High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Gavin Scott · Fri 09 Nov, 2012 18.52

I must say I agree about the unseemlyness of the bargain hunters.

I suppose it's the best thing for the staff and creditors. They stand a fighting chance of getting what they are owed if people snap up the stock.

I won't go in myself though.

WillPS · Fri 09 Nov, 2012 21.50

A cheap holiday in other people's misery.

Realised I did (sort of) buy something from Comet, a laptop from "Laskys".

Whataday · Sat 10 Nov, 2012 14.13

DJDave wrote:Love the fact that we had that sent in at Peacocks and then the administrators said after about 3 days, hang on your own POS looks better, take this stuff down and use your own.

Well Peacocks kept some form of marketing presence at its Cardiff HQ as it became pretty clear the business would be bought as a going concern.

Talking of Cardiff, it was announced this week that the large BHS on Cardiff Queen Street is to close in January, and Arcadia are looking for a smaller city centre unit which they hope to open half way through 2013. I believe the lease on the building is coming to an end.

JAS84 · Tue 18 Dec, 2012 16.52

The last Comet stores close today.

Alexia · Tue 18 Dec, 2012 18.48

Spinning the topic on its head, I bought my first CD single in five years today in HMV. I did have to ask where they were, and found a very folorn pile of about 20 CDs, 4 or 5 of each big song, on the corner of the till desk.

A very good reason however

Incidentally the last CD single I bought was also at Xmas -- it was The Pogues' Fairytale of New York in 2007.

Sput · Tue 18 Dec, 2012 19.24

Alexia wrote:Spinning the topic on its head

No need, we have a button for that:

Alexia · Tue 18 Dec, 2012 23.33

It was only for that one post.

I was merely commenting on the state of the solid state singles industry and how HMV was presenting them, shoehorning in for good measure the reason for visiting the store whilst at the same time promoting an agenda. Carry on.

WillPS · Wed 19 Dec, 2012 10.12

Cool.

HMV is up the spout again. I'll repost a comment I made on a blog here, since it pretty much covers my thoughts on the matter.

Of the record shop casualties, HMV is the one I have least sympathy for. Staff training is poor any many I’ve encountered verge on rude. The range isn’t exciting or in fact able to offer anything beside chart/mainstream stuff (that stuff was important as a scene kid), and the shops always felt bland (although they’ve generally got better).

It’s never been cheap, and things like click-and-collect, use of store vouchers online – which should really have been easy wins, weren’t possible because they insisted on competing with the Jersey-based operators.

As a chain, they were foolish to attempt to grow upon Zavvi’s failure. The pie was shrinking, everybody could see that – expansion is not the correct course of action.

So why should I spend my hard-earned trying to rescue the last of a dying breed when:
a) when they had competition, I always preferred the competition
b) I’ve never enjoyed the retail experience in those shops
c) it’s clear to me as a non-retailer they’ve made some pretty critical business errors in the recent past
d) they’ve had a decent amount of time to adapt, and yet have only recently done-so.

I also disagree that there’s a need for a national chain distributing goods which are widely available without a physical medium. My Grandmother, who long rejected offers of computers and the internet, is now considering a smart telly. She loves the idea of paying a fiver a month to access the likes of Netflix and/or LoveFilm.

If she’s in a position where she no longer feels threatened by the technology, I don’t see why anybody should be.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure Tesco etc. will continue to stock chart DVDs.

Critique · Sun 23 Dec, 2012 11.55

I'm not quite sure what thread this suits best, so I'll stick it here...

I don't know of this happens every year, but Amazon's homepage at the moment interests me. Of course, the deadline for ordering things in time for Christmas has now passed, so they're really focusing on Gift Cards now, which of course, are given online, so there's no wait. On top of this, regarding their Kindle, there's a box on the homepage which takes you to a page which has a list of retailers that sell it, so you can go and buy one off of them - this strikes me as slightly odd.

Pete · Sun 23 Dec, 2012 13.01

Not in the slightest. Amazon sell the Kindle nearly at cost, they make no money on the hardware. Where they rake it in is by tying you into their ecosystem and buying the ebooks off them.

Therefore it doesn't matter where you get the kindle from, be it Tesco or Waterstones or Amazon, you'll still be throwing the money at Amazon for years to come.

gottago · Thu 27 Dec, 2012 00.46

Pete wrote:Not in the slightest. Amazon sell the Kindle nearly at cost, they make no money on the hardware. Where they rake it in is by tying you into their ecosystem and buying the ebooks off them.

Therefore it doesn't matter where you get the kindle from, be it Tesco or Waterstones or Amazon, you'll still be throwing the money at Amazon for years to come.

Indeed. My friend accidently stood on her Kindle and broke it, rang them up to see if she could pay to get it repaired but when she explained that it was an accident they thanked her for her honesty and sent her a new one for free!