With the inevitability of a slow train crash, HMV’s stakeholders have finally decided to bring down the curtain by refusing to add £300m to the pre-Christmas facility…
We have all had our personal relationships with HMV and each of us picked up different clues, but the clincher for me was going to the Harrods Christmas sale and finding that my favourite department, the HMV franchise, had been replaced by extended consumer electronics, and sadly, Elvis had finally left the building……
However, despite 75% of CD and DVD sales in the UK going online, it needs to be kept in mind that online was not the threat, otherwise even HMV could have cranked up their online offering and made the transition…
The real threat was good quality online…
For instance, many companies have developed a ‘clunky’ online presence that alienates, rather than encourages repeat purchase..
In the same way that corporate web-sites were developed with great initial enthusiasm, but soon become ‘elderly’ through lack of regular upkeep and innovation, so too an online presence needs to be refined to a point that matches Amazon 1-click in all respects, in order to stay in the game…
In practice, peoples’ mediocre online experiences make the following joke funny, but would be meaningless if all online matched Amazon…
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