Does anyone still shop at HMV?

is the retail margin on magazines any good?

I can't imagine so.

all the magazines i read are easily £2 a month cheaper on subscription, including postage. and there's a lot more to whsmiths than the high street stores.

Distribution

this week : buy one get one free on all items with a blue cross on.

hence why i now have the first five killing joke remastered cds.

(note : one of the killing joke cds did not have a blue cross on it, so i questioned saying if it did i would have got that along with another - so they checked the master list, and accepted that it should have had the blue cross sticker on it - result !)

Today: Bracknell shop is closing.

Most things half-price. Everything else reduced by at least 30%

It turns out it's not just Piccadilly Circus - most of the shops have raised the prices (considerably!) on all the back catalog stock before kicking in the big reductions.

I got the Manics' GenTer 'set', it came up £29 before the reduction to £12..

Keeping an eye on the Newport store every day or so, they brought out all their stock of Saint Etienne deluxe dbl cds on Monday, waiting for the right moment to pick them up. Is it ok to feel so vulture-like?

If they put out 'Sound of Water', 'Good Humor' and 'Continental' snap them up quick as they're rare as hens teeth. And get one of each for me while you're there!

The bracknell one had "Lipslide"

Well, the buy one get one free offer was enough to tempt me back in to Fopp and HMV; bought about 8 back catalogue things I've always wanted.

I notice that, after a few weeks when they were only stocking the biggest new releases (as discussed upthread), both stores are now getting in a wider range again. Fopp Cambridge Circus in particular seems to be almost back to 'normal'. This may not last, of course - and it was depressing then going to the HMV Megastore in Oxford Street and seeing all the empty shelves in the music sections. The old jazz section has been closed off completely and what's left of the stock is temporarily squatting in the classical section. It looks as if they're preparing to give up the basement altogether.

world cinema dvds section was absent from westfields branch yesterday. and most of the gadget tables were just full of hi-de-hi and game of thrones box sets.

Braehead branch closed yesterday. I went in around 4pm hoping for some discounted CDRs and headphones and a last-minute bargain but the place was already packed up apart from the current chart and a selection of DVDs. Also felt really uncomfortable when I went in, like a vulture picking the last scraps of meat from the bones, so I didn't bother to browse for anything.

Was going to go in the Moorgate branch yesterday, but turns out the 2 days left sign was left hanging a day too long & it shut the night before.

HMV are selling their fixtures and fittings in certain stores, a colleauge went to have a look and apparently they are all battered and knackered. They are obviously trying to squeeze every penny they can out of the business.

I remember seeing people buying the shelves and strip lights from Woolworths just before it closed.

Anyone know if Glasgow Argyle Street is still open?

It was last night and still had quite a bit of stock. Will check again on way home.

Tried to go to Fopp the other day, wanted to look up opening hours but the site redirected to the HMV site which was just a notice about it going into administration grrrr

that sounds like you were physically teleported

So, things still have those blue crosses on, but there's no apparent 'deal' in place.

Went and had a nose around the HMV in the bullring in Birmingham this week. No promotions, no sales, no blue crosses and they even had easter POS in there, it was as if nothing had happened! Weird.

Dundee HMV had bogof blue cross at the weekend (one week only) but nothing I didn't already have.

Newport HMV due to close next week, removed all their blue crosses, all discount signage, everything back to full price and large "Closing down - everything must go" signs outside removed yesterday. Strange.

Fopp have put that Brian Ferry 'Olympia' super deluxe edition up in price by £100 but there's a blue cross on it to sweeten the deal

they're even botching going out of business!

Or a plot is afoot and they're not going out of business...

Is there anywhere in London one can buy the Dawn Richard album? Went to Banquet in Kingston in wind and snow last week and they were sold out. HMV having presumably crashed through the basement, the only other options appear to be specialist shops who are too "cool" to stock such a record. I mean, it has tunes and things. The outrage!

The whole middleground of popular music is turning into a sinkhole.

Big poster in Newport HMV window saying "We're staying here", seems the store has been 'saved' and is remaining after all. Should've bought those St Et reissues on Monday when they were still discounted. On the other hand, I'm pleased Newport still has a mainstream record shop.

Fopp Nottingham is returning to normal - decent selection of new releases again.

Central London record shopping has now become a contradiction in terms. Hideous, not what I came to London for 32 years ago, etc.

Went back to Banquet and ordered the Dawn Richard album from them. Apparently no other London record shops wanted to stock the album, which depresses me but doesn't surprise me, given the "hipster" (read: "hippie") specialist shops who are quite happy to stock 40-year-old black music and corporate indie rubbish but not contemporary R&B.

Is there any feasible online alternative to Amazon? It seems to be the only way to get any music now.

Piccadilly Records are good, but guess what, no Dawn Richard. http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/shop/index.php

And trawling search results for "dawn richard goldenheart cd" returns first Amazon, 2nd Sainsburys (!) and 3rd..... Banquet Records!

Newport HMV due to close next week, removed all their blue crosses, all discount signage, everything back to full price and large "Closing down - everything must go" signs outside removed yesterday. Strange.

yeah, exactly the same is true of the argyle street branch in glasgow.

Central London record shopping has now become a contradiction in terms. Hideous, not what I came to London for 32 years ago, etc.

was in London last week and was pretty saddened by the decline or disappearance of most of my favorite rec shop haunts. also went to notting hill and saw the continuing shrinkage of the music and video exchange empire, and an announcement that they were finally abandoning their 'nothing legal refused' policy. truly we are living in the last days etc.

I was walking past the Edinburgh Princes Street branch today and noticed a sign saying that the store had been been saved and would be staying open.

Well, I shall be checking it out on Friday, Fopp anyway...

I was walking past the Edinburgh Princes Street branch today and noticed a sign saying that the store had been been saved and would be staying open.

Yeah I noticed the other day they'd taken down the 'shutting' stuff, but then I did notice that the St. James Centre one had shut today.

Had a potter round the Basingstoke branch the other day but realised my good will towards the chain has dissipated.

^ I totally agree. When Woolworths went under I felt a genuine sadness and nostalgia. With HMV I just have no fucks to give, they just come across as greedy bastards.

The Newport branch closing was interesting to see, because once all the electrical goods had disappeared - as soon as they went into administration all the high end products got removed - they had loads of shelves to fill and just brought out any rubbish they had lying around. So first of all it was a load of books which nobody in their right mind would read, then they piled high old ipod nano and phone covers for 50p each, then a load of games and nonsense appeared which I'd never seen before, Rubiks Chase and notebooks that looked like cassettes and trivia quiz books (and even then the Stylophone was twice the price I'd paid for one in the same shop two years ago). And as for cds, well they brought out all their Christmas stock - a whole wall of Xmas albums. I was left with the impression that whoever ordered all this shit for HMV to sell had no idea of what consumers from a record shop wanted to buy.

Ridiculous.

There was lots of Xmas stuff in the Bracknell branh, true..

HMV sold

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22040237

Fopp too

hurrah!

I hate the phrase "hit hard" in that BBC article, "couldn't adapt" feels more accurate to me.

It is the BBC. Surprised that they didn't say "The trouble with HMV is that it didn't WANT to work."

Shops to be saved: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/05/hmv-sold-hilco-saves-jobs-shops

I think I prefer to be sad about the death of HMV, than happy about the rescuing of the shops.

I'm happy for all the staff, but unless everyone goes back to buying physical media, the stores are able to support the kind of catalog that music lovers would prefer and the lack of game in the high street sends everyone back to HMV for their playstation4s and their xbox720s.

this is going to be like the "yaay, virgin megastores were saved" > "what the hell is a zavvi" > "oh, is that a clothes shop now?"