Does anyone still shop at HMV?

I bought Heavenly Creatures on blu-ray from HMV last Friday, and the smiling girl behind the counter complimented me on my t-shirt - beat that Amazon.com! (saying that, I came down this morning and found the George Harrison doc-film waiting for me on the doormat - thanks Amazon.com!)

HMV had sales of £1.8bn in the 2010 financial year, and apparently the future is worth...

The headphone market has nearly doubled in size in the past five years with 8.2m sets expected to be sold in the UK this year. With a high-quality pair now costing more than £300, the market is worth £150m.

I keep clicking this thread every time it appears, convinced it's going to announce a closing down/fire sale, in case I have a slim window to let it over and get those J&MC deluxe sets for the cheap. Oh, and maybe the Boo Radley ones which have always been stupidly expensive.

do HMV sell high-quality cans? i thought they just did those horrible primary coloured emo toys

HMV will launch a new retail venture, selling only electrical goods, to try to compensate for falling CD sales. The first store, under the banner of HMV Techshop, will open tomorrow in the One New Change shopping centre in the City of London. It will sell premium goods such as Apple iPads and headphones from Bose and Beats by Dr Dre.

i was in hmv yesterday. impressed by their 2 for £15 on bluray films. not that i bought any.

HMV head of technology Ewan Pinder said: “HMV’s remit has always been to give its customers the widest-possible access to music, film and games, however they want to discover and enjoy them.

“So our move into personal technology products, including through this new-style store, is actually a very natural next step for us that supports our continuing transformation into a broad-based entertainment brand.

“Headphones, in particular, are really taking off in a big way, and are set to be among the ‘must-have’ gift items this Christmas.”

I take off my headphones in the normal way, myself.

Yeah, but do you really take them off?

Do I ever really put them on?

Only Dr Dre can tell.

i find headphones odd as a "must-have item" as everybody who needs a pair already has a pair - they're an upgrade item, not a must-have.

that said, i saw three pairs of those Beats headphones on a single tube journey recently. and they start at £130 a piece.

Is that with an Oyster Card?

i find headphones odd as a "must-have item" as everybody who needs a pair already has a pair - they're an upgrade item, not a must-have.

But that's because you and I buy them for their utility, not for fashion.

Go to any HMV and wait for a while, you'll get all sorts of kids going in and pestering their parents to buy them Beats.

Beats headphones have arrived at ipod levels of one brand now representing an entire product type.

and that's a lot of kids who until a few months ago were happy with white earbuds, now wanting audiophile (price rather than quality) headphones.

I am not surprised that HMV are riding this wave of interested and happy to spend consumers, but with t-shirts > Videos > DVDs > video games > clothes > phones > headphones, the well HMV seems to be happy drawing from seems to get a little bit smaller each time and the amount of music int heir stores gets even smaller as well.

People used to buy music all the time, now a £100+ headphone purchase is a yearly thing (at absolute most)

WTF. Got email from HMV Tickets saying I just bought 4 tickets at £68. Rang them up saying I think I've just been defrauded, they claim it's an error on their system, that the tickets were bought with cash, and not to worry about it. They sounded a bit confused about it. Which doesn't give me a lot of confidence.

Oh dear, a bug in the system? Maybe they have laid off to many IT staff.

On another note, I saw in HMV Oxford St. that they were buying old CDs/DVDs and games. Maybe they are doing the same as Fopp. Fopp Gower St. has quite a selection of used £2 CDs now.

you just spoiled the wifes birthday surprise for you
xp

lol although it wasn't beyond the realms of the vaguely possible (it was for Ronnie Lane's old band after the (Small?) Faces, paying tribute) I was fairly (read 99.9658%) sure she wouldn't have booked tickets for that. The bloke on the phone reckoned it might be because someone with a similar address had bought tickets and someone made a typo entering it into the system. Which actually isn't that impossible, there's a mod looking woman prob about late 30s lives next door, she could've bought tickets to a Ronnie Lane's Old Band gig? Couldn't she? I'll just keep an eye on my statements for a bit.

Further to everything else about declining fortunes, I noticed that the big HMV store in Manchester's Arndale has now shut down, seemingly just after Christmas. They'd thrown the kitchen sink at this last year by trying to fill it with headphones, mp3 players etc, but the only times I've tried to buy music there recently the CD selection was so limited as to be useless. The shop closure gives me an endgame feeling for the chain though, there's been one in the Arndale (in various locations) for a *long* time.

fuck an HMV I only shop at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT now

every canonical rap artist's second best album for £1.99 a pop

Spent £20 in a real live HMV shoppe yesterday, On Compact Discs. Exciting. I'd probably spend £20 a week if they had any fucking music in stock.

whereas if you can find cds you want in HMV you're lucky.

whereas if you can find cds you want in HMV you're lucky.

Wish there was a record shop in my town. Been a long long time since there was one.

Sometimes pick up the odd 2 for £10 CD and then spend *ages* trying to find one other good thing to get as part of the deal. Mostly fail and walk out empty-handed.

fuck an HMV I only shop at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT now

every canonical rap artist's second best album for £1.99 a pop

This is true, got By All Means Necessary for 2 quid. That was in Head though

Further to everything else about declining fortunes, I noticed that the big HMV store in Manchester's Arndale has now shut down, seemingly just after Christmas. They'd thrown the kitchen sink at this last year by trying to fill it with headphones, mp3 players etc, but the only times I've tried to buy music there recently the CD selection was so limited as to be useless. The shop closure gives me an endgame feeling for the chain though, there's been one in the Arndale (in various locations) for a *long* time.
Is the big one at the top of Market Street still going? (haven't been in Manchester for quite a while obvs)

Was agog in bafflement at them over Xmas when Girlfriend's son was given an HMV gift card. He attempted to buy 5 or so films (Scooby Doo, mostly, he's a connoisseur) online, but at checkout we discovered after some googling that "The hmv Gift Card can only be spent in stores".

I did the sensible thing + paid for the films in exchange for the card. Thought I could use it in Fopp, but no, the HMV gift card "is only compatible with tills in hmv stores".

And the five films, ordered simultaneously, arrived in five separate packages by the same post.

>Is the big one at the top of Market Street still going?

Yeah, that's still there. I guess that's the final ship in the fleet, although 90% of the time I walk an extra 100yds and go round the corner to Fopp. Do HMV still own Fopp? Would be v sorry to see that go, still a great little shop.

kids got HMV gift cards at Xmas, advised them to spend them as fast as poss before HMV went tits up

I assume this thread is re: HMV uk, but I'd be amazed if the company still existed in Canada in 2013.

And the five films, ordered simultaneously, arrived in five separate packages by the same post.

play.com do this too. I bought some little packs of Lego minifigures as stocking fillers, typed "3" in the quantity box and all 3 were shipped separately. Which was in my favour in the end as they actually sent 4, ahem...

Was in HMV last week, could barely even find the music section. Bought a Hunter S Thompson book and a Nick Kent book for 2 quid each from the cheapy pile at the end of the vast shelf of celeb biographies

They sent them separately as this keeps them under-the-wire regarding VAT.

Yeah, a lot of that stuff will have been posted from Jersey or other offshore tax loophole locations.

'Low Value Consignment Relief' is the trick, I believe.

not for much longer if the government gets their way

Yes, hopefully. It is a very serious issue for smaller mainland shops like us.

not so good for the punter trying to save money though

Getting what you want at the absolute lowest price possible should not be one's driving aim, I believe. It is short-term, immediate gratification thinking which is detrimental to the music industry on a larger, longer-term scale.

i think in a recession/post-recession the punters mostly have a choice - cheap cd or free downloads though.

saving a quid or 2 here and there is the name of the game for most people. Also buy saving a quid or 2 here and there it means they can afford an extra cd.

I'm as poor & desirous of music as anyone else, but I think that as someone who is interested in anything beyond the mass-market it is important to try and support outlets who themselves support that kind of thing, i.e. bands, labels, smaller independent shops (both physical and online), regardless of whether or not they are a bit more expensive than Amazon et al, who will plough on regardless of whether I buy from them or not.

Anyway, we're getting off the specific point, which is that utilising the offshore tax loophole puts the bigger players at an unfair financial advantage over anyone selling from mainland UK and though technically legal is not within the spirit of the law it is loopholing.

Hence I think that it is a decidedly good thing that it be put a stop to, even if it does mean that goods aren't available quite as cheaply to end consumers.

oh i know that. Im just saying that the punters might not be happy about it and i dont think its going to make them anymore likely to buy in shops. They will still go to whoevers cheapest and thats almost never a shop due to all the overheads they have.

Yeah, that is true. Sadly.

CDs are routinely cheaper for us to buy from Amazon than from distributors, which is messed up.

im kinda amazed (and glad) $andy keeps things still going.

We're in it forever! No giving up!

Sorry, a bit OT but: Krakow, what was the score with the glasgow Avalanche? Was it a franchise, or formerly owned by the Edinburgh ones, or just affiliated..?