HMV Finally closing down for good?
- Thread starter Scania
- Start date
My first thoughts are 'oh god what have i bought from them in the last year that ill loose warranty on' then i think, 'oh, ive not bought anything from them in 5+ years'. Even then it was a cheap dvd because i forgot an xmas prezzie.
Wonder how many other people are in the same boat? Lots i guess
Wonder how many other people are in the same boat? Lots i guess
No loss at all in this day and age. It's just the way it is right now. Online is king. I do not get joy out of wondering around shops. I can find out more with a computer at home. The only exception often it clothes as you want to see and feel and try. Mostly everything else I buy I just want the cheapest price as all purchases are educated and researched in these times with much less disposable income.
Its not a loss from a public perspective when consuming and purchasing music but man I feel sorry for all those people who'll be losing their jobs if its true. Amazon won't be hiring all those people and they'll unlikely to be paying much tax to boot.
Most casual listeners will use downloadable content and probably not bother with physical media. HMV haven't catered for the more adventurous listeners for quite some time in their smaller shops. Only in their massive shops do they have separate classical sections which are soundproofed etc.
Buying physical media will be an increasingly niche market and will be catered for very well by specialist independent shops. Just because they're not on the high street in big lights doesn't make this a bad solution, quite the opposite in fact. Shops run by actual music fans who can give recommendations and host special events and source rare items. You just need to go to Berwick street in London to see why this is a good thing.
Buying physical media will be an increasingly niche market and will be catered for very well by specialist independent shops. Just because they're not on the high street in big lights doesn't make this a bad solution, quite the opposite in fact. Shops run by actual music fans who can give recommendations and host special events and source rare items. You just need to go to Berwick street in London to see why this is a good thing.
Like Fagin?
Really? I think a large number of households would disagree.
[TW]Fox;23469788 said:
The competition isn't vanishing, its changing. There are far more online games/DVD/CD retailers now than there were companies with physical stores 10+ years ago. And there are a number of virtual providers now too.
If anything competition is greater and therefore better for the consumer than it ever has been. Much better than your choice being between whichever 2 or 3 stores were in your local highstreet.
If the death of HMV means there will be even more online stores offering games at far below RRP then that's a good thing. Perhaps once they drop the massive costs of maintaining a network of stores HMV can become one of those stores selling as cheap as they can too.
[TW]Fox;23469788 said:
HMV are not competition. They priced themselves out of the market by not updating their business model. These companies are dropping like flies through their own stubborness to change. I have no sympathy. For the people who are losing their jobs mind. I do.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
You don't just press the 'update business model' button when your core business is physical retail stores. You can't just slash every price with zero regard for fixed costs. Often administration is the only way to update the business model as without it getting rid of stores you have long leases on and making redundancies costs capital you don't have.
Hence why Game are doing ok now - the administration process finally allowed them to trim the fat.
Posting 'yea just update the business model' on the Internet is about a million times easier than actually doing such a thing. I somehow doubt the average HMV board meeting is full of talented executives with no idea what's going wrong. Is easy to say what should happen. Doing it is somewhat harder I would imagine.
Last edited:
I hear what you are saying fox, but who are these people in charge on these company's that refuse to shift their prices, i know it's not as black & white as that but those in charge must be held accountable for failing to see this happening, big coin people who can't even run a bath it looks like to me.
The problem is most of their stores have been around a very long time, The ones up here have been there for about as long as I can remember. These stores come with a long lease as Fox says, They need staffed. Once you commit to that strategy it's very hard to change. Breaking a Lease costs money, Making people redundant costs money. Where do you stop? Are you truly ever going to be able to compete with the different business model? unlikely. So shut them all and adapt? You don't have enough capital to do that not to mention the politics of closing all your stores nationwide. They are pretty much in a no win situation at the moment.
[TW]Fox;23471644 said:
The writing has been on the wall for years. There was nothing stopping the likes of brick and mortar stores to support competitive online business in tandem with their traditional business models. Of course they didn't want to cannibalise their sales when the going was good, so instead they left it for someone else to take a bite outta them. Its just another case of quaterly results getting in the way of good long term business planning.
Game isn't really a good example either. They left the PC gaming market out in the cold and it got picked up by digital distribution in a big way. Instead they hitched themselves to walled garderns which leaves them vulnerable as they only really exist at the pleasure of consle manufacturers. It wouldn't be shock for the next gen to have steam like digital distribution services, which would be another critical blow to games business model.
The traditional TV services will likely fall in the future too. We've already seen Sky become an ISP and just recently they've started offering an online only service which is something you wouldn't have expected a few years ago. That amount of forward thinking seems to be uncomming for big business though.
Well that's my saturday sorted out! Going to go to HMV on Oxford street one more time to have a good rummage through and see if there are one or two more cd's to pick up (MK one had all Mogwai cd's for £3 and I want more of them if nothing else).
It's been coming for months though, CD section has rapidly been dwindling, no stock replacement, even for new things. DVD and Bluray areas have had the same treatment to make space for Dre Beats and ipads. Couldn't believe my eyes that they were just denying it was all going wrong in store when you could see Zavvi all over again...
It's been coming for months though, CD section has rapidly been dwindling, no stock replacement, even for new things. DVD and Bluray areas have had the same treatment to make space for Dre Beats and ipads. Couldn't believe my eyes that they were just denying it was all going wrong in store when you could see Zavvi all over again...
A lot of businesses will shut down in 2013, not just HMV, I wonder if PC world will be next (for largish businesses going under).
A good way to tell is if you almost never think of them, hell I practically believe that HMV doesn't exist right now, let along in the future.
The high street will be destroyed this year.
A good way to tell is if you almost never think of them, hell I practically believe that HMV doesn't exist right now, let along in the future.
The high street will be destroyed this year.
Once high street stores realise the competition is the internet and not each other maybe they will start doing something towards atleast being semi competitive with places like amazon instead of charging +20% + the postage /packaging costs one might expect to pay for next day delivery.[TW]Fox;23469788 said:
we all know they have overheads but so do amazon look at the size of the amazon warehouse its like a small city and cant be cheap.
then theres all the posting + packaging retail chains need to get with the times and streamline to survive and stop relying on out dated busisness models
High st retailers have huge warehouses too, plus, the chains of stores with staff & rents/rates to pay and usually a large in-house logistics supply chain to support the stores.
Amazon only have to maintain the warehouse without the cost burden of the retail operation and use 3rd party couriers etc to deliver the goods and no need or additional cost of supplying a retail arm.