Music stores feel pressure over increased download sales
Music retailers have admitted they are struggling in the face of plummeting profits due to increased download sales.
Sales at HMV and FOPP have fallen sharply with the expansion of the digital market, which currently accounts for 10 per cent of all music sales.
FOPP, which took over 67 of Music Zone’s stores after they went into administration in January this year, had to close its stores for a day last week and are no longer taking orders online. Chairman Gordon Montgomery has admitted the company is experiencing difficulties.
Sales figures at HMV are down by about half from 2006, despite the fact that the company annually shifts around two billion CDs and DVDs, according to BBC 6 Music.
Chief Executive Simon Fox said: "Our markets are changing profoundly. Entertainment is being generated and consumed in entirely different ways putting pressure on traditional retail space and traffic."
The chain is trying to address the problem by selling in-store digital downloads and continuing to expand its online business.
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and I still buy music from shops.
downloads my arse
it's because they're so fucking OVERPRICED and people look elsewhere.
blah blah blah
Its surely their prices not downloads
Most CD's/DVD's can be gotten online for cheaper than the prices established high street stores. I mean, even HMV online is cheaper than their high street stores for fucks sake
It would be crap
if fopp closed down. The reason why the stores probably aren't doing so well is prob more down to amazon/play and the evil supermarkets, surely downloads aren't that popular, are they? I don't think I know anyone who gets any that they pay for.
Surely
everyone has the choice of paying for a CD with all its artwork and packaging which you can easily burn to MP3, or for the same price just buying the album off iTunes.
Why would anyone choose the latter? What are the benefits of not owning the lovely CD? I wouldn't feel I'd paid for anything just buying mp3s online, given how easily available illegal copies are anyway
yes it is prices
the nature of the beast is that online retailers can charge less than shops. HMV have to lower prices online in order to compete with other online businesses, where there are no shop overheads and no shop staff to pay. So they look a bit silly for charging more in their stores; but if they didn't, the shops wouldn't be financially viable, and would have to close down anyway. It's a vicious circle.
+1
Truer words never spoken. I completely agree.
Mp3 online pricey is fucking joke as well
£7.99 the new Editors album on iTunes for a 128kbps bitrate, or should I spend £6.99 for a CD from bangcd.com where I can rip the CD at a much better bitrate?
No contest
This is why places like allofmp3.com are a good model. You pay more the better quality you want, but the prices are cheaper than a hardcopy CD.
Either iTunes or hard copy albums are overpriced, I vote iTunes nned to change their model
i think
that the hmv and fopp cases are completely separate. hmv are overpriced and were too slow to adapt, fopp seem to have expanded too quickly and suffered for it.
I'm sure it's been said already
but it's not downloads. Or at least not only downloads.
It's the fact that HMV in particular are a damn rip off. I only buy stuff from them either in sales, or if I have a gift card.
I generally buy all my stuff online, because it's usually around £5 cheaper, for CDs and DVDs. I don't download, still buy the actual products.
I would buy from Fopp more often if there was one local to me, and convenient. The nearest to me is stuck in the corner of Warwick Arts Centre. I'm sure they could find a space in Coventry town centre.
I also like Fopp's pricing structure. Fair enough, new releases are usually a bit pricy, but they use nice round figures, none of this £9.98 business, just a nice round £10. And there's always bargains to be had in Fopp.
I'd take it all with a pinch of salt
Yes, music sales might be down, but DVD sales are surely huge compared to what they used to be. Smart companies find other ways to make profits. A simple example is Kodak saw conventional photography going through the floor, and so shifted quite quickly to making a buck out of digital photos.
The record industry and stores resisted change for as long as possible, short-changed the consumer when they begrudgingly moved to digital, and now they're going to pay the price.
I think shops should realise the potential of viynl
the advantage that physical releases have over digital is packaging and artwork etc which is so much better on vinyl, shops should stock more of it and promote it maybe make cheap turntables available through their shops maybe encourage record companies do the free cdr/digital downloads with viynl im sure it would catch on.
Allofmp3
has kinda died, you can't put money on it 'cos it's not really legal
Yes, but teh model they use is great
And is the one that "legal" download sites should be using. People don't want to pay the same price for downloading that they do for the physical CD. To me, it makes no sense
And allofmp3.com still works fine for me, credit it via alltunes.com
all i want to say on the matter:
anyone who acquires most of their music from iTunes is a cunt. They don't deserve the gift of hearing
128kbps? I wouldn't piss on 128kbps if it was on fire. And you pay for it?! You're almost definitely damaging the future of music consumption by accepting such a shoddy state of affairs. So FUCK YOU
Correct
If you want 128kbps, use allofmp3.com or alltunes.com, and pay $0.04 per track as opposed to £0.79
i download music
mostly illegally (hi bpi!), guilt means i've signed up to emusic and get some of my music through them and i occasionally buy actual copies of singles and albums i really like (mostly throught online sites), but i mostly don't actually USE the cds that often. So i can't remember the last time i went to a record shop.
FOPP's great
I often go to the one in Touchwood, Solihull, and there's always a damn lot of bargains. I'm not surprised those rip off high street stores are wallowing in their whole "download" misery, it had to happen sometime soon.
Fopp WAS great.......
........totally pissed off about this.
Fopp R.I.P
dvd sales are relatively stable in terms of units...
dvd retail prices, however, are going down, down, deeper and down... so less, dare I say, margin...
fopp? i live in london
so mainstream-wise i only really know hmv, virgin megastore. both seem incredibly overpriced. compared to play.com (who deliver for free). bought a few tracks from the itunes music store before, but only because they were very rare songs. (must be said itunes library is rather good).
shame
Such a shame, Fopp is now closing, just heard on 6 Music.
links
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/06/29/afx3870202.html
http://business.scotsman.com/media.cfm?id=1013212007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/78683434-259a-11dc-b338-000b5df10621,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F78683434-259a-11dc-b338-000b5df10621.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.google.co.uk%2Fnwshp%3Fhl%3Den
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2002754.ece
It's closing down...
Very sad news for them and the employees who won't get their salaries for work they have already done.
anyone who buys off all of mp3 is a complete muppet
they just get all their stuff off limewire you idiots, you're paying someone to use something you have access to for free.
not really about downloads though...
more like - over-ambitious businessmen shoot selves in foot.
ah, well - still got Selectadisc here.
dude
there are at least 3 huge fopp stores in London. and not even in obscure places but tott court rd, camden and covent garden.
not anymore though so i have no idea why I'm writing this.
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