Store gallery: The way forward for HMV

To lose one chief executive may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose a chief executive while reporting a £16.2m full-year loss for the year to April 28 looks like carelessness. Oscar Wilde might have viewed recent events at HMV as being something like this, but he might have been overstating things. Former chief executive Simon Fox has certainly contributed to stabilising the retailer and putting it in a position where it is now expected to return to profit, and one of the reasons is likely to be Cambridge.

Cambridge? The question mark that hovers over the city as providing the source of a possible new dawn for HMV is quickly answered by a visit to the new store on Fitzroy Street.

The street is a pedestrianised shopping thoroughfare that leads to The Grafton centre – a covered mall that lies a short distance from Cambridge’s historic centre.

This is, in fact, a second coming for HMV in the city. Until a few months ago it traded from a store in the thick of the quads and narrow streets that might make you want to reach for a copy of Brideshead Revisited. It left Lion Yard, however, with claims reported in the local newspaper that it been “forced out”.

Now it is back and in moving to the Fitzroy Street location there is an argument that is has moved away from student central and perhaps deserted its core shoppers. Anyone glancing beyond the large glass windows of the new branch will almost immediately understand the thinking that underpins the move, however. Until recently, this was the flagship for furniture retailer Clement Joscelyne and prior to that it was a Habitat.

Indeed, the location might almost be seen as a metaphor for the decline of many furniture sector operators in this country. Both retailers went into administration, Clement Joscelyne in May this year and Habitat last year.

Big and beautiful

HMV, itself no stranger to speculation about possible collapse, seized the opportunity afforded by the demise of Clement Joscelyne however to move into a structure that is unlike any of its other branches. This is a four-floor Edwardian edifice with a central, balustraded atrium that means, in effect, that anyone standing at the entrance can see all levels at the same time. HMV trades from the ground and first floors, giving it a selling area of close to 10,000 sq ft, according to store manager Mike Barry.

This in itself would be interesting, but hardly sufficient to see it as an indication of the “direction of travel” for the retailer, as a spokesman puts it. What sets this store apart from others in the chain is that it sits, for the time being at least, at the summit of a raft of digital in-store initiatives that may well prove to be one of the more lasting legacies of former chief executive Simon Fox.

And perhaps foremost among these is the decision to incorporate technology, and specifically digital technology, as part of the in-store mix and to make it, more or less, the first thing that customers see upon entering the shop.

Barry says that in terms of turnover split in an HMV with a similar merchandise mix, films on DVD account for about 40% of sales, with audio running at 25% and then “everything else” makes up the balance.

“Everything else” includes T-shirts, posters, books and technology. It is worth noting that equipment on which to play music accounts for close to a third of the space in this store. This provides a fair indication of where HMV sees its future and the imbalance between sales and space allocated to the category shows that the merchandise has been given breathing space.

It also demonstrates that the retailer understands that piling it high is not going to yield positive results.

Tables bearing a wide variety of headphones, music players and tablets run from the front of the shop, where they have pride of place when viewed from the exterior, to the point, at the back of the shop, where the cafe begins. The interior of this store has been colour coded, according to the category being viewed – technology is a deep sky blue, DVDs are green and music is fuchsia.

The cafe consists of a series of round tables with leads emerging from their centres, each of which will recharge a different kind of smartphone. And at some point in the next week or two, those enjoying a cappuccino at £1.50 (far cheaper than the nearby Starbucks, which does seem to rather own Cambridge in terms of the number of shops that it boasts) will be able to surf the net wirelessly while doing so.

Barry says that the cafe is not, as might perhaps be expected, a shop-in-shop, but the outcome of in-house thinking and a trip to a training centre for baristas. He hopes this, and a board close to the cafe on which there are posters for local bands and gigs, will turn the shop into a destination for the community.

Spoilt for choice

This may or may not turn out to the case, but for those who want a place in which to buy films, music and associated merchandise, there is the rest of the shop to consider.

Barry claims that “there probably isn’t a store with this range outside the West End” and closer inspection reveals that the choice is broad, the mid-shop equipment pleasingly low, allowing you to enjoy the architecture, and the signage is straightforward.

The real question, however, is whether this is a store that is going to go the way of the previous two tenants, or whether it is sufficiently different to ensure its continued survival and to act as a spearhead for the rest of the chain. On the morning of visiting, a Monday two days after the store’s ‘soft’ opening, there were shoppers browsing the offer at 10am. This is something that you tend not to encounter in shops of this kind and is a real boon for The Grafton centre at the end of the street.

It may even serve to pull new shoppers to the area.

Back to Oscar and his assertion that “the only thing worse in the world than being talked about is not being talked about”. This is a store that will have to prove its mettle but it will generate column inches, and if all HMV shops felt like this one, perhaps things may yet come good for the retailer in spite of the online bogeyman.