I found myself in an unusual situation this weekend - I'm a bit of a vinyl junkie and spend more than I can afford in the record shops of Berwick Street (Phonica and Sister Ray amongst others) as well as being a frequent shopper at Rough Trade East. But I don't live in London anymore and at the last minute I decided that I wanted to get my Dad a CD for father's day.
Unable to get anything delivered in time and living in Canterbury, I had only a choice of one shop. We used to have an Our Price, which turned into a Virgin Megastore then closed. Then later, in a different location we had a Virgin Megastore which turned into a Zavvi and then closed. There was a place called Volume One which eventually became a Fopp, and two independent record stores, Richard's Records and Parrot Records at opposite ends of the highstreet, as well as Dave's second hand Records and CD's in the Indoor Market - all long since closed. Yesterday morning, wanting to buy a CD by one of the biggest selling rock and roll bands of all time, I was basically limited to the selection in a small HMV in the Marlow Arcade.
Canterbury is a pretty wealthy city, with thousands of students at its 3 universities in addition to 6+ secondary schools, but only one dedicated music store. The papers are full of talk about HMV's profits being in serious (if not terminal) decline, and I find the prospect a town without a record store - let alone it being the one that I have lived in on and off for my whole life - horrifying.
That said, my visit to HMV seemed to say a lot about the chain's diminishing popularity. The Canterubry store is set on two levels. when it first opened and for most of my teens, the ground floor was dedicated entirely given over to CDs, with a very small vinyl section at the back. Today, all the CDs have been relegated to a tiny section at the back, containing Rock/Pop, Hip Hop/RnB, Metal etc - in short, every genre of music stuffed into the very rear of the store. The rest of the floor is divided into DVD/Blu-ray sale items (40%), books (20%) games (20%). Rails of t-shirts filled the spaces between the ailes, leaving no passing space. It was impossible to browse along an aisle that someone else was already in, you had to navigate all the way round to get past the t-shirts. The whole place seemed stufed to the rafters, but with no thought put in to how a shopper might actually find anything specific - discounted dvd box sets sit in piles where there used to be well organised gondola ends devoted to specific artists.
Much has been written about the brilliance and importance of great staff in music stores, and this is where independent shops are still so much better. There were no staff to be seen in the main part of HMV, and just two at the tills. With the music section so far from the main doors, and the display systems in complete disarray, it took me five minutes to locate the Rolling Stones section. When I found it there were eight CDs, two of which were copies of the same album. I had to queue to pay over the odds for what I wanted, and left feeling robbed.
So why is HMV finding it so hard to get it right? I understand that sales of CDs are diminishing, and they have stiff competition from the likes of Play and Amazon etc. but it can't help that the shopping experience is bloody awful. Even big chains like Virgin used some clever tricks to interest shoppers - like the areas that let you scan a barcode to listen to any CD in the shop.
As a long time vinyl junkie I've spent huge amounts of time and a vast amount of money in record shops and it pains me to see anyone getting it so wrong. Yes, I'm sure a huge proportion of your sales are cheap DVD box sets and I know that people aren't consuming music in the same way, but hey - buying records at somewhere like Rough Trade is a magical experience. The store is like a giant playground - I walk in and I get that rush of excitement. I can (and do) spend hours going from listening station to listening station, studying sleeve notes and the little recommendation tags written by staff. Then I can sit and get a coffee and read through a pile of free music papers, before hauling a giant pile of CDs and records to the counter, where I can listen to the whole lot on a set of record decks. More piles of staff recommendations cover the counter and I'll invariably add two or three more purchases before I pay. There's a proper old school photo booth and a wall coverd in gig flyers. Is it anything more complex than creating a music shop for people who love music?
