold it to tom hunter for over £45 million must be having a grin int...

My rant for the day is early closing. Big sign on your door saying shut at 7pm, you boost down after work to get something only to find they have decided to close early, what's the script. Even worse store shuts at 6 you get there at quarter to and they are not letting anyone else in cause they close in 15 mins, you know exactly what you want but they wont let you, the rules are the rules, blah blah. All this credit crunch malrkey and people are shutting up early all the time, some dont even stick to the times on their door, might as well not put up an opening hours sign. Fair enough it might be quiet but try to stick by your opening times, slightly

As reported in the BBC today , this has been months coming, and it shouldn't surprise you, they wont collapse, they will get bought out and be reformed somehow, they always do. Music, games and DVD chain Zavvi has gone into administration, Ernst & Young has announced, threatening 3,400 jobs. The troubled chain has been badly affected by the demise of Woolworths, which forced it to stop taking new orders via its website. Zavvi's main supplier is Woolworths' unit Entertainment UK (EUK), which went into administration on 27 November. All of Zavvi's stores should be open as normal on Boxing day, for its traditional post-Christmas sale. The retailer is the latest victim of the slump in High Street sales that has seen the administrators called in at tea and coffee specialist Whittards and menswear chain The Officers Club. It employs 2,363 permanent staff and 1,052 temporary staff. The problems encountered with EUK, and particularly its recent failure, have been too much f...

JJB Sports has closed five of its Qube stores as turmoil for the struggling chain continues to mount. It is reported to have closed stores today in Nottingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Blackpool and Leamington Spa. JJB had hoped to find a buyer for its loss-making lifestyle chain, which includes Qube and Original Shoe Company. A deal has yet to be done and no buyer has yet been confirmed for its health clubs business, which many have touted as vital for the future survival of the business. A spokesman for JJB confirmed that five Qube leases had been terminated. "Rents for the rest of the Qube store portfolio have been paid in full. This is part of the ongoing rationalisation of the business." JJB is also under scrutiny from the Office of Fair Trading over its off-loading of some of its JJB stores to rival Sports Direct. Cube must have been the worst shoe shop ive ever seen, a shop full of white trainers, all shite ones aswell, no wonder it went tits up, as for original shoe, ned cit...

Anyone fancy seeing a preview of the 360 Tour of the store, it will be live on the site sometime next week, click the image or here to goto the site. Can you see the 1 mistake ???????????

An army of bailiffs has been put on standby by the UK's largest landlords as they expect a raft of retailers will fail to have funds in their bank on Christmas Eve to meet their quarterly rent deadline on December 25. Landlords are understood to be contacting some troubled retailers to remind them to make the necessary banking arrangements for the due date, while putting contingency plans in place. 'This post xmas period is going to see some big names po their clogs, already we have had woolies, duffer st george, joy, pier, rosebys, MK One, Qube, and we have Zavvi, Envy, JJB Sports, Borders all on borrowed time, hard hard times.' A source close to one landlord said: "There will be a lot of activity from the week beginning December 29 to chase up payments and landlords won't go into that week without back-up options. It would be remiss of the quoted property companies not to do this and take precautions at this time." One bailiff told Retail Week that landlords...

Zavvi has denied reports this morning that creditors have drafted in an emergency restructuring team from Ernst & Young as the Woolworths fallout hits the retailer hard. Deloitte, administrator for Woolworths' wholesale distribution business EUK, and Zavvi's biggest creditor has called in Ernst & Young as the collapse stings the DVD and games retailer, according to The Times. A spokesman for Zavvi, previously called Virgin Megastores, denied that Ernst & Young had been parachuted into the business. The Times said Ernst & Young is on standby as administrator if Zavvi cannot repay its £106 million of debt to EUK. Zavvi has suffered widespread supply issues since EUK went into administration and had to cancel some orders. Zavvi is indicating on its website that it could not take online orders. "We are currently experiencing supply problems and have temporarily suspended orders until the supply situation is resolved," it read. Sir Richard Branson's Vi...

This truly is the season for it, but sad to say Joy on Queen st has went tits up. Only been in the shop a few times, couldn't find anything to buy, so maybe no great surprise, but know a few folk who work there and this is a shit time to be on the dole, not many jobs out there. Strange shop Joy was, similar in ways to Fat buddha, but with a greater concentration on ladies clothing, where-as we have being reducing the amount of ladies wear every season. You ladies are just to canny to buy into the trap of buying labels, guys will pay £100 for an addict jaket (even though addit are shit) but you girls wont, you'll go to Pri-mani and get a jacket, shoes, and jeans from river island and still have hange left over, we guys are dumb-asses. One of the problems i noticed with Joy was they had stores in really shit locations, East Kilbride, Dundee & Inverness, come on and you wonder why you went under, for a start the rent for your queen st store was £100,000 +, a shit load of money...