The Store of the Future opens on June 17, according to a press release from HMV Canada, trumpeting the makeover of their 50 Bloor West store. The location in the Holt Renfrew Centre — on what’s presumed to be the highest-rent block in town — set up shop a decade ago. And, of course, that was just in the nick of time to see the jewels shrink-wrapped inside its jewel cases turn to dust.
Piles of DVD box sets of 1970s television shows can’t remedy everything that ails a chain of record stores, though. That’s why the next generation HMV promises “a broader range of entertainment products” in its retail space: “An interactive ‘Hub’ encompassing six iMac computers featuring easy access to a variety of entertainment and social networking sites, gaming stations, as well as the introduction of a selection of books and entertainment-focused mobile phones.”
The target market is presumably older than the pedestrian traffic around HMV’s flagship store at 333 Yonge Street — residents of those “mansions in the sky” being built around Yorkville, like the 80-storey Kazakhstan-backed Yonge and Bloor condo development that had proxy purchasers camping in line for a week. (Braving urban nature on behalf of some rich investor for $250/day seemed to attract the very sort of twentysomething who’d usually work in a record store.)
Reaction to the Store of the Future can be gauged from UK press reports dating back to last spring, when HMV’s CEO Simon Fox had to say something in response to market conditions for a retail chain synonymous with selling music.
A three-year turnaround plan was announced and, last fall, two British locations were outfitted with those computer hubs in order to exchange advice on purchases, shop at the digital store or download songs through store kiosks. Descriptions of how customers can transfer contents to USB flash drives and other portable storage devices, and listening posts with touch-screen technology, sound more like how music retail was imagined back in the days of Personics — custom cassettes churned out of a jukebox — rather than the new era of Muxtape.
The first test location opened last September, in the town of Dudley in the West Midlands — complete with Xbox 360 Live zone, a mini Apple store, and Lovejuice bar serving smoothies — sounding like a theme park interpretation of a cybercafé.
Does anyone really want this? Well, when HMV announced its expansion into Canada — the British brand, founded in 1921, arrived locally two decades ago by acquiring the assets of suburban mall locations of Mister Sound — a presence on downtown Yonge Street’s record store row didn’t rattle most of the competition, who figured there was enough demand for compact discs to keep everyone busy.
“There’s a hell of a difference between arrogant boasting and staying power,” Sam “The Record Man” Sniderman told the Toronto Star as HMV opened its doors down the street in May 1991. Sam’s stuck around as a national chain for another decade — its ramshackle 347 Yonge headquarters closed on June 30, 2007.
“We’re certainly going to give them a run for the money,” said A&A Records CEO Cliff Horwitz. “We’re not intimidated by all their hype and flash. And I don’t think that a lot of customers want that kind of glitziness either.” Having declared bankruptcy a few months earlier, A&A didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
But then, a 25,000-square-foot emporium — boasting a 36-monitor video wall outside, a live VJ booth inside, and distinct rooms for jazz, classical and dance music — looked like the ginchiest thing to hit the recession-ravaged Yonge and Dundas area. Alice Cooper played some horrible songs on the rooftop, and the party was on.
Paul Alofs, then the chairman of HMV Canada, emerged as a high-profile spokesman for the vitality of the music business. By the end of the decade, though, he was working as president of strategic business units for MP3.com in San Diego. He used the glare to wonder aloud why music retailers were bothering to sign long-term leases, while proclaiming how the portal would give independent artists more power — and the company half their revenues, a model that now seems antiquated as any. (Alofs now runs the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation.)
Last month marked the first-ever Record Store Day, meant to shine the spotlight on beleaguered retailers of round discs that don’t contain a movie or video game. Sunrise Records, the national chain seeking to avoid the fate of its mass-market counterpart Music World, used the opportunity to assert its independent solidarity. But nostalgia-tinged goodwill toward record stores didn’t quite extend to HMV.
Not that the chain hasn’t tried to gain PR through eccentric antics. The current Canadian president, Humphrey Kadaner — unavailable for comment on the same day he issued a press release trumpeting HMV’s futurist rethink — made an offer last fall that he would personally refund money to any customer who didn’t enjoy Bruce Springsteen’s album Magic, complete with a personal letter of apology. (No such contrition was extended in the early 2000s, when HMV changed their refund policy, after realizing the returned discs were taken out for a quick burn.)
British bean-counters were pleased with how the three-year turnaround plan was proceeding earlier this month, claiming that brisk sales of the Nintendo Wii, the debut album by Welsh chirper Duffy, and Grand Theft Auto 4 were contributing factors to a 10 per cent increase in business over last year. Last year, Canada was the poorest-performing market in the international chain.
A full day of customer-baiting activities are planned for the new Bloor Street HMV on June 17, including an acoustic performance from socialist celebrity Billy Bragg, last seen on the op-ed page of The New York Times wondering when he’s going to get a share of the multi-millions changing hands over social networking websites.
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