Our Price
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| Entertainment retailer | |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Defunct | 2004 |
| Headquarters | Kensington High Street, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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Gary Nesbitt (founder) Edward Stollins (founder) Mike Isaacs (founder) Lee Skinner (last owner) |
| Website | www.ourprice.co.uk |
Our Price was a chain of record stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland from 1971 until 2004. Founded in 1971 by Gary Nesbitt, Edward Stollins and Mike Isaacs, their first store was located in London's Finchley Road. Until 1976, the first six stores were branded The Tape Revolution, and concentrated on selling the then-new compact cassette format and eight track tapes.
From 1976, the upstart chain rebranded to Our Price Records in response to local demand for vinyl records over eight tracks. In 1988, it re branded again to Our Price Music, as new CD formats started being distributed by record labels. In 1993, a final brand relaunch occurred with the then three-hundred-store chain calling themselves simply Our Price.
The company was based in London, with a head office above the shop in Kensington High Street. It initially focused on the committed rock album buyer, with regular imports of "cut out" albums from the United States, a remainder store on Charing Cross Road branded Surplus Records, and a mail-order business driven by advertising in the music press.
These different routes to market fell away after the core chain grew in 1980, with the purchase of the chain Harlequin Records. Thereafter, national expansion followed, with the 100th store opening in the Kings Road, Chelsea; the 200th at Stirling, Scotland; and the 300th in Brixton, South London.
In the first half of the 1980s, Our Price established itself as the United Kingdom's second largest retailer of records and tapes (with Woolworths the largest). Brand recognition was driven by pun-rich radio advertising built around the "Get Down To Our Price" slogan, which later transferred to television featuring an animated carrier bag called, Billy.
A sister chain, Our Price Video, was established to capitalise on the success of the new VHS tape format, and some towns eventually had two or three Our Price-branded stores. Our Price Video was later rebranded under the Playhouse fascia, but failed to establish a significant market share in VHS sales, and it was wound up by owners, WH Smith, in the late 1990s (the otherwise unconnected Silver Screen retail chain was founded on the same "specialist movies" principle in the early 2000s; it too foundered, and has now closed down).
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Wikipedia