I don't know, Tony. If I'm in an indie outlet, they will often have something I'll think worth buying - which HMV generally don't. I know damn well I could probably get it slightly cheaper online, but as long as I don't feel they're taking the piss then I'll buy it.

My problem is actually finding a specialist record shop.

Mr Beast wrote:


Mr Beast's future.

If only I looked that good.

Calvert wrote:


Maybe that was a little bit too sub-Sewelly.

Vinyl junkies should understand what I'm getting at, particularly those that straddled the change. There's something to be said for delayed gratification. Not that I practice it when it comes to music anymore.

I was given a HMV gift card at Christmas. Went in early January. Couldn't really find anything I wanted - except the new Killer album. So bought that and had the remainder of the giftcard to spend some other time. Which may well be never, now.

Apparently at some point in the future they may start taking them again.

I feel sorry for the guy upthread who works there, but I don't think he works in my local city centre HMV, which always seemed to employ surly teenagers who didn't like to be asked questions.

I think the problem for HMV is that it wasn't a record shop any more. It had iPod docks and computer games and comic books. All things you could buy online or in Tesco for cheaper.

I think it's a bit like Comet, really. If you wanted an expert opinion on electronics, would you have gone to Comet? If I wanted an expert opinion on music, given my experiences there, I wouldn't have gone to HMV.

Robert Peston said on the Today Programme that HMV’s demise was a blessing in disguise. His theory that struggling retailers being kept on life-support by the equally vulnerable banking system needed to be killed off was a fairly crass statement though. Correct, but insensitive to those about to lose their jobs, of which the number will be pretty sizeable.

My guess is that the branches based in the big cities will be kept going (brand awareness and all that) albeit with a much needed change of strategy. When I was in the Liverpool branch before Xmas I was claustrophobic, not with the number of customers or the half-mile long queue, but with the overwhelming amount of stock/tat on display, for which you could hardly move an inch.

Because of this overload, there was simply no demarcation between one department and another. If you have something in mind that you want to buy that isn’t 1D-based, it helps to know where to look. Needle in a haystack (a fine Northern Soul classic) sprung to mind.

It was like being in one of Mike Ashley’s hellish emporiums. Pile them high and sell them cheap has worked for Ashley well enough, but to pile them high and sell them cheap but not as cheap as you’d get online is something that simply wasn’t going to work.

Right enough, Amazon’s SARL strategy has something to answer for and is something that has been exposed yet still not acted upon. Given that this is a direct tax issue then it’s not something bound by potential EU bureaucracy or red tape but very much a matter for national government. There’s even been a Select committee over this and yet Osborne continues to do nothing. I guess he must have a Prime account.

Wow. So today's conclusions are thus. Some people are too nice ('we can't lose you!! Is there a petition? I'll sign it!! I signed one for Peacocks!!') or too nasty ('What do you mean you can't take my gift card? that's theft! your're a bunch of thieving cunts!').
Generally people were pretty supportive actually, and we were very, very busy as people began to pick off the bones from our rotting corpse. Somebody bought Hejira by Joni Mitchell and I spent ten mins or so talking to him. Inside I thought "i'm gonna miss this"....

Toby Gymshorts wrote:


The Pink Panther is much missed, my era was the Rosemary Lane location and they seemed to suffer after that from the re-location to the bigger shop, the CD boom and the competition from Virgin in particular. I used to like DMC (of which I remember there being one in Workington too) as another alternative to the big chains. Shopping round half a dozen shops to find the cheapest price for that week's CD purchase seems a long time ago now.

Yes, that resonates, definitely. It's not that there were simply decent record shops, but that they were sometimes enormous spaces you could spend hours in. The Virgin Megastore, regardless of the quality of records, was a sensory experience it's hard to find parallel with. Many floors, music from all corners of each. A cross between a library and a nightclub.

Sauntering along Walthamstow High Street on Sunday I noticed that the "indie" record shop has gone.

The HMV in the shopping centre bit the dust in the last round of closures. Which is something I thought would help the indie shop which was probably only 100yds away. Apparently not. Unless he's relocated? E10?????

High streets are already depressing places, one pound shops, bookmakers, payday loansharks and primark. With HMV seemingly doomed what's next to go?

I wonder how Currys has been able to get through so far.

All this leads to a wider issue: will shops as we know them exist at all in 50 years?

I think I read that their pre-xmas sales were up around 30%.

Not surprisingly, given the sudden absence of Comet on the high streets/shopping parks of the land.

Maybe still some reluctance to order everything online without seeing it.

I suppose I'm very lucky that Rough Trade (East) is my nearest record shop. I walked in there recently to see a bloke out of Public Enemy playing.

Jah Womble wrote:


Absolutely.

Cheltenham had (and I think still has) an excellent independent, Badlands, but when we kids went up to London we always headed for the megastores, and they seemed to have everything we could think of. The rest of London could just fit into the half hour we had left when we'd finished.

Wish we'd thought to ask for Warriors of Genghis Khan in retrospect. On Frilly Pink.

Is it OK to buy second hand from Amazon? I'm aiding tax dodging but also helping small business and recycling.

Gift cards can still be used here: www.banquetrecords.com/HMVcards

Wasn't that Neil Kinnock's theme song in his swansong election defeat?

'Meet the challenge/ Straddle the change'

Something like that, wasn't it?

[quote="Felicity, I guess so" post=751466]

Currently called 'Showrooming', where you go check the item out in person and then lowest-price it online; sometimes while still standing in the showroom, using your mobile.

I once saw the owner of an independent book shop give very short shrift to a guy who came in, browsed for a few minutes then asked to borrow a pen to write down the ISBN number of a book he fancied. Fair enough, really.

I had a meeting today where I was told the following;

- Amazon have told all the UK major labels that whatever stock HMV have ordered of forthcoming new releases they will take, in anticipation of a surge in demand that they will need to meet.

- the majors are desperately trying to find any other retail outlets to take (more) stock and retain physical sales; newsagents, petrol stations and clothes chain stores were mentioned.

.