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The death of Phones4u is still playing out
It's been nearly two and a half years since Phones4u folded, but the aftermath of the company's abrupt closure is still being felt. Thanks to a recent employment tribunal, 400 former staff have been awarded 12 weeks redundancy pay on the basis there was no consultation period ahead of the layoffs -- not unusual when a firm suddenly implodes. The government's Redundancy Payments Service is forking out £3,712 per person, equivalent to 8 weeks of statutory pay, while the invoice for the remaining 5 weeks is now on the desk of administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which did not dispute the claim.
Esports will be a $500 million industry in 2016
The eSports industry is poised to make a cool $463 million in revenue in 2016, according to a new report from PwC (the financial services firm formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers). As testament to the rapidly expanding industry, that's a 43 percent rocket jump from 2015.
Phones4u's old inventory is being auctioned off on the cheap
When Phones4u collapsed, it didn't take long for its administrators to sell off a large number of its high street stores. But what happened to the products stocked within those shops? Well, they also need to be shifted, and it just so happens that you might be able to grab yourself a nice pre-Christmas bargain. In a bid to find more cash to pay off the costs associated with Phones4u's insolvency, its administrator, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has drafted in an auction house to put up all of the retailer's stock for sale.
EE scoops up 58 Phones4u stores
When Phones4u entered administration, it immediately shut all of its doors and put thousands of employees on notice. It didn't take long for Dixons Carphone to secure 800 positions, with Vodafone sweeping in shortly after to buy 140 Phones4u stores and save another 900 jobs. Now, it's EE's turn. The UK's biggest carrier has just announced that it's reached a deal with administrators to buy 58 outlets and bring 359 employees onto its books. It's moving quick too, confirming that it'll open the majority of stores within the next week. Over a year ago, EE began reducing its retail presence after its stores began saturating high streets, but now that it's joined Vodafone in pulling out of deals with Phones4u, the company will need to move quickly to fill the gaps left by its former partner.
Vodafone buys 140 Phones4u stores, saving 900 jobs in the process
A lot can happen in a week: just five days after Phones4u announced it was entering administration, leaving 5,596 employees facing a very uncertain future, retailers and carriers alike have stepped in to strip the company of its most important parts. Dixons Carphone has already picked up 800 employees from its rival, and now Vodafone, one of the two operators that unceremoniously ended their relationship with Phones4u in recent weeks, has announced a deal to buy 140 former stores, saving a potential 900 jobs as a result. Vodafone says it was approached by the company's administrator and "decided to make an offer to buy 140 of its stores as a way to accelerate our retail expansion programme and save hundreds of jobs." While some people will swap their Phones4u role for a Vodafone position, today's restructuring efforts also came at cost. The administrator announced 628 employees at Phones4u's head office in Newcastle-under-Lyme and telesales staff in Staffordshire were today made redundant in an attempt to reduce expenses. There's currently no word on which stores the Vodafone intends to rebrand, but we've asked the company for more details.
Game Australia to close all of its stores in the coming weeks
Retailer Game Australia will shut down all 31 of its remaining stores over the coming weeks, its administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers announced today. Game will close 16 Australian stores immediately and the remaining 15 within a few weeks.In May, Game Australia entered voluntary administration; it shuttered 60 stores, affecting 264 employees, and cut 17 head office positions. Before any closures, Game had an estimated 500 employees in Australia."This is a difficult time for employees, and closing the stores was not a decision we made easily," Warwick said of Game Australia's complete closure (and the ones in May). "Despite exploring available opportunities for continued trading, the ongoing trading performance and absence of viable offers for the purchase of the business has resulted in these closures."Game Australia is running discounts in a final closing-down sale online and in its remaining stores.
Walmart's website lets you Pay With Cash, strips away the 'convenience' of shopping online
Here's an idea: order products online, and then pay using regular 'ol dollar bills. Intrigued? That's exactly what Walmart has begun offering on its website today with its new Pay With Cash service. It's no different from initiating a normal web order, save for being another -- and potentially convoluted -- option to hand over your funds and checkout. After selecting PWC, you'll receive an order confirmation, which then allots you 48 hours to print it out and present it at your local Wally World. From there, you can choose to pick up the item in store or have it shipped to your house -- in effect, stripping away some of the key conveniences of shopping online in the first place. Of course, one could likely just give their local store a call to place items on hold for a similar result, but hey, more options are always nice, right? At the very least, many without the likes of credit cards and Google Wallets might find some appreciation for this method of retail purchasing. Hit up the links below for all the details.
Green Samba promises to make electric personal watercraft 'viable'
It's not the first to try its hand at an all-electric personal watercraft, but the Ohio-based Silveira Group is claiming that its new so-called Green Samba will be the first "viable" vehicle of its kind. To that end, the company says that the Green Samba will deliver the same 65 mph performance of the fastest 260 bhp sit-down PWCs, and do so while remaining completely silent thanks to a pair of twin direct drive electric propulsion pods. As the company is quick to point out, that also has the added benefit of eliminating one of the biggest complaints about PWCs from the public: their noise. Of course, the other key to viability is the price, and Silveira is unfortunately doing decidedly less talking about that right now, saying only that it will be able to "ballpark a retail price" when it finishes work on the latest prototype in August.
PwC study finds game sales will continue to rise
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that the video game industry will hit $68.3 billion in global sales by 2012, a "compound annual growth" of 10.3% from its current $41.9 billion. Reuters reports PwC's "Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2008-2012" also envisions that console gaming will remain the largest category, with a 6.9% annual increase to $34.7 billion, but that the two separate categories of online and "wireless" (mobile?) will grow the fastest, from around $6 billion to $14 billion. Meanwhile, the poor PC keeps taking a beating, with game sales expected to fall around 1.2% annually to 3.6 billion. The article doesn't really explain where the fiscally nebulous world of digital distribution exists in all of this.Games sales aren't the only thing to see tremendous growth, as the study also found that the "emerging" video game advertising sector will grow from its current $1 billion to $2.3 billion in the next five years. The PwC study imagines that the things leading the growth of the games industry is the sophistication of mobile phones, an acceleration of homes with broadband, and the increasing popularity of MMO games. If you're young and have disposable income, consider buying a couple shares in your favorite game company instead of one of its games -- it appears your investment will be rewarded.
