HMV Finally closing down for good?
- Thread starter Scania
- Start date
Game are hardly on stable fiscal foundations are they? Recipe for disaster that one!
I like my local Game store, good bunch of guys - and girl - but when it comes to buying games for my PC I’ve got Origin, Steam and all the others, their selection of PC games is woeful.
Not to mention CD keys are usually far cheaper.
Online isn't the saving grace some seem to think it is either, plenty of large retailers have opted to wind-down their online retail/streaming services over the past few years. Sainsbury's got rid of their online Entertainment store years ago, and Tesco sold off their online streaming service Blinkbox and more recently closed Tesco Direct, choosing to focus on their online groceries offering instead.
Caporegime
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- Boston, Lincolnshire
I miss this and clubcard boost. Used to get a free game every 6 months with my points.
They can be snarky all they want, but Jessops, like most high street stores in my town, brought everything on themselves. they're prices aren't just higher than Amazon etc, they're taking the ****. and it comes back to bite them. if they'd sold that camera at the same price, that customer would have walked out the shop w/ it.
HMV were just as bad, their high street prices for the last thing i looked at, a DVD box set of 24, was over 20% more in the shop than their own online store. and places like this throw a hissy when people stop buying from them, lol.
You can't fight evolution.
Shops don't really make a town imo.
I'm very glad on online. Makes living in countryside much easier in regards to shopping.
Soldato
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Thats because most PC games are Steam and the boxes come with a key that can be used only once - unscrupulous sorts buy the boxes use the key then flog/return 'em to the stores, then the customers complain about a missing key/doesn't work, the staff are usually clueless about things like this
Game online isn't bad picked up some decent stuff from there, high street stores are onto a losing game though.
They're still way better than CEX though - went into one of those saw a nice DS3 controller at a very reasonable price asked for it but instead of that went into the back of the store picked out the filthiest looking half working example out of a box of old ones and handed that to me - looked like it was still half covered in the dried on snot of the last kiddie who used it - never again.
I think I must have been one of the first about 15 years ago bought a camera in there then realized it was a lot cheaper online so returned it for a refund - the look on the assistants face I don't think I'll ever forget, surprise doesn't even cover it... still feel guilty about that.
Except they can't because they have to pay staff wages, heating, lighting, and absorbitant council tax rates and high street rents etc. Amazon are one warehouse pay bargain basement wages to what little staff they have and farm their tax expenses overseas.
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Being that Jessops have much higher overheads compared to Amazon and likely less buying power as well what makes you think they'd be able to sell at the same price as Amazon?
The HMV in my old home town used to span across 4 floors, it was a whopping store considering most of the things they sold were things you could carry in 1 hand. Ground floor was literally console games, and latest DVD's, second floor had the rest of the DVD's stock, third floor had CD's, and fourth floor had vinyl's and posters
.Back when people used to buy DVD's/CD's/Vinyl's the store probably turned a nice tidy profit despite the rent it used to cost them.
Like or not, consumers don't care about your cost base or buying power. They care about whether they think they're getting a good deal. If Jessops do nothing to justify the extra cost, people will go elsewhere.
Coffee stores does seem to be where it's at these days.
I always see people complaining about the selections of shops on high streets and moaning that there's always coffee shops there etc, but whenever i've gone shopping and fancied stopping for a coffee, you can never get a bloody seat.
The British absolutely love a coffee, so would seem to be a great way to lure people into your shops.
How many are actually spending money though versus say buying 1 drink and hogging a table for an hour?
It's the lack of understanding why everyone can't just match Amazon that surprises me. Throw in the volume Amazon sell at mean they can bring their markup right down to next to nothing if they need.
Yeah, of course, but you shouldn't be in a shop expecting them to be the same price as Amazon. All you get with a shop these days is you can literally walk out with the product then and there. That can be a massive plus if you realise you need something in a big hurry. Even then, Amazon is bringing delivery times down and down.
Which is why the shops are failing, they really bring very little vs. Amazon. With Amazon I could look at a camera in the morning and it'll be with me later that day, worst case tomorrow (and I don't live in a city).
That maybe so, but at least having Costa/Starbucks/Cafe Nero etc in a small part of your massive store can help contribute to the rental costs.
Companies love having big flagship style stores versus some dinky little thing they have to wedge all their stock into, unfortunately that luxury comes with a hefty rental tag.
Yup, they still maintain their groceries business. HMV's core business is music (and films/games), they could have moved into the online space back when Amazon was just selling books.
I doubt that being slow to adapt has helped their business. Sure they might well have found that they weren't great at adapting to online etc.. regardless - we'll never know, it could have gone in all sorts of directions but I suspect that by not reacting to changes in the market they quickened their decline.
In a few years none of these stores will really exist at all. Games are mostly going digital and there's talk that the next gen of consoles may well not have an optical drive, music, movies etc are all easier to get online as well.
if they can't balance sales w/ overheads, that's a pretty bad sales model to go into business w/.
Oh dear. This is what I mean...
They can... or more accurately, they could. Now these online shops come along with lower overheads so they can charge less for things, hence their problem. (Jessops started in 1935. Are you suggesting he shouldn't have bothered with a sales model that couldn't compete with a new sales model coming 60 years later?)
Is it that complicated? Why don't people get this? Is it just the youngsters that don't get it? The ones that have only ever really had shopping online as an option perhaps?
They can... or more accurately, they could. Now these online shops come along with lower overheads so they can charge less for things, hence their problem. (Jessops started in 1935. Are you suggesting he shouldn't have bothered with a sales model that couldn't compete with a new sales model coming 60 years later?)
Is it that complicated? Why don't people get this? Is it just the youngsters that don't get it? The ones that have only ever really had shopping online as an option perhaps?
Except it's rather obvious that you plan for the future and not the past, only morons plan for the past thinking it will continue to provide for them. Sears had every ability to be the Amazon of the 90s with their catalog model being pretty much perfect for an online store, but they chose to ignore the future and are now dead in the water because of it.
The fact is that if the writing is on the wall, you change no matter the consequence to your old market/model, because at least a reduced market temporarily is preferable to complete annihilation once a new player gobbles up any potential future consumer you might have yourself had.
Change or die, period. It's not the consumers fault for chasing a better experience/deal, it's the companies unwilling to change to meet consumer demands.
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