The Closure of HMV

[Pink Gregory]

I am worried about waterstones now. It is the only bookshop for at least 30 miles and they have the similar pricing tactics. I feel it will be a horrible thing to have bookstores completely disappear.

Waterstones sells books at the RRP that's on the book, presumably set by the publisher. If there are any price markups there, I'm not seeing them, and I worked there.

Would piss me off if Waterstones went, but I reckon it's a mite different kettle of fish to other entertainment.

 

[TimeLord]

High street stores have dug their own grave by not being competitive or even attempting to keep up with the internet in terms of pricing, sales and everything else.

Newsflash: they can't.

It is a victim of the relentless advance of the internet. In this day and age, running a media business like HMV is like starting a race 100m behind everyone else with a bullet in both feet.

My point still stands. High street stores like HMV can't keep up with the internet and thus, are doomed.
As you said, places like PC world and clothes shops can still survive due to having facilities that you can't get on the internet (ability to try on clothes etc), but you can get everything that you can get at HMV off (for example) play.com for a lower price and free postage.

 

[Kinitawowi]

My point still stands. High street stores like HMV can't keep up with the internet and thus, are doomed.

Oh, undoubtedly. I think it was the "not even attempting to keep up" that I was looking at, as if the reason for the high street being more expensive is just arrogance. The only things the High Street has over the Internet right now are immediacy and socialisation; and people are less and less willing to pay for those now that the price differences are big enough and they can chat to everyone on Facebook rather than arranging shopping trip meetups or such.

The high street of the future will consist of clothes shops, pound shops, restaurants and takeaways. Give it five years (maybe less) and that'll literally be all that's left.

 

[Woodsey]

You loved them... why? They were a fucking rip-off until the very end.

 

[J Tyran]

Amazon consists of a warehouse on an island somewhere.

You say this as if its a trivial nothing, if you understand the complexity and amount of effort and resources that go into a warehouse you wouldn't be so dismissive. Fun fact, it takes nearly as many staff to run a single loading dock as it would do to run a medium sized store. Depending on the level of automation of course, some could handle it with almost no staff some would need more staff.

 

[Kinitawowi]

You say this as if its a trivial nothing, if you understand the complexity and amount of effort and resources that go into a warehouse you wouldn't be so dismissive. Fun fact, it takes nearly as many staff to run a single loading dock as it would do to run a medium sized store. Depending on the level of automation of course, some could handle it with almost no staff some would need more staff.

Relative to as sprawling a company as HMV, yes it's trivial. Obviously the logistics of warehouse management still take their toll.

A quick Wiki trip tells me that Amazon have maybe eight warehousing sites in the UK, all heavily automated and absolutely none in prime shopping centre or High Street locations. HMV have 230 stores, of which 60% are in shopping centres. The difference in overhead is colossal.

 

[J Tyran]

You say this as if its a trivial nothing, if you understand the complexity and amount of effort and resources that go into a warehouse you wouldn't be so dismissive. Fun fact, it takes nearly as many staff to run a single loading dock as it would do to run a medium sized store. Depending on the level of automation of course, some could handle it with almost no staff some would need more staff.

Relative to as sprawling a company as HMV, yes it's trivial. Obviously the logistics of warehouse management still take their toll.

A quick Wiki trip tells me that Amazon have maybe eight warehousing sites in the UK, all heavily automated and absolutely none in prime shopping centre or High Street locations. HMV have 230 stores, of which 60% are in shopping centres. The difference in overhead is colossal.

Its not, not at all. Retail stores may face higher leases for the site and extra inner city taxes but then the warehouse uses far more energy and water in things like climate control or ASRS operation, then you have the enormous cost of packing or shipping materials. You could probably fit out several stores for the cost of a single ASRS unit too, plus the massive cost of the warehouse construction and everything else.

You are being lied to by these crappy companies making excuses for their shit prices, other retail chains can compete because the costs are not all that different.

 

[Angie7F]

I was just in Forever 21 in SHibuya the other day, and had a vivid flashback of when the same building used to be HMV.
I miss the days where "cool" people were walking around the floors of HMV, whereas now young girls are swarming around cheap, disposable clothes.

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

The managers of a lot of these retail chains are still pretty old fashioned which is why they seem unable to set up a more realistic and modern business model, I live about half an hour (with no traffic or road works) from my nearest HMV and there's no reason for me to travel when I can have it delivered to my door at a cheaper price.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Best Grandfather ever?

Clearly you didn't see what the games were.


Only time I ever got to HMV is if I have some spare money I want to blow but I don't know on what. Amazon's great when I know what I want but in an actual physical store I can wander around until something catches my eye.

HMV's prices were actually pretty good here though. Regular enough sales, games were usually about 45 euro while they were 50 in gamestop, I mostly listen to old music anyway so CDs usually cost me about five euro, they had good books, I got 2 Charlie Brooker books, the Pocket Book of Boosh, My Boring Ass Life and a few others for 2 euro a piece. And I could usually pick up 3-5 dvds for about 20 quid.

Yeah, for the midnight release of Halo 4, GameStop were open and HMV were open and they're across the road from each other. Everyone went to GameStop and apparently HMV didn't have one customer in, not one, despite the fact that they were selling the game for 15 euro less. I guess no one knew that part though. I've actually just started regularly checking HMV for games and they're actually a fair bit less expensive.

I get books in there every now and again. They sometimes have three for 12 euro deals or something similar, I also got two seasons of Sherlock for 12 quid, which I thought was pretty decent.

 

[Bertylicious]

You say this as if its a trivial nothing, if you understand the complexity and amount of effort and resources that go into a warehouse you wouldn't be so dismissive. Fun fact, it takes nearly as many staff to run a single loading dock as it would do to run a medium sized store. Depending on the level of automation of course, some could handle it with almost no staff some would need more staff.

Relative to as sprawling a company as HMV, yes it's trivial. Obviously the logistics of warehouse management still take their toll.

A quick Wiki trip tells me that Amazon have maybe eight warehousing sites in the UK, all heavily automated and absolutely none in prime shopping centre or High Street locations. HMV have 230 stores, of which 60% are in shopping centres. The difference in overhead is colossal.

Its not, not at all. Retail stores may face higher leases for the site and extra inner city taxes but then the warehouse uses far more energy and water in things like climate control or ASRS operation, then you have the enormous cost of packing or shipping materials. You could probably fit out several stores for the cost of a single ASRS unit too, plus the massive cost of the warehouse construction and everything else.

You are being lied to by these crappy companies making excuses for their shit prices, other retail chains can compete because the costs are not all that different.

I dunno mate. Running costs on 8 large facilities is going to be trivial compared to 230. See, you've also got the benefit of centralisation; you'd need 230 people to manage the staff in 230 stores, each with around 5 to 20 staff, whereas a warehouse manager could look after an entire shift. It's just a more efficent method of running things.

Plus HMV, with its 230 stores, will STILL need to run 8 (or however many) warehouses, either directly or via contract, so it's just an extra bit of overhead.

I dunno. Perhaps you're right and if you set up a new company to operate in retail in the same sector then maybe it would be possible to make it competative and do better on pricing but HMV are an established company and wouldn't have that luxury. Or at least they'd have a lot of obstacles standing in their way if they did want to restructure.

HMV, like Woolworths, is a relic.

 

[Vault101]

You kidding me? HMV often put on sales where good, new albums were going for five bucks a piece.

Maybe Canadian HMV is different than Aussie HMV.

I dont think Ive seen HMV..must be my state...

sounds a bit like JB HI FI....I would be sad to see them go...

 

[Nickolai77]

It comes as no surprise really. HMV can't compete against Amazon based on price, quality or variation in products, it's the nature of the music retailing industry.

Like many people here, i've spent many hours browsing my local HMV store to kill time on family shopping trips, and often walked out empty handed either because the CD i want to buy is too expensive or they simply don't have what i'm looking for in stock.

With HMV gone or in a severely downgraded position, i expect independent retail stores and cheap 2nd-hand chains like CEX to get more people browsing their shops, so i don't think the loss of HMV is all that bad- companies with better business models will step in to fill the vacuum, and hopefully some HMV employees can find work in such places. What i'll miss about HMV though is the predictability of walking into a store and knowing what and where you'll find things, and such stores are usually quite small so there isn't a lot to browse, and with independent stores you don't know what you're walking into. Considering that 30 years ago it was such stores being stamped out of the competition by big chains like HMV, it appears the tables may turn.

If i'm on a family shopping trips and there isn't a HMV or a Game/Gamestation in town the last place of refuge for a man like me is Waterstones essentially- hopefully they can stay in business. They need to be wary about Amazon's kindle and the downloading of digital books, and learn from where HMV went wrong.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I found that HMV was reasonably priced. XCom went down to about £25 within about a month of release. On the website I admit the prices were sometimes a lot but in store I found they were fine, especially for CDs. The 2 for £10 deal they have on loads of CDs is basically what made my collection of CDs, I don't know where I'll get them from now. Apart from charity shops obviously.

 

[Hoplon]

http://www.artrocker.tv/features/article/view-from-a-record-store-is-hmv-really-a-loss

This might be of some interest.

Now that is way more interesting and pertinent that all this "Blame the internet" horse shit since it's been fairly obvious for a while that the music industry has it's head up it's arse and that rates and rent on retail space are out of hand. A retailer i used to work for in the early 2000s was paying half a million in rent a year for it's out of the way London shop.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Reading these comments, I've learnt alot. didn't actually realise that HMV went beyond the UK. And to those talking about that grandfather that robbed HMV of 3 games because they wouldn't accept his voucher, did you know what the games were?
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Rail Simulator
Sims 3 Town Life
Well I guess he doesn't really love his little grandchild anyway.

 

[devotedsniper]

Hardly surprising, i'[m actually surprised it didn't happen earlier they overcharge for everything.

 

[SextusMaximus]

It's a shame! HMV is pretty class, but I'm willing to bet a lot of it's down to the increasing online market.

 

[Limie]

I am worried about waterstones now. It is the only bookshop for at least 30 miles and they have the similar pricing tactics. I feel it will be a horrible thing to have bookstores completely disappear.

Waterstones sells books at the RRP that's on the book, presumably set by the publisher. If there are any price markups there, I'm not seeing them, and I worked there.

Would piss me off if Waterstones went, but I reckon it's a mite different kettle of fish to other entertainment.

I found that books lacking an RRP written on them can be overpriced. I found a textbook with no RRP priced £50. Amazon priced the book at £34 which I would say was accurate for the RRP in my experience of buying these sorts of textbooks.

My main concern with the pricing systems is the lack of competitiveness when you look at compare them to online retailers. I have to admit that I have little knowledge of the laws surrounding the publisher's pricing rights and how ultimately a price is decided upon. But how is it that supermarkets can charge less than RRP on release day for certain books?

In addition Digital downloads provide the means to I can buy a book for less than half the price and have it on my e-reader in under a minute without having to visit a store. But if it was the same/similar price I am more than willing to pay for a hard copy.

Books are different to other forms of entertainment and that is one of the reasons I would find it a great loss if Waterstones closed down due to the educational aspect. The area I live in has an average literacy age for adults, of an 8 year old level and any retail outlet that promotes an interest in reading is a great loss.
The closure may not mean much for avid readers, as they would purchase the books online via their own established means. However, for those with no great interest in reading having a giant reminder on their local high street is a good thing.

 

[Xzbeat]

Such a depressing state of affairs to see first HMV and now Blockbuster in administration. The high street will be a ghost town in no time