HMV closing down, will the high street become extinct?

With the news HMV has closed down, Comet and Jessops too within a month, what does the future look like for high streets?

Is it just the electrical players shutting down, due to unable to compete with online and supermarkets or the simplicity of buying things digitally like iTunes etc?

Will clothes shop ever shut down or will they live? it seems a dark time for the high street, what does everyone think?

Clothes shops are still rolling in the cash. Of course HMV just gets raped by online sellers and piracy

Online sellers destroyed them, yes. Piracy, no.

I sometimes prefer going to the shop, I prefer to just buy it and have it straight away, I can't bare buying something and having to wait like 3 days to get it

I prefer going to the shop too, especially for buying video games.

Piracy has provened to improve music and digit sales in the past 5 years, it has nothing to do with it, only the record labels who lose out on the money get annoyed.

iTunes and the alike are much easier, I mean I just downloaded Blizzard's album and it was straight onto my media device at £3.00 and HMV probably wouldn't have even stocked it.

Cam wrote:I sometimes prefer going to the shop, I prefer to just buy it and have it straight away, I can't bare buying something and having to wait like 3 days to get it

I feel this way too, but it's always cheaper online so I end up waiting anyway

I definitely prefer clothes shopping in the high street, it's something to do and a good way to socialise really.

Buying electronics on the high street you always end up paying more, makes sense that it's not doing well.

It's not entirely their fault, the fact that internet retailers can have a fraction of their overhead lets them give much more competitive prices.

Add Blockbuster to the list.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21047652

Wow. This is almost on a weekly basis.

Is it evolution or just extinction though?

What is HMV and what is a high street

dena wrote:What is HMV and what is a high street

In England the 'shopping' areas are in 2 parts.

A high street is a long strip of road which is pedestriansed a lot of the time with shops either side of each other. Like the most well known high street, Oxford Street in London:



Then usually nearby a high street there is a shopping mall, which you know obviously.


HMV was a electrical goods shop, it's pretty much been the heartbeat for music on the high street in England for over 75 years, it stocked games consoles, DVDs, CDs, records, phones, headphones, tablets and pretty much everything else.

crump wrote:

dena wrote:What is HMV and what is a high street

In England the 'shopping' areas are in 2 parts.

A high street is a long strip of road which is pedestriansed a lot of the time with shops either side of each other. Like the most well known high street, Oxford Street in London:



Then usually nearby a high street there is a shopping mall, which you know obviously.


HMV was a electrical goods shop, it's pretty much been the heartbeat for music on the high street in England for over 75 years, it stocked games consoles, DVDs, CDs, records, phones, headphones, tablets and pretty much everything else.

I see.

High street is the one street in every city where weed is legal and everyone gets high and cuddles.

how does piracy help them? It hasnt been proven. They just took both statistics, saw a proportionality between them and used that as their "proof"

Piracy doesn't help stores like this but it doesn't destroy their profits. People who pirate things are usually the ones who would never buy it in the first place. Movie box office figures are at their highest since records begun and the sales of DVD's and Blu-rays are huge right now. It's just HMV could never compete with the likes of Amazon who don't charge VAT on products under £15 (they will have to very soon due to new rules. That's why Play.com is going to stop selling as a retailer.)

Blockbusters have called the administrators in too.

Not surprised. Every time I go into my local one there's never more than 5 people in there, and that includes staff.

Same Danny, prices are high too, won't be on Friday.

HMV is basically FYE, Dena.

i know, but i was on about when people say piracy benefits the music industry sales. That cant be true

PrideOfTheMidlands wrote:i know, but i was on about when people say piracy benefits the music industry sales. That cant be true

The people that pirate music are the sort who aren't going to buy it.

If they don't have torrents they'll just convert it on YouTube or not bother at all.

Pirate-'ers' buy the music officially to share it, and millions of them do this, so the music has to be bought somewhere down the line.

PrideOfTheMidlands wrote:i know, but i was on about when people say piracy benefits the music industry sales. That cant be true

Interesting issue, piracy. I wouldn't go as far as to say there is a net benefit but I wouldn't necessarily say there is a huge loss either.

An example, when I got into Kasabian I torrented their first three albums, due to my enjoying their music I pre-ordered the fourth and bought an associated B-side. (in fairness that B-side would have been pretty difficult to get without using a youtube converter)

Another example, I downloaded the entire Enter Shikari discography, about 70 songs, but when the new album came around I torrented that too. Now I've bought a ticket to see them for twice the price I could have got the album for and would have been happy to pay double if they were coming to Cardiff.

At the same time there are dozens if not hundreds of artists that won't see a penny from me. But then maybe I never would have listened to their music had I not been able to torrent.

In fact, downloading music made me decide I wanted it organised and I wanted a decent music player, which lead to me buying an iPod and getting iTunes. Which in turn makes it easier to make a spur of the moment purchase rather than search for a high quality download.

I'm not necessarily trying to justify it (I'm a student, we do what we have to, and if I paid for all my music I would be broke) but it isn't all bad, piracy.

crump wrote:

PrideOfTheMidlands wrote:i know, but i was on about when people say piracy benefits the music industry sales. That cant be true

The people that pirate music are the sort who aren't going to buy it.

If they don't have torrents they'll just convert it on YouTube or not bother at all.

Pirate-'ers' buy the music officially to share it, and millions of them do this, so the music has to be bought somewhere down the line.

I've bought plenty of music. But usually if I can't torrent then I'll just buy or download the occasional single rather than whole albums.

Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony are planning to offer HMV suitors generous credit terms and cut the price of CDs and DVDs to help keep HMV's presence on the high street, according to The Sunday Times.