According to a report on MCV, online entertainment retailer Play com is radically altering its business this March by no longer selling goods directly to customers. From that point on, the website will function more akin to an online marketplace like eBay, with users themselves buying and selling items at their leisure.

214 jobs have been lost due to this decision being made, 147 in Jersey itself and 67 across Play.com’s Cambridge and Bristol offices.

We wish to extend our condolences to all those affected.

As you’d expect the Play.com is no longer accepting pre-orders for any games released after the March closure date, and we won’t be listing any price comparisons for those particular releases. However we will keep the prices for the games released before March, as we can’t see any reason why they won’t be fulfilled.

any1 else seen this? such a shame as i hate ebay so cant see me liking this site either :(

Been crap for years now anyway, deliverys take days, they never used too.

It's as a result of some tax changes which means that selling things from Jersey isn't as cheap as it used to be.

Such a shame, years ago it used to be very very good. Decent prices and very quick delivery.

Probably not going to be the last channel islands based company to wind up.

It's as a result of some tax changes which means that selling things from Jersey isn't as cheap as it used to be.

Yes they closed a loophole a few years ago, that was designed to support the Channel Islands Flower growers.

Basically there was a tax break for goods below a certain value to be shipped direct from the islands.

Play, Amazon and others cottoned onto this and used it to not pay VAT on shipped DVD/CD's etc below a certain price and so totally destroyed the high street retailers on price. Not only did they have overheads for the shops, but they had to pay VAT too.

This got closed down a while ago and when play's only advantage was they were cheaper due to this, they went south.

Never mind hey.

I used to use Play.com all the time till the delivery service got worse, i now use Amazon or HMV.

The Low Value Consignment Relief has effectively killed them, everything under £15 was exempt from VAT.

Interesting if they are moving to a "marketplace" business only, how will they fair with some of their products if they choose to continue selling them? For instance, one of my clients is a major record label (artists which Play.com currently sell), their European Distribution Centre which serves the UK is not in the UK but central Europe. I don't believe that this is geared up for small consignment orders such as single units to private addresses?

Will they simply stop selling or move a distributor which could further increase costs?