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Is this another milestone in physical products dying out? Or were they just a badly run business and isn't representative of the state of digital vs physical? Does anyone care about HMV any more anyway? Is it 'fuck those chain store guys anyway, support independent record shops'? With major labels already stopping pressing albums, will they stop almost completely with stores like HMV no longer stocking them?

I usually rinse HMVs DVD deals, will be fuming if they're gone forever.

Hmv and Jessops go down within a week of eachother

I think austerity is working

I'm guessing that CD's and DVD's are gonna become a thing of the past and everything will go digital streaming with cloud storage. I wouldn't count on HMV coming back, there is a market for their stuff but it'll carry on shrinking. People don't get attached to CD's/DVD's as a physical collection like they do with Vinyl, Vinyl will live on as a specialist collectors thing even if it dies out as a live DJ thing.

Independent Vinyl shops might be able to hang on, but seeing as how easy it is to listen to tunes via online shops and get them quite cheaply sent to you I wouldn't count on it...which is a shame because those shops are a big part of rave culture- dubstep might not have happened without Big Apple and Blackmarket.

Didn't this almost happen a couple of years ago as well or was that just drastic cutbacks? Seem to remember Pistons coming close to the chop but Croydon getting a reprieve or something... they closed the one nearest to my house that time.

HMV has been terribly run for as long as I can remember, but I still go in and browse most weeks... I haven't bought music from there in quite a while though, it's all about the DVD offers.

particle-jim wrote:Hmv and Jessops go down within a week of eachother

I think austerity is working

Exactly. When one of the most iconic brands on the High St can't survive these "Let's get Britain back to business" policies you know the Tories really are up shit creek without the requisite propulsion. Business like HMV are supposed to be pulling us out of this, not getting sucked into the ever growing black hole themselves.

It's almost as if you should give better wages and conditions to the people so they had more money longterm to spend in the economy rather than propping up badly run businesses so they can last another 6 months. Of course, that'd be mental.

magma wrote: HMV has been terribly run for as long as I can remember, but I still go in and browse most weeks... I haven't bought music from there in quite a while though, it's all about the DVD offers.

This.

Would never order online with HMV, had too much fucking hassle with that. Also, there's some really obvious DVDs that HMVs around the country NEVER seem to stock

Hedley King wrote:Independent Vinyl shops might be able to hang on, but seeing as how easy it is to listen to tunes via online shops and get them quite cheaply sent to you I wouldn't count on it...

This is the problem. I can get a record + shipping for cheaper than going into Birmingham and buying a record from the shop, especially when I'm buying multiple records and when you take travel/parking into account. I do buy stuff whenever I go there, but shops like Redeye, Chemical, Juno etc. just offer too good a service at a cheaper price.

To be honest i don't really see an alternative to digital music or movies in the future, there are just so many advantages of the digital forms. You could either travel to a town, go to hmv, spend time in the shop, choose a dvd, queue, buy it, take it home and put it on your shelf which is just going to take up space after you've watched it. Or alternatively you could go on the computer with a cup of tea or whatever, in the comfort of your own home click your mouse a couple of times, input card details and bam you can almost instantly watch the film and once it is done it takes up no space whatsoever apart from a few gb on your p.c. Then if you ever want to watch it again there's no searching for the disk you can just search your harddrive and instantly find it.

As sad as it is that there isn't really any future in C.Ds or DVDs, i don't really think there is anyway to convince new generations that they have any advantages over the digital versions, except from the feeling of actually having a physical copy which they likely won't understand.

Edit: while writing this people have basically said the same but i'll post it anyway haa

The digital beating physical thing seems unromantic, but it actually results in a better experience for most of us and at a guess it's only going to get better. Really, companies like HMV should've been ready - they had the industry position ten years ago, but were too lazy/arrogant to think they needed to compete properly in the new world.

I walked to HMV on Saturday with the lady to pick up a couple of movies we specifically wanted to watch... they weren't overly rare or anything, but they didn't have either. Came home and started a free 30 Day LoveFilm trial... was able to get both of them streaming on my ps3 within minutes.

Aye man, with Netflix and sky player on my Xbox, I haven't had to buy a DVD in about a year. People do collect DVDs and CDs though and there is still a major market for both. Christmas time especially.

There must be a few people gutted they didn't spend their Christmas HMV vouchers yet, HMV aparrently won't accept them

There were 2 HMVs in Croydon within a 1 minute walk of each other(fuck knows why). They closed the one that Pistons didnt work in.

Hedley King wrote:There must be a few people gutted they didn't spend their Christmas HMV vouchers yet, HMV aparrently won't accept them

That sounds like theft to me.

teamhobson wrote:

Hedley King wrote:There must be a few people gutted they didn't spend their Christmas HMV vouchers yet, HMV aparrently won't accept them

That sounds like theft to me.

I dont understand why companies do this, its fucking grim that people pay out for vouchers, and they take the money, then dont let people spend it or get a refund on the vouchers. I guess they dont give a fuck as they wont be around very soon.

It's usually not the companies, but the administrators. They're the ones making the calls now.

True, but surely the admins can recognise that because there is still x amount of unspent vouchers then that x still belongs to the public. They can't go around claiming back the DVDs in folks front rooms cause HMV need to hand over all their assets. I literally have no idea how this sort of thing works so correct me if Im way off, but surely a sold £10 voucher is the same as £10 worth of DVDs?

LA_Boxers wrote:

teamhobson wrote:

Hedley King wrote:There must be a few people gutted they didn't spend their Christmas HMV vouchers yet, HMV aparrently won't accept them

That sounds like theft to me.

I dont understand why companies do this, its fucking grim that people pay out for vouchers, and they take the money, then dont let people spend it or get a refund on the vouchers. I guess they dont give a fuck as they wont be around very soon.

Just worked there over xmas, I don't envy having to argue the toss about vouchers with every customer right now.

Hopefully if they go we'll see more independent record shops, very unlikely but itd be nice.

teamhobson wrote:True, but surely the admins can recognise that because there is still x amount of unspent vouchers then that x still belongs to the public. They can't go around claiming back the DVDs in folks front rooms cause HMV need to hand over all their assets. I literally have no idea how this sort of thing works so correct me if Im way off, but surely a sold £10 voucher is the same as £10 worth of DVDs?

I think it's more just a case of fuck you, too bad. Administrators don't care. There's probably an argument that you paid for the voucher, not what the voucher can be used to buy, if you get me.

I guess a gift voucher is basically the customer giving HMV money for an IOU note, when HMV can't pay their debts you join the rest of the people they owe money to but can't pay....administrators need to decide what debts to pay out on, not having your £10 voucher honored isn't as bad as people not getting wages owed

garethom wrote:

teamhobson wrote:True, but surely the admins can recognise that because there is still x amount of unspent vouchers then that x still belongs to the public. They can't go around claiming back the DVDs in folks front rooms cause HMV need to hand over all their assets. I literally have no idea how this sort of thing works so correct me if Im way off, but surely a sold £10 voucher is the same as £10 worth of DVDs?

I think it's more just a case of fuck you, too bad. Administrators don't care. There's probably an argument that you paid for the voucher, not what the voucher can be used to buy, if you get me.

Yeah I'm with you, and you're probably right that does sound like something administrators would do. Fucking clowns tbh