Please don’t stop the music

**Music and DVD heavyweight HMV entered administration this week, placing over 4000 jobs at risk, following poor business performance and financial losses.** Its appointed administrator, Deloitte, will keep the 239 HMV stores in the UK and Ireland open whilst it assesses the prospects for the business, and seeks potential buyers.

Since the opening of its first store in 1921, HMV has retained a hold of the affections, and wallets of the Great British public. The loss of such a traditional and iconic British store has certainly caused a lot of fuss.

It is, however, not the only recent victim of the move to digital downloading, as the failures of Virgin Mega Stores and Zavvi demonstrate also the long-term shift in the way that we attain our musical content.

Upon reflection, there was a painful inevitability about the whole affair.
With the expansion of downloading potential, HMV was unable to cope, investing far too little in the area to pose any real threat to the likes of iTunes, Spotify, and of course, the demonic combination of the Pirate Bay, and uTorrent.

The majority of people won’t really care about the demise of HMV, seeing it as just another high street store struggling in tough economic conditions. But the administration of HMV represents more than that; it is the end of an era, and will have a major impact on the way we buy and listen to music.

{{ quote HMVs story will soon fade, a future case study for Business students }}

As the music industry shifts towards a new age, it seems the rest of the high street isn’t too far behind, with buyers taking to online retailing in the same way avid music fans have taken to downloading. Jessops, Comet, and JJB sports for instance, have all fallen prey to the rapid growth of the online market.

With UK online sales achieving year-on-year growth of 17.8 per cent for 2012, and accounting for 11.9 per cent of total retail sales in January this year, the threat that the ecommerce trend poses to our high streets is only becoming more prevalent.

If stores like HMV keep failing, we can expect to see ever-increasing supply gaps, begging to be filled by this rapidly growing industry. If this trend continues, then perhaps it is only a matter of time before there are no more brands on the high street – all of them having been squeezed out by the internet.

The experience of ‘going into town’ is simply not enough to match up to the convenient shopping experience that the modern consumer craves, and that the internet is so easily able to provide.

Although very much a hot topic at the moment, the HMV story will undoubtedly fade into the back of our minds, moving from a current issue to become a case study for Business School undergraduates.

It is imperative to other retailers to ensure they do not go in the same direction as HMV. As an example of the consequences of a change in consumer preferences, HMV demonstrates that perhaps even an improved economy will not be enough to save our high street, and that more has to be done.

It seems the problem is illustrated with HMV’s logo. With the gramophone as out-dated as the music industry, should Nipper the dog now be streaming from Spotify instead?