HMV overtakes Amazon for physical music sales

It's like a Our Price or Head.

 

Good news but I must admit I never buy vinyl from HMV, very rarely from Fopp too, the only HMV I know is on Bond Street in London where I live. I've bought vinyl from Amazon when they have good deals but this still isn't very often...ebay, discogs and record shops for me.

I work in book book publishing and as much Amazon order from us, I'd rather people supported the high street, the U.K highstreet is looking rather sad these days. Amazed that Waterstones and WHSmiths are still going.

 

This is good news.

I do miss the days of ‘Play’ which was where I got the majority of my music from online. It seems as if Amazon has dominated in the last few years. Good to see HMV making a comeback.

I will buy from them in the future.

 

You live in Bond Street?! Who are you? Philip Green?

 

Thankfully not...I live in Peckham, very, VERY different

 

just a little.... but who would want to actually live in Bond Street anyway!

Best record shop in central london, in my opinion is Sounds of the Universe. More for the great music than the actual stock. Least touristy in Soho too.

 

Fwiw HMV Liverpool moved about a hundred yards to a shop that is a third of the size of the one they vacated, which now sells mainly "sport" footwear.

 

Only based on sales over the last 12 weeks ? HMV's PR department is working overtime, it appears......

 

I didn't realize HMV was still in business. I used to use them a lot for mail order in the 90's and early 2000's -- I am pretty sure they no longer ship to the USA.

 

I remember Ear 'Ere records in Lancaster. In the early 1980s, a friend of mine had a record shop in my home town of Barrow and he used to order his stock from Ear 'Ere. A couple of times I remember us driving down there and loading up with boxes full of albums to bring back. We used to pick them up from the owner’s flat in town. I’ve forgotten his name now, but what I do recall is the massive amount of porn scattered around the flat!

 

They went very close to going out of business altogether.

 

His Masters Voice...a retail chain based in England.

HMV - Wikipedia

 

They've been under new ownership since 2013. The previous owners had got the company into a mess - they'd seen CD and DVD sales declining so started moving into other areas, such as technology which they had no idea how to sell effectively. The shops started to fill up with all manner of tat as they got increasingly desperate and moved ever further away from their core business. I stopped going for a while as the music stock decreased and prices were way too high. Eventually they went into administration and were bought out by Hilco, who have moved back to concentrating on music and video and brought prices down. They're not perfect but for those of us who don't have any decent indie shops locally any more they're all we've got. Long may they continue, you can only imagine what would happen to Amazon's prices if their last remaining competitor on the high street went to the wall.

 

Yeah, in the US you'd never know. The company entered the US market in 1990, and exited in 2004 without making much more than a ripple -- after over paying for real estate in major markets and struggling financially even when those stores were able to do big volumes -- right around the same time Tower filed for bankruptcy

 

Still very well stocked with cd and vinyl though. Less games than the old store which doesn't bother me a bit.

 

One major positive Amazon has over HMV is facilitating the sales of pre-owned physical media through third party sellers,
doubtful those figures are taken into account though.

 

I remember a couple of big HMV stores in NYC on visits in the late 90s/early 2000s. One on the Upper West Side if I recall correctly and another one further downtown.

 

Amazon has given up trying to sell vinyl and cds in Australia so the door is wide open for HMV.

 

Stopped going to HMV years ago, not surprised they went under in Canada. The Yonge st store was decent enough I suppose. Sunrise records has taken over some of the HMV locations, not a fan at all. 3-4 locations in the Toronto area have already closed.
Lucky to live in an area where there are plenty of independent record stores with great owners..

 

I'd like to give shout out to HMV Maidstone, UK - my nearest branch. Good selection and friendly staff. Always manage to come away with something. Worth noting that you can often find things in the shops that are not in stock on line.

 

I remember Ear 'Ere Records, but I'm pretty sure the one I went to was on the Lancaster University campus. A quick search online finds that Ear 'Ere was founded by the then student entertainment officer, Barry Lucas, who booked the acts that played gigs at the university's Great Hall including, in 1976, the Sex Pistols who were promptly banned by the student union for "sexism".

 

I know it wasn’t Barry, it would have been in the early 1980s after (according to an online search of my own) he’d sold his share. Trying to remember the name of the Ear ‘Ere proprietor in the early 80s is one of those things that is really starting to bug me now; unfortunately I’ve lost contact with Derek (owner of Earthquake in Barrow), so I can’t ask him.

Sorry to be taking this even further off topic (Earthquake was about as far removed from HMV as its possible to be), but my search led me to this artwork of the shop which I thought was worth posting if only for the lovingly reproduced album covers in the window (and if you magnify it, you can see the detail of some of those in the racks inside the shop).

 

I miss the days of HMV, Sam the Record Man, A&A's, Tower Records, Record on Wheels, the old Sunrise Records, Cheapies + all of the indie and used stores.

 

Still sad to think about, in the early 90s before mp3s I spent many hours in there just browsing and using the listening station to ensure I wanted what I had in my hands...and their return policy was no hassles back then too.

Spent a lot of time in the amazing "CD Bar" next door too up the stairs, where you'd get all the great UK and Japanese imports and loads of great indie / progressive / alternative CD singles, rarities, etc.

 

Same, it did make for a great day of record shopping in that area.

Still have great stores like Kopps, Tiny Record Shop, Shortstack, etc.

I miss Ed's Record World, Vortex & Record Peddler. @dobyblue mentioned CD bar, great place. I wonder if HMV ultimately led to the demise of some of those places..