Reply With QuoteI do the same, but it was always just a matter of time.Originally Posted by Foxy100
There are a lot of stickers showing a big cross appearing on non-sale CDs in my local HMV. Pretty much everything will be 25% off from Friday and the salesman was at pains to tell me it's not a closing down sale.
I suppose it's inevitable but I do find it a huge shame if they do all close. I use iTunes and know that's part of the problem but I still buy new albums on CD from HMV (so I can stick the music on all of my computers and then keep the CD in the car). I have a huge collection of records and used to spend a lot of time in record shops, I still go into HMV every week for a look and just bought "Forever Changes" by Love for £3.
"A man of little significance"
although the net is great for buying music, there is still nothing like a good rummage in a decent shop, sadly few and far between these days and the stock carried by those that are still out there is sadly becoming very limited.
ktmog6uk
marchingontogether!
I always wondered why HMV didn't branch into the digital music market as the world has been moving that way for 15+ years. Or did they, and I missed it?
Would miss having a good rummage in HMV but there's been rumours about them for a while.
Would be very sad to see them go.
Malc
They are an institution, no question, but I have avoided HMV for years simply because they are too expensive.
I buy a combination of downloads and discs but I can buy a CD from Amazon or CD Wow or Play for around £7-£10 yet I can guarantee the same CD will be more expensive in HMV. I appreciate they have got store overheads but given the quantities I would have bought in the past a £2-3 saving off a CD soon adds up in quantity.
Always the most expensive place to buy a CD in my experience, of all the high street chains. They opened a pop-up shop in my town over Christmas. We went in to buy the three Green Day CDs released recently for Christmas presents. They had one out of the three! Amazon got the order when we got home. As my days of rummaging in record(!) shops are long gone, I won't miss them. They are last of the breed though.
Writing has been on the wall a long time. There is no need for such media any more, that includes DVDs. Books are next.
I buy my cd's and books from Amazon, my vinyl comes off the bay or specialist stores, last time I was in HMV it was hellishly expensive and the stock lacked depth.
I use itunes for the odd track I want for a party or such but would never consider it a real source due to low res files and non transferable rights ...... Guess it all depends how much and how serious you are about your music and reading libraries, but I wonder how many people are aware that when they die music files from Itunes, and books from kindle, cannot be bequeathed ....your digital collection effectively dies with you!
I think we are seeing a change to shopping that wont be undone, there wont be much left on the high street soon
Hmmmm.
I can clearly recall going to buy The Second Coming by The Stone Roses and A Northern Soul by The Verve in the Leeds HMV when they came out. I was a kid at school at the time, and the price (I still have the stickers on the albums) was £16.49 for a single CD. This was 19 years ago.
I still only buy CDs and vinyl and have no interest in storing any music on a hard drive whatsoever, but I kind of feel ambivalent about them folding when I think back to how much the £20 note that I handed over actually meant to me back then in real terms. I could probably have bought 7 packets of 20 cigs with that instead. Glad I didn't as I still have the albums, but still...
It will be sad if they went but they only have themselves to blame. Their own website sells cd's cheaper than the shop with free delivery. If they can sell cheaper online then they can sell cheaper in store. If I have made the effort to go to the shop, why do they feel it appropriate to charge more for my effort.
Institution? - Almost certainly.
But the hit on the wallet is what people look for now - Amazon and a couple of others are so efficient and keen on price it was (almost) inevitable.
Sad but they never changed their business model to compete.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
Of course . There will be almost nothing on the high street soon. The high street as we know it is finished. All that will be left will be things you can't do on line.
You can't get your hair done on line, you can't eat a meal on line. All the services which require presence will fill the high street. Unless (very unlikely) governments have the wit to see the broader implications, all these services will be dreadfully expensive, in order to pay the extortionate business rates , which are actually no longer valid nor applicable, and playing a big part in accelerating the final demise.
By curious coincidence HMV were bought last month by Apollo Global, the same private equity firm which just purchased WoS/Goldsmiths/Mappin & Webb for £180m.
EDIT: they haven't purchased outright but they are gobbling up bits of HMV.
The high street is still a major route for DVD/Bluray sales so I wonder if we've seen the last of HMV, though it could emerge in a much smaller niche.
Last edited by gentlemenpreferhats; 8th January 2013 at 20:22. Reason: spelling, as usual
Sadly I agree with many of the comments above....they've priced themselves out of the market.
Just checked my HMV Pure account and there is hardly anything available now. Used to get an annual Empire subscription. Just ordered a £20 voucher so I'd better spend it quick!
Agreed. Not a great record shop but the only one in most places.
Mark
Will be sad, as although digital downloads will (would have ?) killed them eventually - will be the same for DVDs once the bandwidth gets there - I can't help feeling they were also crushed to an extent by the govt not clamping down on LVCR (& still hasn't fully) making it a death by a thousand cuts (or 2 deep wounds).
HMV lost sales to Jersey whilst the govt ignored the problem for years, finally moved to Jersey themselves and then it was closed. Without that 20% advantage I think they could have hung on a lot longer although digital downloads and probably leasing will end up as the MO for content purchases eventually I think.
Sad as if they had innovated sooner - the stores could have closed but itcould have been hmvTUNES instead of iTunes...
Last edited by MB2; 8th January 2013 at 21:58.
This is the heart of the problem. Poor business models, lack of strategic direction and badly managed.
20 years ago I joined WHSmith as a grad trainee working in the IT department at head office. WHS had recently bought Waterstones, Paperchase and Our Price (a record shop chain operating with a kind of independent record shop culture for you young 'uns who have never heard of it). Although WHS did not do a massive amount of damage to Our Price, pretty much leaving it to operate as a separate business unit, it simply did not know what to do with it, given that WHS shops sold records/cassettes/CDs too (though a smaller selection and with none of the specialisms that Our Price prided itself on) and ended up selling Our Price to Virgin which ultimately ran the business into the ground. Years later, WHS itself completely missed the move to an online business model preferring the view that they were a shop chain and that is where the future of their business lay.
The trouble is that WHS did not know what to do with Waterstones either and ended up selling it back to a consortium which included Tim Waterstone (Tim had set up Waterstones after leaving WHS) but with a significant managerial and strategic input from HMV Group. After a few years of poor results and not really knowing what to do with the chain, HMV decided to sell up....
You'll be pleased to know I left WHS after 18 months, moving into the heady world of consulting where I could wear a shiny suit and a big watch...
I spent many a great afternoon in HMV in the 90's. Some of the sales guys really knew their stuff and introduced me to some great sounds.
But I barely ventured in to it since 2002, and I guess, by the sounds of it, neither have most of you.
It will be missed.
Yep inevitable . My Dad was a huge huge music enthusiast and I remember seeing the His Masters Voice on the LP covers.When I was old enough then a 80 mile round trip the the HMV store in Plymouth would be in order as they stocked anything and everything to include rarities and if they didn't have it then they would get it for you.
Times have changed today I just press a button and there it is on the iPAD. I wouldn't even contemplate spending time in there now looking for my next purchase.I can do that in the comfort of my own home
His Masters Voice will be sadly missed and dont see a way forward for them. I hope I am wrong.
regards
T
Fopp is a great record store still doing things right, I can't visit or pass through London without dropping in.
Great Fopp shop in Manchester.
The world is obsessed with downloaded music. Everyone's lost sight of sound quality and the pleasure to be had from listening to music through a good hi-fi system from a high quality source. Downloads don`t cut the mustard when it comes to sound quality....but many people don`t understand the difference. Talke to any Yoof about Hi-Fi and sound quality and you'll get the vacant stare.
The internet hasn`t helped record shops. Have to admit that I buy CDs online, usually from ebay. It'll be sad to see the HMV shops go but i think it's inevitable. I think there's a viable business selling on-line but not from shops. Sad but true.
Paul
errr... Fopp is owned by HMV.
+1 to this. There's also a pleasure to be had in physically owning the medium on which the music is stored that is totally lost with iTunes and the like. Richard Hawley recently described it as owning buckets of steam, which I think is apt.
Well said. Compressed downloaded music is rubbish (and DRM? Who in his right mind puts up with that sh1t?). Be that as it may, the pleasure of browsing in a well-stocked record shop on a Saturday morning will pretty soon be a thing of the past, sadly.
Fop, I don't want Fop, I'm a Dapper Dan Man.
I used to love going into HMV and sniffing out bargains and new music I hadn't experienced yet, or just trying to complete collections of albums from my favourite artists. There was a pleasure in having a wall full of CD's and there was a strange sense of pride in having a massive collection.
Those days are now long gone. Massive CD collections just take up space and collect dust, they are never touched as everything is digital for the convenience of having one collection on every gadget I own. I actually ripped and sold my CD's to Music Magpie a couple of years ago and I haven't bought a CD in at least five years.
HMV needed to move with the times - I'm certainly not alone here - but didn't. They've tried to change and stock other products, but the products they've chosen are again in direct competition to the likes of Amazon, which somewhat missed the point. With 4G mobile networks upon us, it'll take longer to find and buy a CD in HMV than download it from iTunes on your mobile.
IMO, they would have been better to move their business online, or really spread out into new areas - mobile technology, computing, that sort of thing perhaps - things people get some value from seeing in real life on the highstreet.
exactly....
People seem to be missing the point of how entertainment retail has gone tits up over the last few years. Digital is part of the problem (itunes control c90% market share and that isn't going to change quickly) The main issue for HMV was that they had huge rents on numerous non profitable stores and slow stock turns. They then went and price matched Supermarkets which pretty much saw ents as a foot-fall driver. HMV then diversified into all sorts of crap that was high margin (sweatshirts, key rings, coasters) and couldn't fill the gap that online retailers via abroad utilised for physical product.
Re the biggest issue it's that no-one below 25 understands how music isn't free - pretty much all young folk are big on illegal download and streaming.
Trade in stuff like MusicMagpie (That's Entertainment stores) also has an impact on catalogue sales that support better margin than chart. No-VAT on used CDs and DVDs either - which is nice.....
As for the Jersey/Guersney loop hole that's the tip of the iceberg. The HUT for example that runs various websites (Zavvi, Woolworths etc.)sends all it's CDs and DVDs via Chicago to avoid VAT. Other folk use Swiss or Dubia: theres still loads of ways around it.
I could ramble on forever about this as I've worked in the industry pretty much all my career. Shame it's buggered but it was never going to last forever ;)
Glad to see the OP bought a decent album anyway!
^^^ Interesting and I think that coincides with a view that's its a generational change we're seeing- if you're under 25, recorded music is just a commodity and not one you're really interested in paying for. I suppose there will be still be a place for micro-enterprises like Rough Trade used to be or Soul Jazz, but big retail is dead for music.
The same will happen to books (eventually) though they will probably hang on as anachronistic giftshops for the rich/overeducated.
too true - weirdly Supermarkets have been pretty good for books; my girlfriend works in Publishing (the grown up industry as I call it) and they are doing pretty well these days. It's always helped that there's no VAT on books so the offshore bollocks never got involved. Also you can't beat fingering an old tome: Kindle or not ;)
I sometimes have a wonder around my local HMV looking mostly through the 2 for £10 section, I haven't bought a full priced CD from them (or anyone else) for yonks. I prefer owning a physical disk but have bought most of my music over the last good few years through iTunes, being able to try before you buy as well as the "listeners also bought" suggestions have both caused me to spend more than originally intended, which is exactly what would have been intended by Apple.... Still, I've discovered all kinds of music that I might otherwise not have, and I enjoy listening to it whenever I can.
The likes of HMV used to sell some albums for 15-20 pounds. It's hard to have too much sympathy. By the time they stopped being greedy, it was too late.
Couldn't agree more. A close mate regularly says how amazing his stereo is because it "goes very loud".....rather than the dynamic-less, detail lacking lump of crud it really is.
For me CDs are the lowest quality I'm prepared to listen to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20944909
Zut alors!
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
Yeah, saw him on a show on TV recently where he pointed out an old blues record and said, " I'd buy that but I wouldn't pay money for something I can't see or feel".
Seems a sensible bloke.
Cheers,
Neil.
True.
I've never downloaded any music personally, takes all the fun (and quality) out of it.
Cheers,
Neil.
Yes indeed, a major blow. Especially as the Champs Elysées megastore has a really impressive vinyl section.
Only a matter of time for HMV i think, they have not moved with the times and it will be their undoing at some point.
Don't you think there is room for one chain of DVD, cd sellers. A bit like bookshops. As resale maintenance was scrapped on books and the advent of Amazon cut into bookselling many bookshops disappeared and we finished up with the homogenised sales in Tesco, Smiths etc all selling the same popular books with no room for new authors, specialised stuff etc. Except for Waterstones who still behave like a proper bookshop. Maybe there still is room for HMV.
HMV lost my custom when they moved away from stocking a broad range of music. My local store only has one isle of CDs, the rest being filled with DVDs, games and electronics (buy a MacBook from HMV?)
Once I couldn't expect to find music outside of the chart, I stopped wanting to browse, and so they lost the chance of me picking up animpulse buy.
If I want a Mac I'll go to Apple; what I wanted from HMV was music, and lots of it.
The one positive for music retailers in the last couple of years has been the “resurgence” of independent record shops (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13084752).
By offering a significantly different proposition to the big players, they can survive and even thrive...
One example that I know firsthand is in Bristol (they also have a few stores elsewhere). It’s called Rise and is located amongst the shops on Clifton triangle (I have no connection to them).
It definitely has a different ambience (in a good way) to HMV and even places like Fopp.
Rise sells the usual CDs and DVDs, but with a decent range (rather than a token range as in HMV) of harder-to-find items / genres; so, for example, Classical, Jazz and World with regards CDs and World Cinema etc. for DVDs. The staff seems to know their music as well, so can make good recommendations.
The shop also carries a selection of music and film-related books, some artwork and clothing which is relevant to the shop’s demographic. There is a coffee shop downstairs whose operator seems to be working in partnership with Rise.
The last differentiator are in-store gigs, walls plastered with posters advertising up-coming gigs and limited edition items including limited edition Vinyl releases from different artists.
I’d sum them up as very much a “BBC 6 Music” kind of shop – if that means anything to you!
They’ve been there for a few years now, so hopefully they have a sustainable business model.
Besides independents like Rise, if HMV goes to the wall that leaves the supermarkets for the Top 40 physical albums bought in person, Amazon etc. for physical albums bought online and iTunes etc. for digital downloads.
^^^^ if there is one area where physical sales still carry on, it's at the limited edition vinyl end. Either deluxe collectors editions, or pressings of 500 copies of small bands/artists first records. The savvy operators know that some people still like to own something, and something desirable as well.
That's some people, not all of course. I am with Hawley, though I download some stuff for convenience, I have amassed about 4-5k records/Cds over 20 years. And still buy.
I'm sure this is unintentionally funny! Bless........
Very good! (but they did live on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10507286)
True thankfully - I think you could pretty much describe all independent record shops as Radio6, Pitchfork.com, sterogum.com, drownedinsound etc. friendly.
That being said Piccadilly in Manchester and Sister Ray in London are still my two favourite indies.
If you are a fan of buying vinyl though check musicstack.com which has pretty much all the second hand record shops in the world listing stock.
Rock on!
Agreed, but been in today and picked up some old, classic, stuff very cheap!
Mark
I do agree with that - can remember the joy of owning long-coveted vinyl LPs - but at the same time I don't have the same experience with CDs. Maybe because I've worked in IT, where CDs are routinely used as coasters or thrown in the bin, perhaps partly because I've seen them stuck to magazine covers too many times. Also the jewel cases and booklets have always seemed cheap. Paradoxically I do believe they do a much better job as a medium for music than vinyl LPs ever did, but they just feel disposable to me.
In any case HMV's problem isn't only that people download their music. It's also that people who want the physical medium are more likely to get it from Amazon or play.com, where they can browse through many thousands of records from the comfort of their desk or armchair, and buy them with a single click. Usually cheaper there, as well.
I would completely stop buying CDs if I could download music in a lossless format. Doesn't bother me in the slightest that I don't have a physical copy of the last Radiohead record, which was made available as a FLAC download.
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