Comment: What Bezos's Washington Post deal says about retail and HMV

Amazon is as much a media business as it is a retailer, so are there retail lessons to be learned from the etailer’s founder Jeff Bezos’s acquisition of US newspaper the Washington Post?

Bezos wrote to the title’s employees about the deal – his letter is worth any business leader reading as a masterclass in change of ownership communication alone– outlining how the internet is transforming the news business.

“There is no map, and charting ahead will not be easy,” he wrote in words that could equally apply to retail.

“We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers [for retailers read consumers], understanding what they care about… and working backwards from there. I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.”

Perhaps comparisons can be made closer to home with another acquisition of a venerable media and retail brand confronting the challenges of the shift to digital.

HMV this week revealed a return to its historic Oxford Street store, replete with references to the premises’ connection to Beatles and Elgar.

HMV chairman and boss of owner Hilco Paul McGowan said the move “reflects HMV’s renewed focus on going back to its roots and getting the basics right, providing the deepest range of entertainment products”.

With both the Washington Post and HMV, the product itself is being digitised, it’s not just a case of consumers preferring to buy physical goods online.

However McGowan and Bezos seem to share a respect for the heritage values of the ‘old school’ businesses they’ve bought, and each now faces the challenge of reinventing them.

The hope, and presumably belief, at HMV must be that it can find a way to combine the trend to digital with the experience that is traditionally a strength of a great store and to monetise both, as well as its impresario-style reputation for introducing fans to music they’d never otherwise have discovered.

Looking back at archive black-and-white pictures of HMV’s Oxford Street shop, it’s striking to see shoppers using a host of listening posts – the iPod equivalent of the day. Similar but contemporary services might offer hope for a successful reinvention of HMV.

What the Post and HMV deals show is that entrepreneurs see potential in brands with a powerful heritage, no matter that they seem like they are behind the curve to some.