HMV UK in Administration

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digitalbabe

Premium Supporter
Apr 12, 2009
42,350
USA
E-mail sent 1/29/2013:

"
Dear Sir / Madam,

HMV UK Limited (In Administration) (the “Company")

Further to your email, I write to confirm that after an assessment of the Company's financial position, internet orders that have been fully paid for prior to the Company entering into administration will be delivered over the next five working days. Internet orders that have not been paid for will be cancelled and a notification of this cancellation will be sent by e-mail over the next 48 hours.

Should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact the e-mail address above.

Yours faithfully
For and on behalf of the Company

M S Watson
For R J Harding
Joint Administrator
"


Hilco takes control of HMV-thanks snoo

Link


Former web customer service address was: [email protected]

Phone:

Customer Service: 0207 303 0700

*Multiple members have stated that HMV has said that all pre-orders have been cancelled.

0845 603 8576 (local rate call)
020 8495 4434

Message posted at HMV site:



hmv.jpg


seen elsewhere via web but thanks to Our members for posting.

"Cross Sale on CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-rays, box sets and games across 230 stores and online comes just weeks after the traditional Boxing Day sale.

Last month the company admitted it is likely to breach its banking covenant - throwing the entertainment retailer's financial future into doubt.

A failure to fulfil lending requirements often signals a company is close to administration, retail analyst Robert Clark told Sky News.

"A lot becomes clear after Christmas - the sale suggests that they didn't have a good one and are trying to reel in as much cash to tie things over," he said.

"I’m not sure how much time they’ve got. I don’t think they’ll be able to sway their bankers. Financial institutions are less likely to show patience in this climate."

But HMV’s chief executive Trevor Moore said in December that closing more stores or placing the business into administration was not "part of our plan" and that the firm was in "constructive discussions" with banks about its performance.

HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo told Sky News the Blue Cross Sale was not unusual for this time of year.

"Normally we'd look to run a multi-buy campaign of some kind at this time of year, but we thought we'd freshen our promotional mix up a bit and try something a bit different that will hopefully stand out from all the other sale offers on the high street right now," he said.

The retailer has taken a huge hit in the face of competition from online retailers like Amazon and Play.

But analysts argue that HMV has failed to reinvent itself in the last 15 years and invest in its stores to keep up with the modern technology revolution.

In December, despite numerous promotions,it announced total sales had fallen 13.5%, while like-for-like sales were down 10.2% in the six months to October 27.

HMV reported a loss before tax of £37.3m - an improvement on the £48.1m loss over the same period the year before. But net debt at the 91 year-old company increased from £163.7m to £176.1m.-bank-deadline."


:::: Digitalbabe ::::

Staff: Community Manager
Hidefninja.com

From LV-426 on iPhone
 
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Doesn't sound good at all, how long before HMV go bump aswell as play. This would be very bad news for Steelbook collectors as it would only leave Amazon and they don't exactly release a lot of exclusives.
 
Doesn't sound good at all, how long before HMV go bump aswell as play. This would be very bad news for Steelbook collectors as it would only leave Amazon and they don't exactly release a lot of exclusives.

Amazon UK? As far as I'm aware they haven't released any UK exclusive steelbooks.

So yeah, this is looking very worrying for UK collectors. :(
 
Doesn't sound good at all, how long before HMV go bump aswell as play. This would be very bad news for Steelbook collectors as it would only leave Amazon and they don't exactly release a lot of exclusives.

Steelbook collecting is the least of my worries, it might sound alarmist but I can see a time in the not so distant future when we have no highstreet shops at all, they said internet shopping was killing the highstreet, and to an extent it has, but only because consumers are a lot more savvy these days not just with online shopping but with shopping in general, now that the future of online retailers isnt safe either you do wonder what the future holds :ohno:

Looking at the prices offered by the majority of plays marketplace sellers I cant see Play lasting very long as a 'marketplace', even now the traders sell items for more than play do themselves..where is the logic in that? Ive been a customer of play for almost a decade, its gonna be strange without them, as they have been for quite a while my first port of call when looking for a CD or DVD/Bluray. If we lose HMV too, its gonna be bad for consumers, but maybe the loss of Play as we know it will be HMV's saviour? :dunno:
 
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Possibly if they sort their pricing and customer service out as in my experience and alot of other peoples aswell both are seriously out of wack... considering when virgin went zavvi and online only this left hmv owning the entertainment specialist high street spot they are doing very badly indeed and the trend of rising prices whilst suggesting they are infact lowering them tends to be a last ditch attempt to desperately make some cash... I can see these guys going the zavvi way online only which is alot cheaper for them but also a tragedy for its staff and its customers as we would be stuck with the likes of whsmith and dare I say it the local supermarkets if we want to physically shop for cds dvds blurays etc....

---------- Post added at 05:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 PM ----------

Lol whsmith exclusives hahaha (sorry I know its not funny) much
 
Lol whsmith exclusives hahaha (sorry I know its not funny) much

The way the high street is headed we'll be looking at Gregg's exclusives at this rate :p

For all non-UK ninjas - Gregg's is a pasty / pastry shop which seems to be on every high street over here. They rank somewhere between pet food and soup kitchen in quality!
 
i think supermarkets will eventually destroy all competition.
hmv are thier own worst enemy with overpricing everything, i bet they only sell full price stuff to people buying a gift for someone else.
so the sale items will be the main income,when they could just price thier stock competatively in the first place.
if they did that then they wouldn't need so many sales.
their steelbooks have been hit and miss, and less frequent.
so yes, without play.com and hmv, uks steelbook market is without a leader.
perhaps amazon uk would step up, perhaps now woth play going they will step up.
or perhaps we will be back to having maybe 10 titles a year.

i really hope hmv turn it around, as they are one of only 3 or 4 high street shops i care to visit. if they go bang the high street will be a sorry place.
We can blame hmv themselves, or we can blame the internet (but then play.com are internet based and they are going!)
we can blame consumers, but ultimately, you have to look to the government (or lack of it) no matter who runs the show, our economy takes a battering every year, supposedly we are in debt! but i believe there is pleeeeenty being given in aid overseas, and plenty given to people who dont work for them to have comfortable lifestyles.
plenty thrown around between themselves in expenses, and plenty for top end earners like football (soccer) stars and bankers.
perhaps if your average joe had a little left over after his 40+ hours of grafting, then paying for his fuel to get to work and all his bills/food/taxes.... then he would spend some on entertainment.
perhaps too if vat hadnt been put up to an insulting 20%, then people might buy more new things, instead of buyoing 2nd hand at cex,car boot sales, ebay etc (i seldom buy new now. only steelbooks, as i despise knowing that 20% of my money is going back to a useless government to give to jeremy kyle fodder to spend on drugs/booze/random luxuries)
i shop at hmv mainly because we have a bonus scheme at work where we get love to shop vouchers for hitting targets, so i spend them in hmv.
but never on a regular amaray priced at £25 lol.
maybe for a '2 for £10', or a fair priced steel.

regarding customer service, ive always found them to be ok, not great, but decent enough.
but then ive never had an issue with them.
a few returns, but nothing scary.
perhaps they need to more careful with the income they have, as im sure most big companies waste far too much cash.
lower prices, listen to customer feedback, give us more exclusives. make themselves desirable again.
we need at least one high street store with new blu rays on the shelf!
 
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Personally I think it is a real shame that the likes of HMV and Play are disappearing (if HMV do go). There will be elements of any retailer which has it's faults but in all they have served us well over the years

I have seen quite a few comments about HMVs tactics regarding their clearance and pricing up before knocking 25% off. This is appalling from them and no doubt the trading standards dept will have something to say. But they have been pricing high for a long while anyway, much to our hate, but still posted pre-tax losses of £37.3 million in only half a year. In theory that means they still didn't price high enough!

Where some titles may have been profitable, the majority can't have been. And no company can expect to continue at that rate without making sacrifices. Very few corporations in the world would swallow or stand for those kinds of annual losses and HMV are probably no exception.

To funkydamo's point, the likes of Amazon and the supermarkets will be the death of them, as they can balance the losses in DVD / Blu-rays / CDs etc with the profit on their book businesses or vegetable sales. That's why they can go so aggressively priced on them but continue to prosper. Not all retailers or businesses have that luxury to lure customers in with cheap entertainment and profit from selling them a drink at the same time.

Don't forget that with less competition it means Amazon don't have to be so aggressive on pricing so they will price up too in the end. Oh the joys of running a monopoly.

HMV may not deserve sympathy for everything, but 230+ stores means a shed load of jobs lost and another huge hole in the high street that probably won't ever be replaced. For those reasons I reckon it will be a sad day when they are gone
 
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I suppose its possible HMV could keep their online presence even if they shut their stores.

It's interesting because I noticed they had recently opened a new 'pop up' store in the Manchester arndale centre which I thought was strange given the mess they're in.
 
Was going to shoot into HMV tomorrow to pick up 'The Comic Strip Presents' box set, but don't think I'll bother after reading how disappointing the sale is.


Will order online............*sigh*
 
I hope they at least save their .com business, in my experience their prices are not as ridiculous as their stores (on new titles at least).

There's some really insightful posts here guys, and lots of points have been considered. Keep up the great discussion!
 
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The way the high street is headed we'll be looking at Gregg's exclusives at this rate :p

For all non-UK ninjas - Gregg's is a pasty / pastry shop which seems to be on every high street over here. They rank somewhere between pet food and soup kitchen in quality!

And I now have one right opposite me where I live, in a not particularly big town. There has also been a KFC by me for the last few years, but I've never used it. Don't know why
 
The way the high street is headed we'll be looking at Gregg's exclusives at this rate :p

For all non-UK ninjas - Gregg's is a pasty / pastry shop which seems to be on every high street over here. They rank somewhere between pet food and soup kitchen in quality!

I was informed last Saturday there is a 24 hours Greggs in Newcastle that has doorman at night :ohno:
 
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the job loss thing is what gets to me the most.
this week both play.com and jessops have made 100s of people unemployed.
if/when hmv go there will be 100s more.
no doubt piracy will be seen as a factor with play.com and hmv, but are people downloading cameras too?
hmv could well carry on online (as woolworths appear to have done - another british instiution gone)
in fact i have seen many music and movie type retailers fall down - our price, andys records, mvc.
comet gone too.
it is very sad.
no doubt poor management is to blame unltimately, the strong survive in the face of adversity. the smart man watches the pennies.
As consumers we just expect large companies to carry on, untouchable.
clearly not the case now. the signs are there that the high street will be empty in a couple of generations time.
The knock on effect will be higher taxes, and new charges for internet based business, as the government look to find revenue to replace that lost from high street shops premium rates.

i think the market is maybe over saturated with media. i remember everyone getting excited when a new film, game or cd came out.
and everyone had the latest thing.
now there are 1000s of games, films, cds every year. the quality goes down, and so does the desirability.
then of course, you can listen to the songs you want online in an instant, not wait until saturday to go into town to buy the cd.
you can play free games on your phone, instead of paying £40.
it all takes money away from your local retailer.
so. is there a fix? can the high street be saved? or are hmv doomed.
love them, hate them, or indifferent, you can't seriously want to see another outlet gone?
what happens when royal mail get so expensive that it costs near on £5 just to get your item delivered, before you even pay for the item itself?
what happens when amazon are the only place to get things apart from supermarkets?
i dont think any business is safe. not with the country and the economy in such a delicate condition.
and yes, as steelbook collectors, with no play and no hmv, we will slim pickings for uk steels.
will studios even bother releasing them in the uk if the only outlets are amazon and supermarkets?
and how much will they cost?
on a personal level 2012 wasn't great. but then i recall all the steelbooks. mainly play, but hmv too.
then i look at 2013.... no more play exclusives, a handful of hmvs, but if they are struggling they may go back to basics = no more steelbooks.
so we should savour lawless, looper, taken 2, skyfall & willow. we may not see too many more.
 
I suppose its possible HMV could keep their online presence even if they shut their stores.

It's interesting because I noticed they had recently opened a new 'pop up' store in the Manchester arndale centre which I thought was strange given the mess they're in.

There's one in Birmingham, right near the one that closed down recently. I thought it was only there for Christmas, so it may close soon. They didn't have a huge choice in there and I couldn't see any Blu-rays in there. They probably took some end of leases cheap, and thought they would make more back in sales, as well as clear some more stock

---------- Post added at 04:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:15 PM ----------

I read that it will only be over the next few weeks that we will see the real casualties, so I can see a lot more big names falling. When HMV go, there's not going to be another big high street retailer to replace them. Supermarkets will never carry the range, especially not in the back catalogue market

I think Fopp are doing what HMV should have done. Have really good promotions on certain labels like Artificial Eye, Arrow, BFI and Shameless. I know they're running them slightly differently, but if it works then use the same ideas to save the failing chain. Also I noticed that some of the titles in the 5 for £30 at HMV are £6 each in Fopp. So you pay the same price per item, but do not have to buy ones you don't want just to make up the number

What would be best would be to sell those titles in the multibuy for £7 each rather than £8. That way people could still save multi-buying, but the price wouldn't put them off as much if they want a couple of titles, and if they did buy multi titles, then they would still feel that they've made a saving
 
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My God, I remember buying my Depeche Mode and U2 CD's in HMV as a kid, with my pocket money, as well as James Bond videos, posters, soundtracks etc.....

This could be the end of an era for a lot of us....


HMV in Bath was a great way to spend your Saturday as a 13 year old kid! but even then, I'd venture up to the record shops, and (most of the time) get some CD's cheaper, albeit second hand.
 
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