Does anyone still shop at HMV?

Fopp's full price albums are usually as big a rip-off as HMV's, yet hardly anyone every seems to comment on this

Because the £3, £5, and £7 price point racks are usually so damn good.

xpost because no one goes to Fopp to buy full priced items?

Blockbuster's gone into admin I think. Holy smokes

Yeah, it's gone

wait a min whats this about pc world? that would mean Currys too then. Hell, theres gonna be nothing left in my town

Re Blockbuster: I think once South Park has based an episode around how your business model is a relic of a bygone age and your stores are completely empty then it shouldn't be a surprise when said model finally runs out of legs.

It was news to me it wasn't already gone. Didn't it go into administration before, a couple of years back?

Currys / PC World were predicting good business over Christmas due to demand for tablets and Comet going bust. I'd be a little surprised if they went under immediately.

Had a look in Reading branch, nothing to report...

I was in my local Blockbuster last Saturday at 6.30pm seeing if they had any blurays on special. One other guy in the a
store. I thought if this is how busy it is on a Saturday evening then the jig is up.

Coincidentally I was in HMV the same day using my voucher. If you've got shares in Sainsburys you may want to get rid of them.

blockbusters in my hometown (south wimbledon) closed before xmas, was amazed it lasted so long. i think there's one in crouch end that was open before xmas.

FOPP was a bit of a disapointment at Xnmas, went there thinking I'd be able to get cheap King Crimson & Peter Hammill cds since I think both had been in there for <£5 most trips I'd been in there. Only to find they were >£10.

Think all I bought this year was a couple of Rockabilly compis dedicated to individual labels and then a couple of books which came to £5 for the pair. Didn't get to spend much time in there as I was heading elsewhere or coming to the end of a trip into town and had less dosh than I'd had on previous trips. But definitely seemed to come across less bargains than I had.

Now need to catch the local HMV before it fully disappears, but bet I've missed most of the stuff I'd've been looking for. Not sure why I didn't hit there on Monday. Mind on other things I think.

thin pickings at the big hmv in glasgow, but i was in the mood to spend so i picked up

To Terrapin: Hartford '77 - Grateful Dead
Geechee Recollections/Sweet Earth Flying - Marion Brown
Taschen book about Jean Renoir
What a Carve up on DVD

all blue x'ed

HMV store in Limerick shut down today

Fopp staff in the branch i went to yesterday were pretty optimistic about someone coming along to pick the company up. Felt they had a decent core business in vinyl and well-priced CDs and that shifting so much room to tech / DVDs diluted that.

Still have no idea what the high street is going to look like in the future. Only so many slot machines and coffee shops the market can accommodate. It's mentioned upthread but the idea of places where people, particularly young people, can just hang out and browse without necessarily needing to make a purchase seems to be rapidly falling away. People have been going on about the corporatisation of public space and the problems with shopping-as-a-leisure-activity for decades but i'm not sure much thought has gone into what happens after that stops working.

Rent is the killer for most places. Those refurbished high streets and fancy malls cost money.

Not mine but:

Re-enact Dawn of the Dead but visiting a British shopping centre in a couple of years' time.

It has gotten shitter and shitter and quite correctly died in its directionlessnessless

I will always love it (in this case Hull, Whitefriargate) for supplying me with the following;

Ramones 'It's alive"- in about 1981 . When, I swear, even 5 ears later NOBODY liked the Ramones. This one was really VFM. All their hits and a double gatefold for £4.49

Unsafe at Any Speed - the smaller sister of This is Boston, Not La.

You kids have no idea.

And no, I don't too

5 ears and VFM. Wot a wanquer

Retail predictions for the next ten years are that the high street and shopping centres will see a major decline as e-commerce grows. Online shopping has recently picked up the title e-tail ( see what they did?) and will continue to grow until it becomes the dominant purchase channel. The fear mongers predict a high street full of bet freds, pound shops and proles hanging around looking for spare change and fag butts. The more positive retailers believe that in order to maintain a presence, stores must not only offer quality of stock and good price points but also a shopping "experience" The likes of The Apple Store, Hollister and Lush are the future. It's about being quirky, interesting and having an offer that makes people want to come to your location. I think that's quite exciting, retail is going to have to work harder for peoples money.
As far as HMV is concerned, I'm quite pleased it has finally collapsed (although not that folk have lost their jobs) I'm hoping that all the indie record shops that have been struggling over the last few years will come back to fruition now the giant has toppled over. Those record shops have that unique offer that match the predictions of retail nerds and market researchers across the land.

It looks like the Limerick branch of HMV which was closed today is having an occupation by its unpaid workers.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/hmv-staff-stage-limerick-sit-ins-581409.html

Quite looking forward to seeing some of the landlords who pushed rents up and up and up during the boom get shafted tbh.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21027043

Employees have said that they are in talks with the company's receiver tonight - they are looking for assurances that all of their wages will be paid in full.

Statutory redundancy pay is capped at £430 a week so they wont lose out much if they get nothing from HMV. I have been at 3 failed companies in the last decade and every time we just robbed anything that wasn't fixed to the floor, went for a sesh and let off some steam about how shit the company was. They shouldn't be wasting their time demanding assurances/occupying. Just borrow a transit and load the mother up people.

Well, that all depends on how easy it will be to move onto new jobs

They shouldn't be wasting their time demanding assurances/occupying.

Well the Irish stores are a different situation, as it's a separate company that was put into receivership - not administration - literally hours after Deloitte was appointed yesterday. It's more akin to the Game situation months ago, where much of the UK business was saved (for now) while the Irish stores and their staff were cast adrift with no guarantee of owed wages, etc.

I meant that from an employees perspective of a company going into liquidation and I suppose this is more of a complicated situation. I still maintain that if I was a HMV employee right now my ebay account would be doing some serious trading. Fuck going through hardship while some fat fuck is still living well because they are paid by a holding company or something. Once I spent a day installing floodlights at my bosses house in torrential rain even though he knew the company was going to be liquidated the next day and the monthly wages were not going to be paid. Lost out loads in o/t, bonuses and retainers. You have to take control of the situation or just end up feeling belittled and exploited.

When Freddie Laker's Skytrain went bust, his 'attitude' to the stranded travellers meant he went from "friendly uncle" to "ruthless capitalist" overnight in the public's view.

Does anybody know whether HMV are still accepting points on the HMV loyalty card, or whether it's the same story as with their gift vouchers?

Only redeemable against ancient overstock cassingles of Bros's 'I Owe You Nothing'

xpost almost certainly worthless now. The pure website is down for 'essential maintenance' http://pure.hmv.com/

Maybe if the rewards scheme was more attractive it may have helped them stave off their current woes by building brand loyalty. However A4 posters of Aaron Eckhart or framed sleeves of the Cornish Fisherman's Choir just not cutting it.

Can't they get the Zutons back together to do a benefit or something?

I had one of those cards, yeah the selection of stuff you could redeem the points for was pretty unimpressive. I ended up using mine on their download store, just odd tracks I'd been looking for - that in itself was a chore though, it wasn't exactly user friendly.

The main HMV website is now replaced by a notice.

Funny, the site was up and trading yesterday...

i actually buy from currys/pc world more than ever tbh. their prices are v. competitive with online & you can reserve items online then go into the store and pick them up. i think i prefer this model to home delivery tbh (as long as the price matches the online stores, which it does usually)

argos is good in this respect too actually

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21055640
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21057345

pcworld/currys and argos in fine health it seems

You could also do that with HMV, reserve/pick up...

No you couldn't. Tried that last year and was told there was a "famine" in the supply chain. Got it from Amazon, and Amazon, rather than HMV, got my money. Hence the mess HMV are in now.

ironically pcworld and argos were on radio this morning citing tablets sales as their saviour and the only place i've ever seen those tablets was in hmv... (although the display model of the nexus 7 wasn't working)

OK, you could "try"..

Waterstones, before christmas, two books I wanted to get for prezzies, both had discounts (one about £10 off), so bought online, for pickup in Bracknell branch, about 2 days later got a notice both were ready.

The VU box of the 1st album, did a lookup and found Bracknell didn't have it but reading did. I don't remember if it was the 'online' price it was being offered at, as I wasn't wanting to actually buy one.

Actually, that's another point... So, HMV REading had one, but I never saw it on display. (Fopp Glasgow did, was there between Xmas/Newyear)

i think Jessie might've beaten me to the punch as the first person to type "Whitefriargate" on ILX

i wonder why they never did 'HMV exclusives'; unique songs you could only buy through the store online like iTunes did? or DID they do that and i just missed it? my copy of the Scott Walker '30 Century Man' DVD came in a nifty loooking 'HMV Exclusive' sleeve with a booklet but i never saw that kind of thing again.

Still wondering about their overseas operations. Both the Japan and Hong Kong websites are still up and running, although I'm not gonna test it by ordering anything from them.

Oh, they used to do that all the time. The "NMTB" sex pistols 2CD set came with some exclusive postcards...

my copy of the Scott Walker '30 Century Man' DVD came in a nifty loooking 'HMV Exclusive' sleeve with a booklet

there is an 'exclusive' hmv version of the new ke$ha album.
tis a differently designed slipcase.

went in this lunch hour and picked up the superb grace jones 2cd set, 'the compass point sessions', for £7.50 which i'm quite chuffed about.
but not a lot has changed, but the staff were running round shuffling stock like their lives depended on it.

There is that "you might keep your job if we get bought" aspect, I can believe it.

dunno where else to put this so to heck with it. figure that probably hardly anyone reads the Popbitch mailout anymore so I don't feel too lame c+p-ing from it

>> Thicker than Waterstone's <<
The high street's last stand

Last October, HMV overhauled their
staff policy. Afraid it was their
workers' body art and sandals that
were driving customers away, bosses
demanded that all extreme tattoos,
piercings and toes be covered up.

What good did ragging on the staff
do them? None.

So Waterstone's, take heed. Tales
reach us of the training session
you held in which employees were
chastised and berated for three
hours. In between admonishments
they were given such pearls of
customer service wisdom as "If
you see someone browsing the
sport section, shout over 'What's
the score?'" and suggesting that
they deliver soup to the homes
of any regulars who fall ill.

When one employee mentioned he'd
have to make an hour and a half
round trip to deliver soup to any
sick regulars in London, the woman
leading the session pointed to a
picture of a sad face she had drawn
and said "This is what the last
person who challenged me
looked like."