If that's the case, then CDs need to be made cheaper to sell, by using card instead of plastic to make CDs.

 

What the hell are you talking about? You're not just paying for the manufacturing of the actual CD. Think of all the money spent on recording and marketing of the album, and the money paid in rent and staff in the shops. HMV could not survive if it sold all its CDs at £7.

Cd's in the UK i find are much cheaper, i know in the local shops i use to buy cd;s which are now Tesco, Heatons and Xtra Vision and new cd release cost 13-15 euro which is expensive. I dont live near a hmv but outside the deals 2 for 20 etc cds are usually around€15. I do think price plays a price in the decline of hmv, i do alot of online shopping for cd's and dvds and i find hmv way more expensive than others and i think many people have the same perception of the high street version too on the back of that.

 

We've probably got the lowest CD prices in Europe.

album sales going down has NOTHING to do with high prices since they are lower now than ever in the UK .... When I was in the UK in the summer I went to HMV Oxford Street and I bought many new releases for 5 £ each such as Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars, Madonna , Nicki Minaj, Keane and many others which in mainland Europe or in my country Lebanon would have cost me 20 $ each.. So the price excuse is irrelevant... It's all about Internet downloads, mostly free ones + cherry picking thru iTunes which mostly killed the album market in an irreversible way....

£5 is what I recall albums costing 30 years ago, so in real terms they are incrediably cheap compared to then.

Surely albums are lower priced relatively now than they've virtually ever been?

They are indeed. If anything is ridiculous, it's that people see paying a tenner as being too much. If anyone wants to know why HMV is struggling and similar shops have closed, just look at the price of CDs, it's the main factor in what's killed them.

Honestly?

 

Back when I was your age, the year was 2004 and album sales were at there strongest. You could not get a new album for cheaper than £12. Albums for people my age were usually saved for birthdays/Christmases (and singles had already become to expensive to bother with). So price has very little to do with it. And to assume your are an average person is a bit crazy since your not even earning. It's almost as stupid a statement as when you said Radio 1 should cater to teens and only teens (these teens who cannot afford albums at their cheapest).

 

Exposure to new music I feel is what is lacking. No Top of the Pops, no interest in music channels and every TV show only seeming to bother booking Emeli bloody Sande as a guest. That and the fact that single download sales have surged.

 

I never thought I'd say it, but some young people don't know they're born.

 

Indeed, when I first started buying albums, 10-15 years ago, if you could buy an album for £10 you had a really good deal, yet not only have albums gone down in real terms, they've gone down in actual terms. It's incredible how much cheaper music is now, yet absolutely nothing about the rest of their business model will be similar, their rent, interest, transport, wages, utilities, they certainly won't have gone down in the last 15 years, neither will any of the costs of the actual music being made!

Its sad that the market for physical music is giving in. Me and my family have long used physical albums as a gift and I still much prefer having a physical copy than a digital. The end of HMV wouldn't necessarily mean its over, but its undoubtedly foreshadowing the end of the physical album :(

I suppose the only positive thing here is that even if the physical does die in the UK, you can always import from other countries. Much more expensive but it's better than nothing and I'd rather do that than download.

 

Just as a random note on how physicals do in other countries - the current #1 album in France sold 137k physical albums, and 9k digital. France are a few years behind the UK in terms of the physical to digital transition, but it shows that physicals aren't dead everywhere just yet.

Edited December 17, 201212 yr by Umi

Just as a random note on how physicals do in other countries - the current #1 album in France sold 137k physical albums, and 9k digital. France are a few years behind the UK in terms of the physical to digital transition, but it shows that physicals aren't dead everywhere just yet.

 

Yeah but it's Mylene Farmer tbh, the biggest artist in France ever, not mentioning the fact that her core audience median age is 35 and above.... Just look at the sales during the rest of the year in France, pretty much awful as it is in the UK... A few weeks back , a number 10 album would sell about 4 k to reach it... So it's not the market who's much better really....

So HMV are continuing to struggle and are set to run a 25% off promotion to reduce stock/raise cash and now play.com have announced that they will no longer be selling direct and instead will become a 'marketplace' and their name will be used by other retailers to shift stock - Looks like it will soon be an Amazon & Apple world when it comes to music retailers!

With the way things are going for play.com i can see cd wow going the same way. Im gona miss play.com as i have used them for years and never had a problem with them. Now more than ever im starting to believe the physical Cd's etc are definetly going to come to an end. I hope this never happens but im starting to really think it will.

Not sure about another countries, but CD market is dead in my home Russia. :(

I have near 200 CDs in my little collection, but 90-95 % our population download millions illegal stuff [music, films, videogames, books, magazines] :angry:

 

With the way things are going for play.com i can see cd wow going the same way. Im gona miss play.com as i have used them for years and never had a problem with them. Now more than ever im starting to believe the physical Cd's etc are definetly going to come to an end. I hope this never happens but im starting to really think it will.

 

Vinyl hasn't (quite)...

 

In any case, CD sales in the run-up to Xmas are so large that the music industry cannot afford to ignore physical formats!

 

 

In any case, CD sales in the run-up to Xmas are so large that the music industry cannot afford to ignore physical formats!

But you have to wonder, how long can that be sustained for? If there is no longer a demand for CD albums, then in the few weeks before Christmas, the sales figures are only going to decrease year on year (as they already are) in favour of iTunes gift cards etc.

 

Play.com to shut retail business

Tina Hart

 

 

E-tailer Play.com will become a marketplace-only business from March 2013 after changes in VAT-free rules led it to shut down its direct retail service.

 

In March 2012, the High Court in London ruled to close the Low Value Consignment Relief (LVCR) tax loophole that originally allowed goods under the value of £15 to be sold into the UK from the Channel Islands without paying VAT.

 

Play.com, based in Jersey, has now made 147 redundancies at its HQ and a further 67 in other UK offices.

 

A statement from Play.com read: "Moving forward we are intending to focus exclusively on our successful marketplace, which is our main business area, and to phase out the direct retail part of our business."

 

In September the States of Jersey said about 400 people had lost their jobs elsewhere in the island because of the end of LVCR.

 

Source: BBC News

With the way things are going for play.com i can see cd wow going the same way. Im gona miss play.com as i have used them for years and never had a problem with them. Now more than ever im starting to believe the physical Cd's etc are definetly going to come to an end. I hope this never happens but im starting to really think it will.

 

wow hd doesn't have a marketplace, though. I don't see it closing down completely as it's one of the cheaper online CD stores.

The HMV 25% promotion is now on. Loads of stuff reduced, but not new releases and the current sales stuff.

I think it's all over :(

 

Laura Kuenssberg ‏@ITVLauraK

 

Impossible to tell at moment how much, if any of the stores can be saved

 

Deloitte, expected to be appointed as HMV administrators tomorrow morning won't make any comment tonight

 

HMV has more than 235 stores and more than 4,000 employees

 

I'm told Deloitte will move in - biz attempts to turn HMV round have failed

 

HMV to appoint administrators tomorrow morning

 

Seen that on C4. Always said it would be when, not if. Thought it would be last year to be honest...

You would think people in the music industry would step in to stop this from happening. Surely HMV is important to them for selling their products. Although they haven't helped themselves, I ordered four things online, and considering they do free postage, they sent me everything out seperatly for some reason.

You would think people in the music industry would step in to stop this from happening. Surely HMV is important to them for selling their products. Although they haven't helped themselves, I ordered four things online, and considering they do free postage, they sent me everything out seperatly for some reason.

 

Universal already did step in but it's not enough

 

This is great news for That's Entertainment - though they will probably do a Music Zone and expand too quickly and run out of money

Edited January 14, 201312 yr by AcerBen

:( This is awful, not only for the staff, but for the industry.