please empty your brain below
Your digital choice will shrink in the near future with the closure of Play.com's Channel Island based business after the Government lowered the minimum VAT limit - all the more funds for those who favour avoiding tax big time. Allowing companies with a cavalier attitude to tax to destroy the tax base and jobs in the UK - someone needs to get a grip.

Mwmbwls | Homepage | 16.01.13 - 7:28 a.m. | #

Given your concerns about the cuts having to be made in the UK currently, I'm surprised to hear you thinking of giving the punter who couldn't find Lemon Jelly Amazon's web address. Perhaps choose a company who actually pays UK tax on UK sales?

I'm amazed at the number of people who are currently bemoaning cuts while still buying from retailers who avoid paying the appropriate tax, or who make token gestures to appease the public, when the media spotlight is focused on them and public boycots start to happen.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 16.01.13 - 7:38 a.m. | #

I don't think clothes stores are going anywhere for a while. If they don't fit, you're still stuck with going to the post office to return them (unless the shop pays for a courier). Though for Primark quality nobody will care

G | 16.01.13 - 7:43 a.m. | #

Is it time to dig out that list of predicted retail bankruptcies you drew up in the wake Woolworths' demise? (I'm still at a loss to understand how Boots keep going...)

My son's girlfriend was given an HMV voucher for Christmas... went and nearly spent it a couple of weeks ago but thought, no, I'll just think about it for a bit longer... Finally made her choice yesterday to be turned away at the counter. So that's twenty quid they've got for nothing. Not good, considering they're still happy to take people's cash but not to honour money paid over a few weeks ago.

Sarah | Homepage | 16.01.13 - 9:17 a.m. | #

I remember when CD's bought in Europe cost three times what they cost in the USA.
The recording industry deserves everything that it gets in spades.

Michael in the Netherlands | 16.01.13 - 9:22 a.m. | #

I will be sorry to see HMV go as I've been a long term customer. However in recent years I have struggled to find anything worth buying. Part of that is the lack of music / DVDs that I want to buy - not really HMV's issue. The second part is the stores and the product range which are now dire. I have been in to two HMVs in the last fortnight trying to find something to buy and have walked out empty handed.

I don't download music at all as I like to have a tangible disc in my hand. I think I have bought products from Amazon a couple of times years ago and that's it. Therefore my tax paying conscience is clear.

If HMV disappears completely then my music buying days are probably over but some of that is down to the lack of interesting music. I think I'm too old to appreciate the charts these days ;-)

PC | 16.01.13 - 10:23 a.m. | #

Another reason why more music is being purchased on the internet is many bands and musicians sell their albums on their own websites. I buy all my Numan DVDs & CDs from his site. I get it cheaper (even though it's shipping from UK to US) and I know the money is going to the artist not some corporation.

Sometimes I buy online because of Amazon's Autorip feature. Some titles allow me to buy the CD then download the mp3 version immediately for free. I can then listen to the album before it arrives in the mail...and that,is brilliant!

Jackal | 16.01.13 - 10:36 a.m. | #

I get frustrated when I hear something I'd like to buy on radio (usually whilst driving) and the bleedin radio station fails to say what it was they are playing...it takes months for me to find out - if I ever find out. I don't buy books because other people "*" them either. Same as I don't buy clothes because other people think they're 'fashionable' etc etc...The internet is not the solution to my "buying behaviour" and shops like HMV completely miss the mark for me just as Play & Amazon do.

B | 16.01.13 - 11:17 a.m. | #

I have been a regular customer of HMV for years, and have probably bought many albums and films there. However, I am more likely today to buy music from Amazon or iTunes, or stream it through Spotify. HMV have failed to make inroads into the market for digital music, and that has been its downfall.

Nonetheless, I will be sorry if and when HMV disappears, as it has always been a favourite haunt of mine. I wasn't surprised to find myself feeling the same sense of disappointment upon hearing the news of HMV's fall into admininstration that I did when I heard Woolworths was closing down.

I just wonder what our High Streets will look like in ten years' time…

Andrewh | Homepage | 16.01.13 - 12:07 p.m. | #

Great piece DG, says it all. I always felt unwelcome as a woman in local independent record shops, so I never developed the habit. Now that I can't walk far I rely on the Internet, but my music collection has got more limited since learning about Amazon's tax arsery. I do order direct from quite a few bands, which I hope will be the future. That will need stations like 6Music to keep going strong, however.

misspiggy | 16.01.13 - 1:49 p.m. | #

I think the "who's next" post was this one (see the comments) - http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/depart-store.html - and then there was the post on who was occupying the former Woolworths premises about a year later- http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2009/11/woolworths-100.html

Andrew | 16.01.13 - 3:03 p.m. | #

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

Andrew | 16.01.13 - 3:07 p.m. | #

"Next they have to come to terms with the fact that silver discs with music on aren't as popular as they'd hoped, especially at £15 a time."

Says it all.

CDs are extremely overpriced, especially when mp3 albums can be picked up legally for a fiver.


I've never really liked HMV - their shops have been depressing, and they look pretty much the same now as they did when I was a student 20 years ago. Preferred Virgin to be honest. Pity they went the same way.

Music is pretty much nothing more than an advert for gigs - where the real money is to be made. And as it's an advert it should be priced as such.

Brad | 16.01.13 - 3:29 p.m. | #

HMV stores tended to be cramped, noisy, and hot. Hardly conducive to old-fasioned folk trying to browse. And when they did play something good in the stores, did you ever try finding out what they were playing: almost impossible, how stupid is that?!

Would like to know more where their £300 million debt came from, that doesn't suddenly appear on the balance sheet overnight, they must have had ample warning to reconfigure poor performing stores and slim down as necessary.

Max Roberts | Homepage | 16.01.13 - 4:36 p.m. | #

But there was a post somewhere where the comments were full of people guessing what ship would be next .. Jessops featured a lot. I can't find that post! Can anyone find that post?

Geofftech | 16.01.13 - 9:17 p.m. | #

Number 7) HMV
Number 11) Comet
Number 17) Borders
Number 18) Blockbuster
Number 20) Jessops
Number 22) Clintons Cards
Number 23) Oddbins

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2009/01/high-street-deathlist-2009.html

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.01.13 - 9:31 p.m. | #

Foot Locker, of course, being Woolworths (the US bit) under a different name.

Kirk | 16.01.13 - 10:18 p.m. | #

The comments from the day before are better:

http://tridentscan.jaggedseam.com/dg/5613642573946422110/

Jessops gets mentioned five times, including one from myself. I knew it!

geofftech | 16.01.13 - 11:15 p.m. | #

"And when they did play something good in the stores, did you ever try finding out what they were playing: almost impossible, how stupid is that?!"

While this is often true, I would like to give credit to the staff in the basement floor of the Oxford Street flagship HMV store. The CDs that were playing were always displayed on the wall behind the checkouts, and the staff were nearly always knowledgeable about what they were too - even when they were a very odd mix of country, easylistening and world music!

SamB | Homepage | 17.01.13 - 9:39 a.m. | #











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