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HMV closure: Do you care?
31 Jan 2012 by Eric Yip in Featured Stories, Local News / 2 Comments
When was the last time you went out and bought a CD or a DVD? Yesterday? Last week? Last year even? I can’t even remember the last time I bought a CD. DVDs are a little different for me because there are some movies that I like having in my collection. That being said, I wouldn’t consider myself a DVD collector by any means. I, like many others, get my music or movies over the Internet, but with the downtown location, HMV, closing, I can’t help but feel a little sad that the store won’t be there anymore.
For those of you who don’t know, recently, the British-owned megastore, HMV, closed it doors at the downtown and the Richmond location. The President of HMV Canada says that they are shutting them down due to a lack of revenue and a high amount of debt. The Robson street location especially became too taxing (no pun intended) on the company’s finances because of the rent required to sustain a store of that size. Although HMV is closing its doors at two locations, there are still nine other HMV’s in British Columbia.
With the growth of online shopping and the increased accessibility to movies and music through legal and illegal downloading and streaming, more consumers are less inclined to go out and purchase the physical product. This begs the question, how many people out there really even care that HMV is closing? Itunes, for instance, has made it so easy for someone to purchase the songs or movies they want in the comfort of their own homes. Furthermore, as youth become more tech savvy, I truly believe there will be a time where CDs and DVDs will fall through the way-side like the cassettes and vinyl’s that preceded them. Don’t get me wrong, there will definitely be people out there who will still buy the physical product but they will become harder to find.
Though I haven’t purchased items from HMV very often over the years, walking by the Robson street location and not seeing the giant HMV sign was kind of depressing because it has been a landmark in the heart of the downtown core. If I ever needed to find a CD or DVD, I knew that the three-story location was bound to have it. However, don’t be sad my fellow consumers, downtown Vancouver is too big of a market for HMV to not have a store and the President of HMV Canada has said they will be opening up a small store soon. In the meantime, you will have to find your CD, DVD and other miscellaneous product fix somewhere else.
Photo from thegamershub.net
About the Author: Eric Yip
2 Comments
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My question is what are the plans for the building? Check out these pictures taken from this location.
http://www.canada.com/health/Goodbye+History+Robson+Burrard/5920629/story.html
01 Feb 2012 03:02 am
Ramon Crespo
I personally loved HMV, i just like the nature of having a CD and not an electronic audio file… a downside to CD’s are that they are usually much more expensive then an iTunes album which is 9.99$ rather than 16.99$ from the music store. If people still want good music on vinyl and CD’s, the Beat merchant in steveston is a good place to get what you need.
19 Feb 2012 07:02 pm
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