HMV are back :D

Tipsy McSwagger

liddypool wrote: »

saw the henry st. manager interviewed on the 6 news last friday saying they re-hired 70% of their former employees and that he himself had been there for 13 years.whatever about the ordinary staff, who I always found to be clueless and unengaging why would any business rehire a manager who helped run the place into the ground in the first place. as for their prices 2 dvds for €12,the beatles love cd which has been out for years €25.99 and €11.99 for the new Strypes cd doesn't seem competitive to me.(they were the only prices i could make out on the telly)after the novelty of seeing HMV back wears off in a week or two and consumers see it's just the same old same old they will buy cheaper online.HMV might make it through Christmas but come January I wouldn't be surprised if they have to close again,this time for good.

The manager didn't run the place into the ground gloomynuts. Being unable to compete with online sellers and high rent are the reason why HMV went into administration. I would also suspect another contributing factor was ordering too much stock which led to massive debts to suppliers.

C14N

liddypool wrote: »

saw the henry st. manager interviewed on the 6 news last friday saying they re-hired 70% of their former employees and that he himself had been there for 13 years.whatever about the ordinary staff, who I always found to be clueless and unengaging why would any business rehire a manager who helped run the place into the ground in the first place. as for their prices 2 dvds for €12,the beatles love cd which has been out for years €25.99 and €11.99 for the new Strypes cd doesn't seem competitive to me.(they were the only prices i could make out on the telly)after the novelty of seeing HMV back wears off in a week or two and consumers see it's just the same old same old they will buy cheaper online.HMV might make it through Christmas but come January I wouldn't be surprised if they have to close again,this time for good.

How could a single store manager have run a company the size of HMV into the ground? And if he had been there 13 years, he clearly oversaw some good times too.

Regarding prices, most of us who like HMV like them for things like sales. We didn't think the prices of everything were cheap (not everything is cheap on Amazon either) but if you look around you'll often find some good offers. I rarely browsed around the HMV Blu Ray section without coming across a bargain.

liddypool

I'm not saying he alone was responsible but rather the whole management team who didn't flag that they were in trouble until it was too late and made no attempt to adjust prices or whatnot to make them more competitive before they went bust.blaming high rents is a red herring,why rent the Grafton St premises in the first place.it wasn't as if they didn't know the cost and if a sudden unsustainable rent increase was thrust upon them why didn't they just close the Grafton St. branch if it was bleeding money instead of waiting for the whole business to collapse.I thought managers were supposed to do projections.the real reason that they went out of business was that they were too expensive and consumers went elsewhere

liddypool

liddypool wrote: »

I'm not saying he alone was responsible but rather the whole management team who didn't flag that they were in trouble until it was too late and made no attempt to adjust prices or whatnot to make them more competitive before they went bust.blaming high rents is a red herring,why rent the Grafton St premises in the first place.it wasn't as if they didn't know the cost and if a sudden unsustainable rent increase was thrust upon them why didn't they just close the Grafton St. branch if it was bleeding money instead of waiting for the whole business to collapse.I thought managers were supposed to do projections.the real reason that they went out of business was that they were too expensive and consumers went elsewhere

HMV were incredibly competitive and their pricing was often cheaper than that of amazon. Their new release BluRays were between. €13-18 and had a number of great offers including their 5 for €35 which had a number of titles that were still £13-18 on amazon. CD prices were great with their 2 for €16 being the best value around.

The rent problem was a major issue and is for many businesses. Landlords would prefer to have empty buildings than to negotiate a rent decrease. Rhe grafting street store was losing money, mainly because of the ridicolous rent but it was also their flagship Irush store and as such wanted to keep it open. The rest of the stores were all turning a profit and would have continued to do so had the stores remained open

The reason the doors closed over here has a lot to do with the scumbags who walked out of stores with product when they were told that they were unable to use gift cards. The plan had been for Irish stores to continue trading but when you have scum walking out without paying and national press championing them its bit in your best interest to operate as usual.

C14N

liddypool wrote: »

I'm not saying he alone was responsible but rather the whole management team who didn't flag that they were in trouble until it was too late and made no attempt to adjust prices or whatnot to make them more competitive before they went bust.blaming high rents is a red herring,why rent the Grafton St premises in the first place.it wasn't as if they didn't know the cost and if a sudden unsustainable rent increase was thrust upon them why didn't they just close the Grafton St. branch if it was bleeding money instead of waiting for the whole business to collapse.I thought managers were supposed to do projections.the real reason that they went out of business was that they were too expensive and consumers went elsewhere

If anything, the competitive pricing hurt them. HMV have way bigger costs than the likes of Amazon. They need to pay prime real-estate rental (Amazon have a warehouse in Jersey) and they don't get to live in a tax haven either. They need more staff to operate, especially at Christmas time and they have a greater threat of theft. Despite all of this, they managed to compete with Amazon quite well (and I'm saying this as someone who spends most of my disposable income on Blu-rays, CDs and games and always looking for a good price). Prices were greatly adjusted, but that's really not up to individual store managers to autonomously decide on a wide scale.

Blaming high rents is absolutely not a red herring. The space on Grafton Street is one of the most expensive in the country, possibly the most. Obviously they could afford the premises for a long time and did so fairly successfully but then suddenly they got hit with a two-pronged attack of a recession and massively increased availability of high-speed internet. The rug got pulled out from under them on that one. Closing a premises isn't exactly easy either. There really wasn't anywhere else they could move to that would be the same size in the same general area and it doesn't look good from an investor standpoint to close down your flagship store.

And consumers don't really have anywhere else to go if they like bricks and mortar shops. Tower are okay but there really aren't many of them and Golden Discs are atrocious.

GTR63

Deleted User wrote: »

HMV were incredibly competitive and their pricing was often cheaper than that of amazon. Their new release BluRays were between. €13-18 and had a number of great offers including their 5 for €35 which had a number of titles that were still £13-18 on amazon. CD prices were great with their 2 for €16 being the best value around.

The boxsets were just the best. The part where HMV were the best in gaming was that a few weeks after release they'd nearly always drop the price a small bit whereas others would be asking €55 for a 2 month old game.

liddypool

I take your point about Grafton St being the flagship store.It was a much nicer shop to look around and had a larger selection of everything than Henry St.which always seemed cramped and a little claustrophobic to me.Seeing the same item at two different prices in both shops which was a fairly regular occurance used to infuriate the hell out of me. I agree that for new cds HMV were always at least a euro cheaper than Tower and yes their 5 blu-ray deal was good if you liked old or not so old classics but the price of their latest dvd and blu-ray boxsets especially for U.S. series such as Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones was always dearer than online and I'm not championing the likes of Amazon with their horrible soulless warehouses where the staff are treated as if they were entering a Nazi concentration camp and their dubious tax avoiding shenanigans.I much prefer going into a shop for a look.I noticed earlier that Tower have lowered their prices a little since HMV reopened e.g The Strypes cd is the same price in both shops 11.99 usually they'd throw 2 euro on top so maybe the renewed competition will be of benefit to all consumers.still online the same cd is 7.99 sterling, not sure what the exchange rate is but i'm sure it's nowhere near 33% difference.

liddypool

I would have said the real scumbags were the managers of HMV who allowed Christmas vouchers to be sold in their stores knowing they were closing within the month.I don't see how you can blame the out of pocket disgruntled punters taking what was paid for.what were the security guys doing when people were walking out with stuff.hardly worth getting a box for minimum wage was what they were thinking no doubt.

johnny_ultimate

While the fact that HMV was in trouble was common knowledge for a long time, the owners were genuinely trying to keep the stores open, and Christmas last year was a sort of make or break. Refusing to sell vouchers would have been an unwise move given the effect it would have had on consumer confidence and the business' future prospects. It's in a business' interest to keep up appearances and 'business as usual' for as long as possible. Their handling of the vouchers was far from ideal at the time, but walking out of a store with armfuls of unpaid DVDs and games was far from a sensible solution either.

Also, even upper level management would have had little or nothing to do with anything - they were just doing their jobs, especially the lower level managers. The fate of HMV was entirely in the hands of the owners, board of directors and CEO. Frankly, you can blame consumers more than a store manager for the company's eventual downfall.

Richard Dower

Deleted User wrote: »

The reason the doors closed over here has a lot to do with the scumbags who walked out of stores with product when they were told that they were unable to use gift cards. The plan had been for Irish stores to continue trading but when you have scum walking out without paying and national press championing them its bit in your best interest to operate as usual.

THEY DID PAY! :mad: - they had fecking gift cards!.....they took stuff to the value of the giftcard + you make it seem like hundreads of people were doing this.

It was a handful, and the paps probably put people upto it to get a story :rolleyes:

Richard Dower

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

While the fact that HMV was in trouble was common knowledge for a long time, the owners were genuinely trying to keep the stores open, and Christmas last year was a sort of make or break. Refusing to sell vouchers would have been an unwise move given the effect it would have had on consumer confidence and the business' future prospects. It's in a business' interest to keep up appearances and 'business as usual' for as long as possible. Their handling of the vouchers was far from ideal at the time, but walking out of a store with armfuls of unpaid DVDs and games was far from a sensible solution either.

Also, even upper level management would have had little or nothing to do with anything - they were just doing their jobs, especially the lower level managers. The fate of HMV was entirely in the hands of the owners, board of directors and CEO. Frankly, you can blame consumers more than a store manager for the company's eventual downfall.

Again...the were NOT stolen or upaid for, these people had giftcards and took games or DVds to the value of the giftcard. It *WAS* paid for.....!!

Richard Dower

liddypool wrote: »

I would have said the real scumbags were the managers of HMV who allowed Christmas vouchers to be sold in their stores knowing they were closing within the month.I don't see how you can blame the out of pocket disgruntled punters taking what was paid for.what were the security guys doing when people were walking out with stuff.hardly worth getting a box for minimum wage was what they were thinking no doubt.

The security guys were out of a job....i'm sure they understood people doing what they did. I find it interesting the paps had photogs to capture the moment.....i think some of those punters were put upto it by the paps to get a story.

NTMK

Richard Dower wrote: »

Again...the were NOT stolen or upaid for, these people had giftcards and took games or DVds to the value of the giftcard. It *WAS* paid for.....!!

Talking to people who worked in HMVs they took far more than what the gift cards were worth. Under ther rules of Admistration all creditors are Treated the same whether its €10 or €10mill. a gift card entitles you to nothing but becoming a creditor of HMV in which you can call in the debt at any time except for situations like administration

This is the reason the shut their doors earlier this year while HMV UK stayed open and is now returning to normal while HMV ireland is 9 months behind it. It will be also the reason why any shops that go into administration will just shut the doors instead of continuing to attempt to trade out of it and hopefully find a buyer

Richard Dower

Richard Dower wrote: »

THEY DID PAY! :mad: - they had fecking gift cards!.....they took stuff to the value of the giftcard + you make it seem like hundreads of people were doing this.

It was a handful, and the paps probably put people upto it to get a story :rolleyes:

It was theft. No different than if I walked in tomorrow and took stock off the shelves and just walked out. And what of that scumbag in Limerick who walked off with store for more than the value of the card?How can that not be seen as anything other than theft.

People were told that the gift cards had been suspended for the time being. The story was that the UK and Irish system was tied together, which is somewhat believable considering that I was able to use a UK bought gift card in the Dublin store a few years back. Had people acted in a normal manner there was every chance that the Irish stores would never have closed their doors.

And there were more than a handful of people doing it. I've heard first hand from a number of people working in the stores that they were not isolated incidents.

Richard Dower

Richard Dower wrote: »

The security guys were out of a job....i'm sure they understood people doing what they did. I find it interesting the paps had photogs to capture the moment.....i think some of those punters were put upto it by the paps to get a story.

You do realise that more often than not the papers use freelance photographers for much of their content. A passerby may have seen what was happening, taken a photo and then sold it to the paper. Happens every day of the week and if you really think that the newspapers were encouraging people to steal, then is it any wonder that you don't see what occurred as theft.

dmcg90

About the "People did pay thing"

Isn't there nothing stopping them using those gift cards now? So now they're X amount of money up and they have whatever they took. That looks like stealing to me...

Richard Dower

dmcg90 wrote: »

About the "People did pay thing"

Isn't there nothing stopping them using those gift cards now? So now they're X amount of money up and they have whatever they took. That looks like stealing to me...

They put the giftcards on the counter before leaving with the stuff.......

dmcg90

Richard Dower wrote: »

They put the giftcards on the counter before leaving with the stuff.......

Oh, didn't know. Fair enough!

Star Lord

Richard Dower wrote: »

They put the giftcards on the counter before leaving with the stuff.......

Good to know you were there to police this and ensure everyone that did this didn't take more than what they felt they were entitled to simply because they had a piece of plastic to slap on the counter...

Rilgar

A pity that HMV in town won't be reopening but considering the one in the Crescent is, I shall definitely have to go in and check it out.

liddypool

Do you really expect us to believe that HMV closed because people with vouchers fleeced the shop for one day.my understanding of administration is that it goes lock stock and barrel that HMV no longer owned their stock so couldn't keep selling it so management wanting to keep it open and trade their way out of it is false.as for them being 9 months behind England,haggling over rents and deciding which stores to keep open or close would account for that time.I know if my old Mum had spent €100 of her pension or hard earned savings on a Christmas voucher for me I too would have gone in and not left without satisfaction.

liddypool

liddypool wrote: »

Do you really expect us to believe that HMV closed because people with vouchers fleeced the shop for one day.my understanding of administration is that it goes lock stock and barrel that HMV no longer owned their stock so couldn't keep selling it so management wanting to keep it open and trade their way out of it is false.as for them being 9 months behind England,haggling over rents and deciding which stores to keep open or close would account for that time.I know if my old Mum had spent €100 of her pension or hard earned savings on a Christmas voucher for me I too would have gone in and not left without satisfaction.

No one is saying that HMV closed because of the scumbag thieves but its the reason the stores closed their doors. The plan was for stores to keep trading while a buyer was sought and is par on course for business in such difficulties. HMV was a very enticing prospect and proved just as such when it was quickly bought out. Had the stores not been mobbed by scum stealing then the doors would have remained open and traded as usual. Why take the risk of having scum walk out with stock and cost you a fortune.

They always said that the gift cards were suspended but would be accepted again at the first opportunity. Just a shame that so many idiots thought that it was their god given right to steal.

As for the stick, yes it all belonged to the distributor but they were happy for HMV stores to continue trading and as such pay them back. The stick after all was far more valuable to them on shelves and being sold than boxed up in a warehouse someplace.

NTMK

liddypool wrote: »

Do you really expect us to believe that HMV closed because people with vouchers fleeced the shop for one day.my understanding of administration is that it goes lock stock and barrel that HMV no longer owned their stock so couldn't keep selling it so management wanting to keep it open and trade their way out of it is false.as for them being 9 months behind England,haggling over rents and deciding which stores to keep open or close would account for that time.I know if my old Mum had spent €100 of her pension or hard earned savings on a Christmas voucher for me I too would have gone in and not left without satisfaction.

They didnt own the stock in england but were allowed to continue trading as people over here respected the idea that the Gift Cards were suspended until the company came out of administration. They were haggling for rent over here too but remained open.

They closed and were thus liquidated not because they didnt own the stock but because they couldnt sell the stock because customers without a clue on the law surrounding company closures decided to go and nick stock and give sales staff absolute **** even though it had nothing to do with them

liddypool

If I understand this right then the admin. was willing to let them keep trading but not honour the vouchers, The banks and other large creditors were all going to be paid off first and the consumer left high and dry.it's no wonder people were incensed.looking back now would it have made much financial difference to their debt to have just let customers redeem their vouchers at the time.they could have stayed open and eliminated the need for people to feel they had no choice but to take the law into their own hands or lose their money.

Richard Dower

^ exactly!.....people acted the way they did because of how HMV handled things, they deliberately waited until after Xmas to declare....they knew they'd get giftcard cash, they didnt pay wages.

People were outraged, in terms of creditors customers are last on the list, they would never see a penny....they took matters into their own hands.

liddypool

liddypool wrote: »

If I understand this right then the admin. was willing to let them keep trading but not honour the vouchers, The banks and other large creditors were all going to be paid off first and the consumer left high and dry.it's no wonder people were incensed.looking back now would it have made much financial difference to their debt to have just let customers redeem their vouchers at the time.they could have stayed open and eliminated the need for people to feel they had no choice but to take the law into their own hands or lose their money.

It's believed that the gift cards in both the UK and Ireland were linked through the same system which makes sense as I was able to use a UK card over here. If the systems were indeed linked then it makes sense for then to be unable to honour them if the system in the UK was suspended.

Had people given them a couple of days then there's every chance that gift cards would have been useable a few days later. But far too many scumbags were more than willing to go instore and take products for more than the value on the card.

Richard Dower

Richard Dower wrote: »

^ exactly!.....people acted the way they did because of how HMV handled things, they deliberately waited until after Xmas to declare....they knew they'd get giftcard cash, they didnt pay wages.

People were outraged, in terms of creditors customers are last on the list, they would never see a penny....they took matters into their own hands.

Again, they did not know the stores would be closing and had hoped that the profits over Christmas would offset their loses. HMV never said gift cards would not be honoured. They suspended but always said that soon as things were back to normal they would once again start accepting them. The problem was that far too many scumbags thought resorting to theft was acceptable.

NTMK

liddypool wrote: »

If I understand this right then the admin. was willing to let them keep trading but not honour the vouchers, The banks and other large creditors were all going to be paid off first and the consumer left high and dry.it's no wonder people were incensed.looking back now would it have made much financial difference to their debt to have just let customers redeem their vouchers at the time.they could have stayed open and eliminated the need for people to feel they had no choice but to take the law into their own hands or lose their money.

Admin was allowing them to continue trading and paying off Supplier Debts (some of this gets written down) as its makes the company more attractive to potential buyers when they havent pissed off suppliers so much they refuse to trade with them (GAME and EA)

Bank debt gets written down too but isnt paid off until a buyer is found

Customer Debt is written down as their are too many people to negotiate with and is then suspended until a buyer is found

The after Christmas thing is was always going to happen as most stores (especially game and toy stores) atm are running at a lost all year and use Christmas to break even if that dont make enough money they go into admin very quickly (GAME went into admin in Feb 12 iirc)

NTMK

Deleted User wrote: »

It's believed that the gift cards in both the UK and Ireland were linked through the same system which makes sense as I was able to use a UK card over here. If the systems were indeed linked then it makes sense for then to be unable to honour them if the system in the UK was suspended.

Same system as my irish one works fine in the UK now

liddypool

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It's believed that the gift cards in both the UK and Ireland were linked through the same system which makes sense as I was able to use a UK card over here. If the systems were indeed linked then it makes sense for then to be unable to honour them if the system in tuhe UK was suspended.

Had people given them a couple of days then there's every chance that gift cards would have been useable a few days later. But far too many scumbags were more than willing to go instore and take products for more than the value on the card.

seriously did you really expect people to wait a few more days when the dogs in the street knew the place was closing as did management.no wonder nobody believed them.taking money for goods not provided is theft.taking back what's rightfully yours is justice.they thought they could pull a fast one and to use a quote from the movie Machete, they f***ked with the wrong mexicans.