HMV in trouble again........

I think the big loss (for me anyway) would be Fopp if they take that down with them, which is likely.

Oh! the halcyon days of Virgin at the top of Oxford Street, HMV with their massive shop half-way down and the old shop as well by Bond St tube. Tower Records had their huge store at Piccadilly with Sam Goody, MVC, Our Price in large towns.

Sad indeed, but no surprise, you have ask the question who would put money into high street retail now.

Yes, very sad, but inevitable. Bloody internet!

I say that but I love the extra dimension streaming gives me and I do admit to buying lots of CDs from t'internet, so I am as much to blame as the next person.

The ultimate double-edged sword.

When I think of how many hours I used to spend traipsing from one record store to another to save 50p or so on vinyl as a student it makes me shudder, but it was a form of exercise!

Really sad news about HMV, I only recently discovered how much vinyl they had locally, but I simply don't go into town often enough to be a regular customer.

I suspect one problem is they have stores which are too big with matching rents and racks and racks of dozens of identical CDs/DVDs when a few copies would probably suffice with the rest in a storage area.

In reality even if I buy new vinyl it's too easy just to order from the river with prime delivery, and additionally I tended to go to somewhere like HMV to browse for multi-buy deals on BluRays/CDs etc as I got choices I might not think of online.

In addition to the internet the supermarkets must also be part of the problem - most popular new movie/music releases which will sell in significant volumes if you want a physical copy are likely to be available in Tesco/Sainsburys etc when doing your shop, naturally they won't stock more niche products but if they don't sell in quantity anyway why would they bother?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46699290

Why does everybody avoid the fact that they're just not competitive? I always visit my local HMV but inevitably buy from t'internet as it's generally cheaper. I'm not a spur of the moment / must have kind of guy, so I can wait a day or two and save a few quid (towards my next purchase).

What will really be sad is if/when physical ownership becomes a thing of the past. Owning physical media is more tangible and better quality (on the whole), it doesn't disappear when you stop subscribing (i.e. locked in for life), and you get a little booklet thingy, which is quaint.

Roon/Tidal/Qobuz overcome most of these objections to a point, but not completely. The streaming market is maturing very rapidly but you can't subscribe to all services economically.

Buying and ripping CD's is my preferred form of musical enjoyment, wherever they come from.

Without going into the reasons of  inevitable high street changes in response to online shopping.

I will miss them especially as their vinyl stock has regrown over the last few years at what I consider competitive prices. 

Richard

Agree re vinyl.

i hope they manage to keep the online sales model of vinyl alive. Theee is something special about HMV’s name being just about vinyl -‘ just as it says on the tin’

DIfficult  for any high street business to be competitive  when saddled with high business rates (15% of costs in HMV’s case)

Going on-line has worked out for Habitat (albeit they were proactive).

jude

Apologies FC, just seen you’ve posted this.  I’ve started a similar thread over in padded cell (link).....

Agree with all the comments - so sad.....

George.

intothevoid posted:

Why does everybody avoid the fact that they're just not competitive? I always visit my local HMV but inevitably buy from t'internet as it's generally cheaper. I'm not a spur of the moment / must have kind of guy, so I can wait a day or two and save a few quid (towards my next purchase).