MusicMagpie Plc (styled as musicMagpie) is a British

online retailer Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of t ...

buying and selling refurbished electronics and second-hand computer games, consoles, books, films and music.

History

musicMagpie was founded in

Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...

in 2007 by Steve Oliver and Walter Gleeson, both with previous experience of the music industry. The company was originally based in Oliver's garage, buying only

CDs CDS, CDs, Cds, etc. may refer to: Finance * Canadian Depository for Securities, Canadian post-trade financial services company * Certificate of deposit (CDs) * Counterfeit Deterrence System, developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence ...

. Records show that from February 2017, the company employed 1000 people, and received 5 million ratings on

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

, becoming the most popular seller on that platform. By 2018 the company had sold an estimated £125 million of used items, primarily through

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

and

. In 20 November 2023, companies such as the

BT Group BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...

and

Aurelius Group Aurelius Group is a global investor with offices in Amsterdam, London, Luxembourg, Malta, Milan, Munich, New York, and Stockholm. The company focuses on alternative investment, private equity, private debt and real estate investments. History ...

announced their interests to buy the company. In October 2024, British electrical retailer

AO World AO World plc, trading as ao.com, is an electrical retailer based in Bolton, England. It operates in the United Kingdom (ao.com), and previously operated in Germany (ao.de) and the Netherlands (ao.nl), specialising in household appliances and ele ...

announced it would acquire musicMagpie for approximately £10 million.

Business model

Prices are checked through an

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

which determines an item's popularity on all competitors' websites. Due to its low prices for items such as

, the service is often used by individuals selling in bulk. Customers can enter an items’ barcode or name into musicMagpie's website to receive an instant quotation. Customers can then send their goods to the company free of charge by various methods. Once the goods are received, if they meet quality requirements, the seller is paid. The principle behind its purchase and sale

is to keep a minimum stock in the company's warehouse, and continuously buy and sell the same item while listing it on multiple platforms. Depending on an artist's new release, advertisements and other relevant factors, the company tends to increase the stock if expecting to get bigger sales from a specific product. DVDs are typically purchased for 1

penny A penny is a coin (: pennies) or a unit of currency (: pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. At present, it is ...

and books for 20 pence, and then resold for an average of £1 or £2. Customers can purchase used items through a separate part of the website.

Poundland deal

The company has a deal with UK budget retailer

Poundland Poundland Limited is a British variety store chain founded by Dave Dodd and Steven Smith in 1990, originally selling all of its items at the single price of £1. The retailer grew from a single location in Burton upon Trent, opening its hund ...

, where it supplies them with used

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

s and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

s, which are sold for one pound as part of Poundland's ''Replay'' range.

References

{{Reflist Companies based in Stockport Retail companies established in 2007 Music retailers English brands Online retailers Online retailers of the United Kingdom Non-store retailing Bookshops of the United Kingdom Book selling websites EBay stores Announced mergers and acquisitions

History

Business model

Poundland deal

See also

References