Packed shop, two people working the tills, one security guard on duty. Queue of about 30 people waiting to pay and a succession of people reaching the tills empty handed and asking the assistant a question who then abandons post to find the said article for customer. Bear in mind that almost every other customer was doing this meaning both tills empty for significant amounts of time, upwards of 20 minutes to pay for items and many people abandoning items and going home to order from Amazon.

And I'm sure King's Lynn wasn't the only place that was happening. Now I'm not saying that is the cause of the poor sales, but it sure didn't help.

I went into the HMV Trocadero a month ago to do some Christmas shopping. I knew exactly what I wanted and found most of it very quickly. Because one can these days, I quickly got out my phone and checked that there wasn't a noticeable price difference for the same items on Amazon (other online retailers are available). I wanted to shop at HMV but also just wanted to check that I wasn't being stupid.

Every item was significantly cheaper online, sometimes by as much as £5. With the amount I was buying, to walk up to the checkout and pay HMV would have been to throw away about £20. An assistant came up to me and asked if he could help. I regretfully said that no, I'm afraid I was just thinking of buying the same stuff from Amazon. He shrugged and backed away from me sadly.

I'd love to say that the items took weeks to arrive because of the snow, or that they were damaged and you can't beat having the stuff in your hand as you walk out of the shop. But I'm afraid to say that they all arrived, in mint condition, in one package and within 48 hours using free delivery.

Sorry.

I'm all for Amazon, use it endlessly, but there's nothing like going in and having a browse. I find this almost impossible to do on line because you can't see the stuff (obviously), whereas in the store you can see it all stretching ahead and can browse to your heart's content.

It'll be a sad day when this is no longer possible.

HMV suddenly closed all operations here in Japan at the end of last year, including their showpiece Tokyo Shibuya store, leaving me feeling a wee bit poorer for my comfort shopping, and with a now useless store card. Pity, as for all their faults, I still want the option to a) buy a CD rather than mp3 and b) browse and discover something by myself.

and still spend in HMV, although more on line these days.

The frustrating thing about HMV is the amount of stuff it sells that I'm not interested in buying from a "CD shop" - tee shirts, mugs, books, electronic bits and pieces, games and DVD's.

The music selection is generally pretty narrow, focusing on best sellers, classic albums, best of's and big new artists. Rarely these days do I find a little gem, or if I do I normally put it back and buy it a lot cheaper on Amazon.

Compare that with the experience of going to Fopp where there is still a genuine frisson of excitement as you walk through the door, leading to a spending frenzy of epic proportions. Given that Steve Turner and I will be visiting Fopp on Friday before the gathering, anyone thats going will be able to see just how frenzied things became.

Over recent years they seem to have adopted a WH Smith type model, focussing on new releases and chart music. As the space available in-store for CD's dwindled dramatically in favour of DVD's, games, accessories etc, back catalogues and specialist music became virtually non-existent. Chart stuff surely appeals more to the casual shopper and younger buyers, who no doubt download music more than do the more traditional record buyer.

If you think about what was great about your favourite record shop of yore it was always about browsing the racks for rare gems and experiencing the cultish atmosphere.

HMV were always too big for that specialness - they needed bums on seats and opted for the mass market approach - a fickle mistress.

Although this perhaps showed where HMV's priorities lay, it was nice to have almost a whole floor dedicated to just music..albeit a poor selection.

I have no idea how thin the profit margin might be on CDs nowadays but what would the chances of survival be for a high street store selling CDs at online prices?

Gross margin is still a healthy thirty percent, particularly when compared to iPods and games consoles. A big problem with a large range is filling it. There are dozens of 'must-have' CDs that the record companies seem reluctant to replenish stocks of. The download model, with it's zero obsolescence, must be increasingly attractive to non-risk taking record labels. HMV tried constantly over the last few years to get the labels to support back catalogue initiatives but no one was interested. Beetles catalogue for £16 never looked good in the racks, but EMI would never drop their dealer price.

It's been a long, long time since I bought anything from an HMV store, however I do buy from HMV online.

Two main reasons for me -

Firstly, the depth of stock in stores have dramatically reduced, and I can often browse and literally find nothing I want to buy.

Secondly, when you do buy a CD or DVD from them online, it can be around £5 less than it would be in store. It's a no-brainer for me.

in Cardiff- a specialist music shop with knowledgeable staff and good stock of both CDs and vinyl- mainstream and obscurist back-catalogue. They're slightly worried about the VAT rise but, every time I go there the shop is busy so maybe they'll be ok. Seems to me the way to survive is to follow their example and to specialize but obviously the biggies have to try to be all things to all men. We used to have two Virgin shops, Our Price and MVC but they're all gone. The HMV is big but not very good for music. Despite this it was heaving just before Christmas though so I'm just wondering where all the money went. They have a weird pricing policy though. The recent Jethro Tull 'Stand Up' deluxe box was £27 there whilst Spillers were shifting it for £16. That was about the same price as Amazon.

Hope that survives...I couldn't bear the loss. It does always seem pretty busy......

there are 3 HMV stores in the city centre plus a Fopp. How does this make financial sense? There is no competition to speak of (probably 1 or 2 specialist shops, but I'm not aware of them). They seem to be mostly concerned in selling DVDs, rather than music. I regularly shop in Fopp (though I admit that I baulk at even a fiver these days!) and HMV prices are sometimes on a par, but at other times a lot more expensive. I have to admit that most of my purchases these days are replacements for vinyl that I had in the 70s, but I did buy a few CDs from last year at a fiver each. Browsing in Fopp is a much more pleasurable experience than in HMV, but I'm not really sure why - I think HMV have a reputation for being expensive (certainly to my mind).

But I do wonder why they need 3 shops within a few hundred yards of each other.

on another forum, 24 Sept. 2008:
I was very generously gifted forty of our British Pounds via an His Master's Vibes credit card. I can't spend them... there's nothing I want that they stock.
I dented it with a purchase of Hawkwind's Space Ritual (£21, worth it for... well... the sleeve reproduction) and The Clash's Combat Rock (I needed it, don't ask -£8).
So that'is £11 left.
I need a lot of music but can I find it in HMV? Can I FECK!

I received half a dozen physical CDs over the holidays and, while very pleased with the gifts, felt pretty unmoved about the physical discs.

The first thing that I did was rip the tracks to iTunes and then realised that I will almost certainly never take the CDs out of their cases again.

I pop into HMV occasionally but doubt that I would ever pay more than £5 for a CD now.

They should have invested heavily in online, made their downloads cheaper than itunes or amazon, made the choice extensive and easy to download, and then used this as a financial base to support their high-street operations.

I have no sympathy. You can't even use HMV vouchers on their website. Utterly pathetic.

As well as Nottingham and Birmingham, there are 3 HMV stores in Manchester City Centre, all a stones throw from each other, all with pretty much the same basic stock on offer (plus slightly more depending on size). I love a browse in there, but it's usually cheaper online.

I do buy from their website - they undercut their own stores, which suggests they would actually rather you stayed at home.

I cant go in anymore to the Leeds store, as they have moved all the music/DVD upstairs now, music being well and truely marginalised into a corner with no decent selection anymore - downstairs looks more like the apple store with t-shirts, cant understand it - and i'm pretty sure its the same in every other major city.

I used to love it when i was a teen spending my hard earned paper-round money in HMV on the latest 7"/12" singles or albums - careful selection was needed to gain the optimum number of records for the amount i had - miss those days, but am now a voracious online collector, so times change but music needs have expanded tenfold thanks to 't'internet!

Toy Story 3 Blu ray is £24.99 instore in HMV and £9.99 on Play.com

but last thing I am sure I bought at HMV *was* an iPod ( a Classic, bundled with a Gear 4 cheapo dock that has been useful in partners' kitchen-unlike me ...)

underwent a change of strategy last year when they got shut of the ex Tesco MD. They reverted from the one size fits all, low range, heavy discount model to a more autonomous one where staff are allowed to buy locally in order to increase range and hand sell their own recommendations, (whilst still offering discounts on bestsellers). Net result? A fairly stable Christmas.

I was looking for The Trip on DVD, which was quite well received on television and was released less than a month ago, if memory serves. Hardly an obscurity, anyway.

They'd never heard of it.

have a about 2/3 of a floor dedicated to CD's. Just about sums up their priorities over the past few years.
Can't understand how slow they were to get into the download market and also what a poor job they have done of it.
Their sale in the summer had some decent bargains but their recent one was garbage.

On a brighter note one of the old Zavvi sites in Belfast is now trading as "Head". Suspect it's related to the old Virgin management, but there was lots of nice discounts to trawl through.
"Evil Urges" by My Morning Jacket for a £1 was about the best.

I was HMV in Wolverhampton on Monday. I was 20th in the queue. I put the cds I wanted back on the racks and left.

I'm sure the young folks at the tills were doing the best but what amazed me even more than the queues were hiding their high ticket and sales items. The very things they need to sell to survive...no-one could see them!

Four basic rules of retailing

- sell what people actually want
- make sure your propostion very clear
- make the items that make the biggest profit (by ticket or volume) very very visible
- get the punters to the till and get thir cash asap

Follow ALL those rules and money can be made. Break one of them and you're doomed. Woolworths was the warning. WHS and HMV beware!

And the music database listener that took over from the listening posts is either broken, can't find what I want or won't let me listen to it.
Back to basics please HMV

I was an employee of Nipper the dog for 18 miserable months until a better job saved me a year ago. I left shortly after the loyalty card came in. Not only was it was a rip-off (pay £3 for the card, then spend £100 to get just £5 off stuff), HMV also demanded that every sales assistant sell at least 3 a day to customers. If you didn't reach this target, you'd get written warnings with the danger of the sack for not shifting this piece of crap. Part of me wants to see every incompetent dickhead of a supervisor and manager I had to deal with get their P45 this year, but I don't want to see any of the poor badly paid put-upon sales assistants in the same boat

Smart products to be selling on the High Street those. Me, I'm thinking of opening a company that sells 1930's milk. Still in its original bottles.

Unfortunately browsing for and buying music in a shop has become a niche activity and HMVs big corporate approach doesn't fit this anymore, but without its old core business it's clearly floundering and desperately trying to woo Justin Beiber fans in off the street to buy computer games, DVDs, posters, T-shirts and other tat.
It certainly don't feel at home in there..apart from the Classical music section which is located behind big glass doors to keep the racket out!

What HMV delivers via the few Fopp stores still works for music fans, and certainly our local Fopp seems to be doing a brisk trade. It does at least feel like a proper record shop even it is essentially an HMV in disguise.

What I do think is that given that music retail is such a niche, it's best left to the independent/specialist shops to provide that while there is still some demand. The problem is that I suppose a lot of towns and smaller cities don't have these specialists now, but if HMV leaves town....maybe some little independents will spring up again.

I worked for HMV for eight years, we were top of the pile as far as music retail went and we were at the top of our game. I was very proud to work for such a brilliant company, and still judge every job by the standards set in those days. That was 12 years ago though. Change is inevitable I guess, it's sad but when you can get bargains from Amazon , who is going to shop in the high street?

about HMV earlier than their take on the stores closing was 'Is this the end for the DVD?'. Music wasn't considered their main business by the host or those phoning in and if you go into the shops now, it clearly isn't HMV's either.

Anyone who pays their £20 quid for new releases DVD compared to £11 online must have money to burn. Sadly they do the same in Fopp with CDs n DVDs. Other retailers have had to adjust to internet competition but they seem unable\unwilling to. And HMV's online store is horridly designed and just awful to use. Are Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in charge?

Still least they reupholstered the seats in the Forum when thy took over

Oddly contrary marketing policy, I thought. At a time when everyone else on the high streets target demographic was getting more and more razor edged (I imagine Top Man, for instance, know to about the week what age people are when they stop shopping there - something like 22 11/16ths, and the guys at Next know to the nearest 5p what their clientele is willing to spend on a nice gent's cardie, HMV looks more like Poundstretcher every time you go in, just a huge jumble of 'stuff that people who like music might possibly also like.'

Add to that the incomprehensible pricing policy (This Alfred Hitchcock Movie is 1.99..This one, on the same label, is 19.99..or you can have them both on a box set with 3 others for 14.99..) and the fact it's a messy, noisy hellhole? no-one can be surprised.
_________________________

Intersting that the consensus is that Amazon/online shopping has caused the demise of HMV but I often wonder what impact illegal downloading has had on the closing of record stores?
I recently had an honest conversation with a group of university students and 16 out of the 20 of them admitted they would no longer buy cds and would instead illegally download what they wanted.
Just seems to me that people buying music are not out there anymore...

...from 1984 until 1992, in several shops, and the one thing that i loved about it was that the shops i worked in were staffed and run by people who loved music. if i was 18 now i would a) still be a dickhead but b) more importantly, working in hmv would not have the same attraction as it once did.

i remember being visited by some new director who had come from burtons. he was being shown around the shop by our obseqious little turd of a regional manager and he asked him why we didn't have any back catalogue in stock for a particular band. the regional manager then asked me, and i had to tell them both that this was the band in questions first album, hence no back catalogue.

later that day, the same director collared me about the beatles being found in the racks under B, so why was cliff richard not filed under C?

Over the last year or so all branches of HMV I've visited have changed quite dramatically. Take the big one in Manchester for example. It used to have classical & soundtracks in the basement, CDs on the ground floor, and upstairs they had games & DVDs. Now the basement is games and classical, the first floor is CDs (in a tiny area) and DVD / Blue-Ray, and the ground floor is a bizarre hybrid of new releases, sale items, T-shirts, ipods and associated gizmos, books, and an Orange shop. From what I've seen this template is repeated everywhere. If you look at the CD section most of the artist dividers are bunched together with no CDs next to them, and that new CD you want never seems to appear in store, no matter how many times you visit (I've been looking for one particular reissue there since its release in early December, and it has yet to be in stock.) Even with DVDs titles regularly fail to appear - as with someone else here I really wanted the DVD of "The Trip" for Christmas and despite its being released mid-December it has only just appeared.

It's the same with Waterstones. Their biggest branch in Manchester (Deansgate) is now a Paperchase on the ground floor, all the fiction has been moved upstairs, and up on the second floor there is not just a Costa Coffee but also a bar. Even Fopp in Manchester has moved away from its core demographic, and is half taken over with T-shirts nobody seems to buy, and ipods nobody stops to look at.

It's a kind of worrying devaluation of the value of knowledge. If your an HMV assistant now, it's no diiferent, really, from working in MacDonalds.

It worries me when i go to Dixons to buy a new laptop and ask the guy a few simple questions and he never knows. He's got this on special offer and he can sell you extra insurance cover for 29.95, that's the limit of his knowledge. Shoe shops as well - 'Have you got this in Oxblood' - 'eh?' You've got a whole segment of the populace who aren't being taught job skils in the course of their careers, and never will be.

Should have stayed here:

I expect that most of us here have grown up with the experience of buying an album (vinyl or CD) and listening to it. And part of that was selecting the album from a rack and anticipating listening to it on the journey home (perhaps looking at the sleeve on the bus). All that has simply gone, I think. It's no longer the way that young people now access music. I feel a bit sad about that but maybe that's just me.

I realised while reading this thread that my son (15), while certainly into music (to the extent of playing in a band, going to gigs etc) has never bought a CD. He listens to MP3s and Spotify. He has bought DVDs though, simply because films are more difficult to download - though that is changing too, as bandwidth increases.

I suspect that there is simply no longer a mass market for buying CDs in a high street shop.

I'll say it again.
Good riddance.
When I worked there they did stuff like move the jazz/ world expert on to the chart section and put a nerdy little no mark who knew jack shit about that music on jazz and world. Both were miserable in their new roles, they weren't able to offer any insight and offer opinion to create maximum sales from their roles.
That just about summed it up.
I worked there for about 6 years and they very nearly sucked the love of music right out of me.

Not very constructive and quite subjective but just go with the flow. If it's not HMV hopefully the independents and Fopp can rise up and reclaim the high street.

For me, the big problem I have with the decline of high street retailers like HMV is whenever I hear someone telling me that 'the internet is so much better' for this kind of thing. And it is in many ways - they can be very competitive on price, in the case of downloads you can get stuff straight away, at any time of the day or night... but if you want to buy a DVD to watch tonight, the internet can't do that. If you're lucky, or pay a premium for postage, you *might* get it in a couple of days. I think the appeal of being able to walk into a shop and emerge with something you want straight away is hugely underrated these days.

My wife used to joke that she thought I worked in HMV, as I always seemed to spend so much time in there, and always came home from work with carrier bags full of HMV stock I had bought at lunchtime... not anymore!

As HMV has faced “challenging retail conditions” it has seemingly made some bad choices and has lost everything that held any appeal for me. I can well understand the reasons for it, but it seems to me that the Board has forgotten what "His Master's Voice" is all about. It has lost its distinctiveness and is now akin to an over-priced bazaar, selling little bits of stuff I don’t want, am not remotely interested in, or is cheaper elsewhere.

I note the BBC has offered its thought on how HMV should evolve in the future, either selling music alongside other “cultural products” (i.e. selling them with books thereby merging the HMV and Waterstones chains into one retailer with a credible online presence alongside) or sell them as “technological products” (alongside tellys and washing machines). I disagree. Merging the current chart-obsessed HMV music offering with quietly educating books would have discerning readers deserting Waterstones in their droves and would abandon any sense of individuality. Likewise, retailers such as Comet and Currys would surely expand their own product offerings and compete to protect their already established techno market.

I think that the way forward is to turn HMV into a credible "home entertainment experience store". Gut the stores out and, depending on shape and size, turn them into "event" stores. It should leave the chart-fodder to the supermarkets (though of course maintain a SMALL chart section for each medium) and focus the business on offering choice back-catalogue, and link-selling through the events I speak of (I envisage the stores could be designed around a Parisien street cafe style setting, looking onto a stage and cinema screen - during regular hours its a place to relax and enjoy shopping online, and then periodically it plays host to vintage cinema screenings, music performances, poetry and book readings, lectures by music journalists, film historians, etc, and of course associated Books, CD’s, and DVD’s would be immediately available for link sales on surrounding point of sale. I imagine it could work a bit like the theatre in the apple store on Regent Street).

I reckon that if the offer was right people would still buy their home entertainment products from a shop rather then online as there is nothing like the thrill of buying a disc physically rather then ordering and waiting. I also think that people would still rather have a physical copy of something rather then a digital version (you can’t appreciate a digital sleeve in quite the same way, and you can't delete a physical version unless you do something really stupid).

The idea of associated merchandise being readily available at a competitive price without having to go home and order off Amazon, would be a key attraction, and it would give consumers a reason to go back to the high street.

Just putting it out there...

it's good for HMV to bite the dust simply because they are so skewed toward what is popular now due to their muddled brand identity it gives the lesser known acts a slightly better chance of regaining some headway in the marketplace.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/jan/07/behind-music-hmv?cat...

I'm a regular punter when it comes to music, I like fairly mainstream stuff and my kids like the more chart end of things.

Beyond Now 77 and Kanye West's new one, we struggled collectively to spend in HMV this year, simply due to the products in-store. But that changes as the release schedule rolls on, the earlier part of the year we couldn't help but buy every time we went in.

I just genuinely feel that there wasn't a whole heap of exciting product around this Xmas that would send the crowd into their stores, or open the wallets of those of us who did.

iPads were where the $$s were at this Xmas, and tech retailers did well. HMV still look like they will turn in a £45-£50m profit this year, so they aren't exactly at death's door. Yet.

As an ex-employee, I usually cast an eye on the operations side of the store as well to see if they're keeping up my standards (;-)), and the stores I visit all look sharp. No obvious mistakes like under-staffed, under-stocked etc.

If they survive the share-price/financial side of things over the next 6 months, they will survive. Just don't expect them to be what you remember from your youth, 'cos those days are gone! But if you genuinely feel they are not, open up your extensive back-list, high-street located, internet-priced-stock music shop and let us know when you've made your first.... I was going to say "million", but "sale" I think is more appropriate!

http://www.markwatsonthecomedian.com/web/2011/01/06/on-the-offensive/

Hawkwind live at HMV -

Where did it all go wrong? Many years ago when they decided that £15 was the going rate for a CD. Worse that offering same CD for £12 in a sale was a bargain that I was going that I was going to bite their arm off for. And this was pre-online shopping!

Laughably overpriced.

Yep. I agree with a lot of this. In the old days you could wander into the main Oxford St Branch and find almost everything you were looking for and may be couldn't get in Virgin or Tower Records (except really specialsed/ rare stuff that was more the preserve of the Indie record shops in Soho and elsewhere). But its now full of all sorts of other crap now, like games, mugs, t shirts and such. There also always seems to be a bloke on a stage at the back rapping off about some DVD techie gizmo or other.

All that said you can still get a good bargain. Yesterday, I bought a nice little box set of 4 classic early Quo albums for 15 quid : Quo, Hello, On The Level and Pile Driver (incidentally, which is all you need on that particular band).

...I used to enjoy visiting the big HMVs on Oxford Street - as well as the equivalent Towers and Virgins - and I shudder to think what proportion of my life I have spent wasting my time browsing in there.

But now my cd collection and online buying habits are such that I hardly have reason to go to HMV at all these days. The sale is often repetitive and it's hard to pick up a real music bargain. Unfortunately(?), my relatives know about my music thing but not enough to buy me anything on spec so I tend to get HMV vouchers for Xmas, which means every January I do go to one of the big HMVs and buy some overpriced Bear Family cds just to get rid of the things. My next visit is imminent.

I must admit I think the big HMVs are not that much different from the way they always were - there's a lot of deep catalogue there. It's me that's changed. I don't have the patience to go through sale and other racks the way I used to and it's so much easier to get the stuff I want online, usually for a better price.

as I realise I haven't set foot in a record shop (even the name sounds archaic) for over two years. Last year I bought two cds from Tesco (both gifts) the rest of my music was either from the local library, Amazon or other legitimate internet/download sites or gifted by the gent who is el Hombre Malo.
In fact I think I only went shopping in my nearest city (Manchester) 3 or 4 times. Not long ago I'd have gone in every couple of weeks.
Unfortunately the internet is open 24/7/365, has pretty much everything, and there's no car-parking fees.
The browsing isn't the same - admittedly, but there's still plenty of impulse buying to be done. Mentions of various acts on this site this year have led to purchases of cds by Plan B, Anais Mitchell, These New Puritans, 10,000 Maniacs, Adam and the Ants and no doubt a few I've forgotten.
My 'real' ie 'physical' cd browsing is done in the library a few times a year.

I went into the Ipswich store this weekend with my christmas tokens and couldn't be arsed to queue for fifteen minutes to get a two for ten pounds Tom Petty and a Jackson Browne compilation. I've got the time to listen to them, but in terms of actually doing things, I'd rather spend two days waiting for the post than that amount of time in a queue with a teeneaged girl who "Can't find boys to men". Don't think I didn't think about chipping in at that point...

Wandered into Waterstone yesterday, saw the Norman Mailer "Moonfire" hardback, recently reissued for £27.99.

Bought it this morning from Amazon for £17.20.

Sorry, but whatever the plight of Waterstones et al, with an electricity and gas bill to pay this month, petrol costing more than liquid gold and VAt going up, I need to save that tenner more than Waterstones need to have it.

As to whether I should be buying books at such a financial straitened time, let it pass. I'm still thinking up an answer to give the FPO when it arrives.

This just in from Mr Peston :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2011/01/hmv_it_gets...

...black drapes in the windows, corporate apologies on the doors and everything.

Apologies for the Londoncentric nature of this post, but the HMV in Ealing was always really busy. I'm amazed they're closing it down with three days notice.

I'd have thought it made money, but who knows?

Dark times for HMV.

Staff at the dozen or so stores that are closing on Sunday, were told earlier this week. This is shocking.

653 Birmingham Pallasades
525 Brighton Western Road
280 Croydon North End
700 Ealing
312 Exeter fopp
445 Glasgow Sauchiehall St
354 Liverpool Bold St
204 Nottingham Wheelergate
840 Oldham
315 Plymouth New George St

I can see the Fopp in Nottingham being expendable too.

Exeter Fopp closed today - the local paper said something along the lines of it never really taking off, today it was just full of cardboard boxes packing up stock.

Fopp took over the HMV site when HMV moved into the new shopping centre and took over the site where Zaavi had been...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/22054032-309f-11e0-9de3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz...

Anyone know where these will be?

CDs are now about 20% of the floor space and they seem to be stocking Waterstones top ten books as well as the usual other assorted tat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2011/03/can_hmv_rei...

... but now I buy them from Amazon almost exclusively. Why? Because HMV don't sell back catalogue - plain and simple! My latest purchases are Caravan's 'If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You' and Hatfield and the North's debut album. Total price £9.27. Which HMV shop could I go to to buy these at anything approaching that price?

It's a 'no-brainer'.

Walked past the HMV in King's Road Chelsea last week to see this

If they can't even make the HMV model work in a supposedly cool affluent tourist-friendly street like the King's Road, I don't give them much hope lasting nationwide beyond Xmas at this rate

but if the emotionless Doom-bot Peston is correct (he isn't always) it doesn't look good.

But as I've (probably) said earlier in the thread HMV has completely lost it's grip on its core audience. The chap earlier complaining about the lack of back catalogue is spot on. It isn't there. It's been shunted out to make way for t-shirts, bangles, ipod docks, posters, games and mobile phone concessions. Why we need an Orange stand within HMV I don't know, even the most barren high street has a mobile phone outlet or two.

Getting into the vending of iPads, Kindles etc seems ridiculous since surely these will be available cheaper online and they are big-ticket one-off purchases that can't sustain a chain this size.

There is still money to be made from selling CDs and records clearly, but not with a chain the size of HMV. Big Multinational business and the selling of music on physical formats do not match any more.

This really is a job best left to the independents, and indeed two (count 'em) second hand record stores have opened near me in the last month. These are small, labour of love type affairs. They're almost like service industries there to provide you and I with somewhere to while away an hour on a Saturday afternoon. In terms of the type of music sales that involve ringing tills..the future belongs to them.

As someone who worked for Borders for almost 10 years (I remember picking up my first copy of Nick Cave adorned Word with excitement) regardless of the internet, the pricing and rah, rah, rah. Bricks and Mortar retail is always about the people, the staff and the customers, it's the first thing to be shredded in times of austerity. First the training, then the quality of knowledgeable staff, quickly followed by the lack of care and concern for a customers need's. It's a lesson retailers have never heeded, bringing about the same ending. People used to provide a service now we just sell stuff, Isn't it incredible that in a World of easier access to knowledge we somehow end up knowing less.

ist the price of back catalogue. Anything that isn't chart or in the sale seems to be 15 quid a shot possibly to pay for the sale and recent releases.

Their DVD prices are also similarly out of touch with online prices. Twenty quid or 12 quid online. Sorry, its a no brainer.

I've been in the main store in Birmingham a time or two recently and have noticed a few staff there (generally more mature ones) who were taking the time to look for stuff, discuss back catalogues etc with some punters. They seemed to have a lot of patience given that said punters were even more mature and generally looking for the latest Harry Lauder or something similar.

Maybe they should be promoted to run the whole thing, or, altenatively, headhunted by an enterprising independent.

A friend of mine went to Spillers in Cardiff many years ago and asked if they had Porgy and Bess by Gershwin.

'Is that on twelve inch?' came the reply.

I know this one was scheduled to close for a while, but it was jarring to see such a large store I'd spent many an afternoon browsing in looking so gutted and empty

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/844156...

In an interesting little twist to this sorry tale, Sainsbury's have just been crowned as the Chain Bookseller of the Year in The Bookseller Industry Awards, (HMV are Waterstone's parent). Says industry organ and awards sponsor, The Bookseller :

Sainsbury's was honoured with the Martina Cole General or Chain Bookselling Company of the Year Award after reinvigorating book zones, increasing book sales by more than 33% and attracting new book buyers to the market. One judge said: "We should celebrate the fact that they are embracing books and offering people an alternative place to buy—somewhere they can spend time browsing as well as buying.

Lordy.

on the day that Kindle sales officially surpassed printed book sales, but I'm sure he knows what he's doing. I love kindle but I love a good neb around Waterstones as well, so I'm glad to see it staying afloat.