Virgin marks 25th year with Piccadilly Megastore launch; second West End flagship store sees specialist retailer go from strength to strength.(Retail)

As anniversary celebrations go, Virgin has pulled out all the stops to mark the 25 years since its first Megastore.

The specialist retailer today (Monday) officially presses the button on a 3m [pounds sterling] makeover of the onetime Tower store in London's Piccadilly, giving Virgin a second flagship outlet in the West End, alongside the one in Oxford Street.

It is a fitting tribute to a Megastore concept that a quarter of a century ago this month arguably gave birth to the current era of specialist music retailing in the UK, but more importantly shows a way forward for Virgin in an age when traditional record retailers face threats from various quarters.

"It's a great birthday present for us," says Virgin Retail UK chief operating officer Dennis Henderson. "I believe it's the premiere music retail location in the world."

The relaunch, 15 months in the making, is being backed by a 250,000 [pounds sterling] campaign showcasing the "remastered London music landmark", using images of four celebrated record labels. Virgin took over the site back in April last year, but until very recently the Tower name remained on display, with Virgin deliberately taking its time before re-branding the store.

The cautious approach masterminded by recently-departed Virgin Entertainment Group marketing director Mike Inman demonstrated Virgin had learnt the lessons of the past. In early 2002 its US operation relaunched a Tower store in Boston without having taken time to take stock and found itself alienating many of the loyal Tower customers. Virgin Entertainment Group CEO Simon Wright concedes on that occasion the group did not "give enough time" to the take over, so decided to wait with the Piccadilly site, observing and talking to customers and finding out what they liked and what needed changing about the store.

As Henderson notes, there were fundamental problems with how the store was functioning at the time of the takeover. "It was rundown in terms of shop fit and stock and we wanted to learn about the store, how it operated and what the customer base was," he says. "We wanted to trade it through a tourist period and a peak trading period."