NME – Why The Indie World Still Needs HMV
First of all can I say I would rather somebody bought their music from an HMV than from an online seller. Secondly while if FOPP and all the HMVs closed in Edinburgh it would be great for Avalanche’s business it would not be good in the “big picture” as most of those customers would go online and I personally believe that would be a bad thing. However when I read in the NME blog how independent shops get their stock sale or return and HMV don’t I was reminded that a “journalist” can say anything no matter how inaccurate and stupid and for many it becomes “true”. By coincidence I also saw in the Independent that According to the Entertainment Retailers Association, 15 new indie shops opened for business in 2010 – a figure offset only by the disappearance of a further four, leaving a net gain of 11. Now at least they quote a reputable source but if this is even close to being accurate I will “eat my hat”.
In this alternative world inhabited by the NME not only do the indies get SOR and HMV don’t but HMV are vital to metal and hardcore labels and stock releases one at a time. Wichita should really know better too ! There are more inaccuracies but I have work to do so just read the blog and the comments for yourself.
“HMV is the only remaining physical place our albums can cross over from more hardcore fan to the more casual fan,” says Alex Fitzpatrick of Holy Roar, a small independent label dedicated to predominantly metal and hardcore releases. Wichita’s Mark Bowen is even more worried about the potential loss of the chain.
“If we have nowhere to sell records, we cease to have a reason to exist. It’s pretty serious.” Despite Wichita being an indie label to the core, it’s through shops like HMV where they make most of their physical sales – not the Rough Trades and Jam Records of this world. “Even if HMV only take one for each of their shops, that’s still around 300 units, whereas a dozen indies might order 10 copies each.”
For the most part, these indie shops stock these records on a “sale or return” basis, which means that if they don’t shift the units after a certain amount of time, they go back to the distributor so that the shop doesn’t lose out. Due to the comparatively massive commercial power of a shop like HMV, they don’t have to work in that way. As journalist Louis Pattison pointed out on Twitter this morning, for tiny distributors like Cargo, SRD and Proper – the middlemen who actually get records into shops – having to ply their trade solely as “sale or return” puts them in significant amounts of danger.