HMV in administration (again)

Wazmeister

fandango said:

Am old enough to remember HMV's contemporary in the the High Street - Our Price Records. Used to love hunting the limited editions.

I was in my nearest HMV on Boxing Day (as I managed to escape for a couple of hours), but since they never stock what I like, I left empty handed. Again. Why do I bother?

To be fair, Our Price was proper shit too...

77ric

My local hmv (which is now closed) was terrible, the last tome I bought anything from that store would be nearly 15 years ago when it was actually quite good. In more recent years the top floor was closed off and the ground floor was divided into sections, a small but quite well stocked section for vinyl, a small section for posters and t-shirts both at the back, in the front half of the store it was top 40 cd singles, top 40 cd albums, and top 20 dvds. In between the sections at the back and the front half were some consumer electronics, headphones, Bluetooth speakers, etc mostly on displays were you could test them out using tunes from your phone that never worked. And that was your lot. When the upper floor was in use there was a much larger choice of music. 

Its sad but with any high street retailer if they fail to adapt to the changing requirements of their customers then they will fail. The truth of it is my local hmv used to be always busy but after the last time they went into administration they changed to the new style it’s days were numbered, and I imagine that it was not unique within the company. 

Tower records in hlasgow in the distant past was great they seemed to actually employ people who cared about music, had a vast range, plus comics and specialist mags.  

The staff at fopp always seemed good too. 

Sassafras

The problem is that there aren't enough coffee bars around so the more shops that can make way for them the better.

darthed1981

Went for a bit of a splurge today in case for the last time...

Myranda

Brize said:

richardhomer said:

My teenage son is a world-film buff

Good lad. I thought most teenagers were just into car chases, aliens and explosions.

Three years working with a different bunch of late teens and early 20s types at uni have proven to me that most teens these days have never seen films... good ones, world cinema, old films, new films, classic films. Just every time there would be "not seen it" ... even if the movie had aliens, car chases and explosions they probably haven't heard of it, or if they have they didn't see it

As much as I love buying CDs and Blu-rays I'm not surprised that HMV is fecked given the people I have met at uni age... 

(Also, I've found that a surprising amount of teenagers on computer science based degrees also have never installed windows, built a PC, owned PC (or owned a mac, literally no desktop or laptop computers!), and have no idea what a megabyte might be - so I've decided that teens these days are uninterested in virtually everything that isn't sport and reality shows)

57Deluxe

Tower Records at Piccadilly Circus were once a giant too

Phil_aka_Pip

terada said:

Amazing, who'd have thought that a business selling cds and dvds wouldn't be a going concern 

Well if they were selling only LPs and cassettes I could understand why. However if I want a physical media copy of an album I usually have to buy it on CD unless I'm lucky enough to find it on vinyl, and AFAIK the only way to buy video material in a physical medium is to get it on dvd. There's no vhs, betamax or cine film any more.

EricTheWeary

Went into the branch in Shrewsbury yesterday. It's up the corner of what appears to be a dieing mall but the shop itself was pretty busy. I don't know if people thought there might be a good sale on, although there wasn't. 
I buy some CDs but that's the odd cheap one from a supermarket or an online buy. I'm not good enough at deferring my gratification to the next time I'm in a town big enough to have a HMV. 

VJIves

Should find out who the new buyer is this weekend. Amazon already seem to have put their prices up on new releases HMV don't stock!

darthed1981

VJIves said:

Should find out who the new buyer is this weekend. Amazon already seem to have put their prices up on new releases HMV don't stock!

Apparently, amazon are amongst the bidders!

UnclePsychosis

Such a shame.

They've been selling music since records began. 

skunkwerx

Well today sucks! 

So the company is saved but my store is among one of the 27 thats closing from immediate effect. 

Literally immediately. 

So I've had a text to say 'don't come in this afternoon, thats it'. 

Pissed. 

Sad, I'll never see the majority of those guys again.. 


Guess I better get down the job centre! 

Snags

That's a bugger. No chance of a position at another store? Always assuming there's one close enough.

Legionreturns

That's really shitty. Sorry to hear that man! 

By the sounds of it, they've bought specific assets rather than the company. Presumably to avoid redundancy liability etc. Hope you find something else and are not too out of pocket. 

skunkwerx

Snags said:

That's a bugger. No chance of a position at another store? Always assuming there's one close enough.

No idea yet if relocation is an option! There are 2 stores I could make the trip to though.. 

All the early and mid shift are already at the store so theyre just hanging about waiting for news to then text on to us late shifties.

Aye ya ya!

LuttiS

Shit dude Sorry to hear that, hope you find something soon.

EricTheWeary

skunkwerx said:

Well today sucks! 

So the company is saved but my store is among one of the 27 thats closing from immediate effect. 

Literally immediately. 

So I've had a text to say 'don't come in this afternoon, thats it'. 

Pissed. 

Sad, I'll never see the majority of those guys again.. 


Guess I better get down the job centre! 

Just heard the buy out news and wondered if this would affect you. Sorry to hear it's gone badly. 

Grumpyrocker

Legionreturns said:

That's really shitty. Sorry to hear that man! 

By the sounds of it, they've bought specific assets rather than the company. Presumably to avoid redundancy liability etc. Hope you find something else and are not too out of pocket. 

According to the new owner they're closing 27 stores where the rents are so high it makes profitable stores difficult. 

There's hope for the company as he's done a good job turning around the Canadian stores. And he seems genuinely into music, rather than being an asset stripper. 

ICBM

That's a bummer. Presumably immediate closure makes more sense because they can shift the stock to the surviving shops rather than clearance-selling it. Seems surprising they don't want to keep you on to pack up though.

@skunkwerx - do you have a list of the shops that are closing? If one of them is Glasgow Argyle St, the guitar shop I work for may have a vacancy.

Seymour1

@ICBM Glasgow Braehead is closing but not Argyle Street.

Full list of ones to be closed is here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47132310