I bought a Cohn Brothers box set in HMV Grimsby 'final sale' last week (the store is closing soon) , six movies for £12 , an absolute bargain ... walking round the store and checking what was on offer, all six of the box set movies were on sale individually .. total cost buying all six individually? .. £47 .. HMV went haywire pricing wise. Pity because the store is/was packed with obscure stuff, both movies and music. However the old style stores just can't keep pace with the technology advances made by Apple, Amazon & Co. It's a pity, especially as the helpful young staff will all soon lose their jobs in a part of the country where good and interesting jobs are scarce.
Dead. Dead as a dodo. They've been dead for years - the Internet killed them off. Such a shame - who would have thought there'd be no place for ridiculously marked-up shit being flogged from a huge store by arrogant fuckheads with a supercilious attitude when the same stuff is available for nothing on the Internet?
use my local one and the big ones .. great selection of cds and dvds, books, tshirts ,, the big stores in the shopping malls are always busy .. but with people looking and not buying it always seems .. use it as a library/catalogue, see what's about and then order online .. I just hope that Waterstones isn't next on the hit list
Dead. Dead as a dodo. They've been dead for years - the Internet killed them off. Such a shame - who would have thought there'd be no place for ridiculously marked-up shit being flogged from a huge store by arrogant fuckheads with a supercilious attitude when the same stuff is available for nothing on the Internet?
The one argument against this being that they were an employer. But the argument in turn against that being that they paid the footsoldiers next to nothing while a couple of people made a killing
Retail is utterly fucked. Its just a case of who goes soonest.
You say that but a friend of mine has a pet store and I saw an aquarium in there for £799. When I told him it was available online at £389, he told me to give him £400 and he's still making a profit. How many stores rely on us not looking elsewhere and penalise us for being lazy, insurance companies do it as do energy companies.
When I was based just off Oxford Street, I used to go in nearly every Monday and buy 4-5 new albums. Had been given a lot of vouchers for birthday and Christmas with a view to getting a decent turntable (they were doing them before the last collapse) and missed out when they collapsed and administrators immediately refused to accept. I've never given anyone a voucher since - even more so now with the way that retail is going.
Since that first collapse, I now stream everything and buy the occasional vinyl from the smaller specialist shops, or direct online from the artists.
I'm a dinosaur now. Only Fopp left to browse and find stuff you wouldn't think of buying. The online shopping world is absolute shit. It means workers are treated appallingly and the social contracts of life are just destroyed. Cheap rules. Cheap destroys. And we just let it happen. I'm glad I'm old enough to remember how it was and sad that the new generations are more and more just tools of the machine. We need a revolution.
This was on the horizon a decade ago, as soon as bandwidth increased to enable platforms like Netflix and prime video to do what they had been trying HMV was bang in trouble.
The market has changed too, if I speak to the apprentices about say, Noel Gallaghers new album a lot of them have no concept of what an album is in terms of what comes with it, the sleeve artwork, the bonus tracks etc it's just a collection of songs and why do they want that when they only like 3? Which I suppose is a logical thought but for a purist it feels like too much of a race to the bottom and too much like embracing this whole "content provider bullshit"
Whatever you think of him, it's worth listening to Mike Ashley talk to the committee or panel he was getting questioned by and what he'd do to salvage the high street.
It won't be long before every high street bar the very exclusive and high end ones are just bookies, charity shops, barbers and tanning salons with the occasuonal costa, subway and nandos chucked in
The high street existed because it was the only place to get stuff. Along came supermarkets and did away a lot of the independent food shops such as butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers. Why? Because it's easier and we are all so busy now. Even the likes of Tesco metro are polishing off the last few stores. Then along comes the internet to finish it off. Unused to like going into Our Price and Andy's Records, even Woolworths to get my pop singles, but I much preferred the small independent shops, there you could get some recommendations and advice, and I used to pick up loads of cheap compilations from Fopp for such a varied amount of music. I can recreate that now by lying around on YouTube.
Thing is I do actually enjoy popping into town, and talking to people. Especially if I am after a purchase and want some advice. If I do that, I always buy in the shop, even if it's cheaper online.
HMV need to move with the times but they're holding themselves back to 15 years ago even when you go on HMV website they don't have a download store.
In the Bluewater store, they have a big section of cd's but there is so much competition now and online streaming and instant downloads are taking over.
The growth of streaming amongst the young mean that they aren't spending money on albums full stop, never mind whether it's as a download or in physical form
The growth of streaming amongst the young mean that they aren't spending money on albums full stop, never mind whether it's as a download or in physical form
Yep, and it hasn't just happened overnight has it. You'd have thought the wake up call in 2012 would have made them change dynamic and business model but it continued to employ aloof, judgemental cocksuckers and stock stuff that there is simply not a market for anymore. If they had sensed how things were going in terms of vinyl making a comeback and maybe sold gig tickets in store as well as the posters, mugs and t shirts that seem to shift fairly well they could have had some early skin in the game
The growth of streaming amongst the young mean that they aren't spending money on albums full stop, never mind whether it's as a download or in physical form
When I first started pirating stuff, it sas tricky, you had to use something like napster and risk getting a virus or a shitty quality song. Now the actual artists are putting their stuff on youtube for me to download and put on my phone.
It's all becoming too easy, music, movies, books, comuter software etc is all available for free download in a way that is so simple my technophobe father can do it, what chance to these companies have?
A few years ago I met the founder of The Pirate Bay in a bar in Laos, we spent hours talking about piracy and he had some v.interesting ideas about where the internet was heading. Sadly he got busted by The FBI whilst crossing The Laos/Thai border.p
This was on the horizon a decade ago, as soon as bandwidth increased to enable platforms like Netflix and prime video to do what they had been trying HMV was bang in trouble.
The market has changed too, if I speak to the apprentices about say, Noel Gallaghers new album a lot of them have no concept of what an album is in terms of what comes with it, the sleeve artwork, the bonus tracks etc it's just a collection of songs and why do they want that when they only like 3? Which I suppose is a logical thought but for a purist it feels like too much of a race to the bottom and too much like embracing this whole "content provider bullshit"
Whatever you think of him, it's worth listening to Mike Ashley talk to the committee or panel he was getting questioned by and what he'd do to salvage the high street.
It won't be long before every high street bar the very exclusive and high end ones are just bookies, charity shops, barbers and tanning salons with the occasuonal costa, subway and nandos chucked in
The race to the bottom is well and truly underway
Most of them already are like that, along with cafes, kebab shops, chicken shops and pizza takeaways.
Comments
Since that first collapse, I now stream everything and buy the occasional vinyl from the smaller specialist shops, or direct online from the artists.
HMV needs to either scale down massively and just stick to merch + vinyl or they're going for good.
The online shopping world is absolute shit. It means workers are treated appallingly and the social contracts of life are just destroyed.
Cheap rules. Cheap destroys. And we just let it happen.
I'm glad I'm old enough to remember how it was and sad that the new generations are more and more just tools of the machine.
We need a revolution.
The market has changed too, if I speak to the apprentices about say, Noel Gallaghers new album a lot of them have no concept of what an album is in terms of what comes with it, the sleeve artwork, the bonus tracks etc it's just a collection of songs and why do they want that when they only like 3? Which I suppose is a logical thought but for a purist it feels like too much of a race to the bottom and too much like embracing this whole "content provider bullshit"
Whatever you think of him, it's worth listening to Mike Ashley talk to the committee or panel he was getting questioned by and what he'd do to salvage the high street.
It won't be long before every high street bar the very exclusive and high end ones are just bookies, charity shops, barbers and tanning salons with the occasuonal costa, subway and nandos chucked in
The race to the bottom is well and truly underway
Thing is I do actually enjoy popping into town, and talking to people. Especially if I am after a purchase and want some advice. If I do that, I always buy in the shop, even if it's cheaper online.
In the Bluewater store, they have a big section of cd's but there is so much competition now and online streaming and instant downloads are taking over.
It's all becoming too easy, music, movies, books, comuter software etc is all available for free download in a way that is so simple my technophobe father can do it, what chance to these companies have?
A few years ago I met the founder of The Pirate Bay in a bar in Laos, we spent hours talking about piracy and he had some v.interesting ideas about where the internet was heading. Sadly he got busted by The FBI whilst crossing The Laos/Thai border.p