HMV goes bang

[rich_tech]

Seeing it flash up on BBC news website now, appointing administrators in the next few days, hardly a surprise really, given the sales I saw in there recently.

[Devontechie]

Yeah released on the FT website as well...

 

HMV set to go into administration - FT.com

 

 

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-01-14/hmv-administration/

Edited January 14, 2013 by Devontechie

[Gatt]

Not surprised to be honest, their prices have been extortionately high for years..

No doubt it will be blamed in "internet sales" and "illegal downloads" , but to be honest, if they didn't charge between £15-£20 an Album, they may still be trading comfortably alongside the internet sales, and illegal downloads would be limited..

 

And this goes for all music shops and the entire entertainment industry....

[jinnantonnixx]

I popped in to my local HMV on the weekend and it was packed, with a large queue. It seemed to be thriving.

 

Anyway, I went into a large Currys/PC World and would have lost a 'spot the customer' game. Rows and rows of laptops, Hifis and TVs and nobody there. Not a soul.

[Gatt]

I popped in to my local HMV on the weekend and it was packed, with a large queue. It seemed to be thriving.

 

Anyway, I went into a large Currys/PC World and would have lost a 'spot the customer' game. Rows and rows of laptops, Hifis and TVs and nobody there. Not a soul.

 

And yet we've seen the exact opposite around Manchester the last couple of weeks..

[rich_tech]

I can believe them going bust, I popped in one in Birmingham the other day and the format basically was the same as any other store, in that DVDs and Blu-Rays that have been out for years are still trying to be sold for about £4-7 a piece, whereas the new stuff was about 12 for a DVD and a bit more for the blu-ray. Shop locally is always busy, but then in a large unit here, you have 5 tills total and only ever about 3 people serving customers.

 

Feel for the people working there same as Jessops, they pay for management mistakes really in operating.

[Devontechie]

I popped in to my local HMV on the weekend and it was packed, with a large queue. It seemed to be thriving.

 

And yet we've seen the exact opposite around Manchester the last couple of weeks..

 

Ours never seems to be that busy really.. If it is, it is coz there is only 1 person on the tills! lol!

[localzuk]

I don't understand HMV. They've had a decade to get their act together and to get in on the digital economy yet they've sat as a ridiculous old world brick and mortar store chain selling the same old stuff.

 

Although, they have reduced the variety of stock they hold, meaning people have less reasons to go there. They have also taken to stocking 500 types of headphones, and 15 different models of tablet PC and laptop in the store I was in a few weeks ago.

 

I'm surprised they've lasted this long.

[themightymrp]

I used to love popping into hmv, row upon row of music, little stands for listening to new albums. Nowadays i struggle to spot anything more than the top 10 singles chart and a TINY album selection! Its all video games, t-shirts and electronic gadgets, and everything over priced gone way downhill

[bwestlake]

its not suppressing to be honest.. places like pc world are going to get through this as they sell a range of stuff and not everyone wants to buy that stuff offline, but dvds cds ect people by offline, legaly download or torrent

[hardtailstar]

gunna miss walking in there and browsing and easily spending £50 each visit.

 

Lots are moaning about prices but I found them cheaper than online sometimes.

[CAM]

I'm still a CD buyer but a lot of my recent purchases have been at gigs. I still tend to impulse buy DVDs and games in HMV though. I still buy portable titles like DS or Vita in a store. That is where their really power should have been, the people with wallets that jump at the nearest sale sign.

[FN-GM]

Online shopper here, but you simply cant beat looking through the shelves to find something you didn't know existed.

[rad]

Richard Branson pulled out from the market ages ago. He knew back then. I'm not sure how they survived this long, what with Netflix, iTunes etc they didn't have much hope really

[localzuk]

Online shopper here, but you simply cant beat looking through the shelves to find something you didn't know existed.

 

Yeah you can. That's the beauty of things like Spotify and Grooveshark - they give recommendations based on what you're playing. I've found quite a few bands that way. Online streams are another great way (ie. gaming streams where they're playing music so you find new stuff there, or online radio stations).

 

With the way HMV changed their stores, you couldn't go in and browse anyway - they had hardly anything to browse.

[mdench]

Used to shop loads at HMV and then i found Amazon Mp3 just soo much easier click buy download listen. Still occasioanlly go in for a flick through the albums looking for an impulse buy. Will be sad to see them go

[Arthur]

I don't understand HMV. They've had a decade to get their act together and to get in on the digital economy yet they've sat as a ridiculous old world brick and mortar store chain selling the same old stuff.

I can't understand this either. Why couldn't HMV (and Jessops for that matter) make the switch to online only sales like Dixons did in 2007 and Zavvi (née Virgin Megastores) did in 2009? It seems that the people in charge of all of these high-street stores that go in administration have a tremendous lack of foresight or simply don't care because they get paid huge amounts of money regardless of whether the company fails or not.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Arthur

[mattx]

I think the bloke who heads up hmv used to head up Jessops....

Says quite a lot that !!

No doubt he will be rewarded for his success and will go and work for a bank or David "toffy Eton country supper" Cameron.

Edited January 15, 2013 by mattx

[Arthur]

I think the bloke who heads up HMV used to head up Jessops....

He did. It seems like the same people go from one high-street retailer to another collecting massive pay cheques on their travels.

 

The executive director of HMV (Trevor Moore) was the executive director of Jessops. The chairman of HMV (David Adams) was the non-executive chairman of Jessops and non-executive director of JJB Sports.

 

Taxpayers are also going to have to foot the bill for employers wages too aren't they (through the government’s National Insurance Fund)?

Edited January 15, 2013 by Arthur

[featured_spectre]

Personally I couldn't give a damn, yes it is sad that people will lose their jobs, but the sad fact is that Comet, Jessops and HMV did not do enough to keep up in the digital age. HMV could have capitalised and reigned supreme for sales such as Play.com did (though they are closing themselves because the tax loophole that allowed them to make so much money has been closed so they decided to close shop so to speak).

 

Comet on the other hand had stupidly high prices, low sale rates, and were doomed for a long while coming, being unable to keep up with Euronics and others. It is a slippery slope keeping up in this day in age, but they have all failed recently not from lack of spending (people spending has been as high as ever), its just the prices that put people off. People bargain hunt now like crazy, getting the best deal possible, and sadly, for the vast majority of stock in HMV or Comet, it could be found cheaper elsewhere or online at a lower price.

 

The main thing that HMV did well with was trade in prices, not a single store offered more than they did for new(ish) games. Hell 6 months after purchase Fight Night Champion was traded in for £36, whereas Gamestation/Game/Cex etc offered just under £20

[elsiegee40]

My son got an HMV gift card for Christmas. Fortunately he spent it quickly... On an iTunes voucher

[Dos_Box]

I suspect that since the 'digital revolution' in online sales and media distribution (let's say from abut 2000 onwards) the writing on the wall was so large that many company bosses simply failed to even see it.

There are many reasons for this, but primarily it was a total failure by older executives to listen to younger more tech-savvy managers when all of this began to happen. There are (or in HMV's case, were) many opportunities to turn this trend around and many businesses did so successfully.

What's that saying about dinosaurs?

One day a book will be written (once the dust settles) about the move over to internet marketing and distribution, but there will be a few more big name casualties to come yet I think.

[Gatt]

Kinda sums up why HMVB are going bump - they've made a simiilar mistake to Comet and other stores recently in not adjusting to compete with the online market, they certauinly haven't adjusted their prices to the likes of iTunes - bet your son got a lot more songs in his iTunes card than he would've done on the HMV one!

[tech_guy]

Shame about HMV - if you knew what you were looking for you could usually bag DVDs for less than some of the major online retailers. My DVD film collection (over 5000 titles) is probably 25% purchased from HMV over the years.

[BenABF]

Makes me wonder if there will be any shops left in these great big shopping centres that have been built in towns and cities, some less than a decade ago