HMV seems to be a well established music empire, because even my mum knows that HMV stands for His Masters Voice and she has even gone as far to shop there! However established HMV is, it has a funky all-round image that would appeal to young and old, and is my first port of call when I'm looking ... Read review
Advantages: wide ranges of different products appropriately categorised - easy to navigate, friendly staff, special offers Disadvantages: Newer products are a bit expensive in comparison to other high street stores, bad lighting
HMV seems to be a well established music empire, because even my mum knows that HMV stands for His Masters Voice and she has even gone as far to shop there! However established HMV is, it has a funky all-round image that would appeal to young and old, and is my first port of call when I'm looking for CDs and such. There a few things I love about HMV and a few things I hate:
1. One thing I love is that when you enter most HMV stores, ... ...stores are very modern, and HMV spend a lot in keeping their stores modern and up to date. I was distraught to be left without HMV when they gutted the building and rebuilt it which took about a year to complete. The original store was fairly small, and they had managed to buy some more of the building in which they were located and they expanded the building to include a second floor for videos and computer games, and they fitted some monitors on ... more
HMV seems to be a well established music empire, because even my mum knows that HMV stands for His Masters Voice and she has even gone as far to shop there! However established HMV is, it has a funky all-round image that would appeal to young and old, and is my first port of call when I'm looking for CDs and such. There a few things I love about HMV and a few things I hate:
1. One thing I love is that when you enter most HMV stores, from the doorway they seem to extend back for miles with impressively long rows of shelves with loads and loads of CDs, videos etc. but allowing enough room to move freely. It gives the impression that the store has every product in the ranges they stock, and that you are entering a gold mine of music and entertainment! All the stores are very modern, and HMV spend a lot in keeping their stores modern and up to date. I was distraught to be left without HMV when they gutted the building and rebuilt it which took about a year to complete. The original store was fairly small, and they had managed to buy some more of the building in which they were located and they expanded the building to include a second floor for videos and computer games, and they fitted some monitors on which to preview new films and videos such as Friends Series 7, and music videos, as well as fitting an online touchscreen information service which you can use in the store to find information about coming releases.
2. As a student I have to watch my pennies, and one thing that puts HMV above other entertainment stores in my mind is their continuous offers on CDs, videos and DVDs. I visited around Christmas last year and they had a 3 for £20 offer on selected videos. They also do 2 for £25 on selected DVDs, and a few 2 for £20 on CDs. I thought it was a festive clear-out maybe, but still today, April 2001! The films they offer aren't 1950s black and white flicks either, but fairly recent videos such as Jerry Maguire, My Best Friends Wedding etc. The videos and DVDs on offer are regularly rotated so you will get something new for your money. For example, 2 months ago I decided that it was time I found a copy of my favourite Woody Allen film, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask. So I popped into HMV and was quite surprised to find it in a 3 for £20 offer. At the same time I checked out the other videos on offer, not sure whether there would be anything to suit my tastes. But I found Go, an excellent film I enjoyed at the cinema, and Austin Powers 2,Bargain!
Another thing I love about HMV is their frequent clear-out sales, where videos are on sale for £3.99 and above. Austin Powers 2 is a fiver, South Park the Movie is £4 and Cant Hardly Wait with Seth Green was only £3.99 the other day! There are often several copies of the videos on offer, so it's not really just selling off the last few. DVDs are also included on the offer from £9.99 up. As long as I can remember HMV have had a 2 for £10 offer on all their £5.99 books, and this is great value as the paperbacks they stock are all contemporary fiction, again not just the classics or books left untouched for 10 generations. No other entertainment store holds such good offers and it keeps me visiting again and again!
3. Like most music stores, HMV have listening units around the store with CDs for you to listen to to try before you buy. I do believe HMV staff will help you out if you want to listen to a CD you have chosen off the shelf, although I have never asked. I like these a lot, and I value a store's willingness to allow you to listen to any CD you want as all too often I have bought a CD in other shops where I couldn't preview it and I have not liked it. This flexibility parallels Amazons online music clips, a service I check out first before I buy CDs anywhere else online.
4. HMV has a vast range of entertainments products. Their ranges include CDs, videos, DVDs, books and PC and Playstation games, and they also stock the new PS2 games/DVDs. The store splits up the products into different categories: the videos on display are clearly marked as Adult, Fitness, TV series for example, as well as having a video charts on main display. The CDs are sorted into A to Z under categories such as Easy Listening, Jazz, Soundtracks and Rock and Pop. The books section is comparatively smaller than the other products on offer in the store (it is a music store after all), often only taking one shelf so they are not as organised as the music products. The PC and Playstation games are clearly separated, and any special offers in those departments are clearly displayed. As a consequence I find HMV very easy to navigate and I can find what I want all too easily, from the latest Robbie Williams album to the soundtrack of the TV series My So Called Life!
5. The staff are very friendly, will help you out with any problems you have such as finding a particular CD. I was shopping there when my bloke suddenly wanted to know what CD was playing in the background. I felt a little silly approaching the counter to ask what they had on, but the staff were very friendly and not only showed me the CD but where I could find it in the shop.
6. There’s an HMV store in most large towns and cities, so wherever you move to, go to visit etc. you will not be deprived!
There are a few things I don't like about HMV:
1. All the stores are very dark, although there seems to be enough lighting. It can give a nice relaxed atmosphere but I find it hurts my eyes.
2. Some of the new CDs and videos that are released are comparatively more expensive at HMV. For example, I found MTV Extreme in HMV selling for £17.99. OK, it was a compilation CD so it would be a bit more expensive than an artist’s album but I suspected that that I could find it somewhere else for a bit cheaper. I checked out Amazon UK and it was selling for £14.99. And another music shop I checked in it was £15.99. Some of the videos are quite expensive too. However, quite confusingly I have found the Sex and the City box set on sale for £19.99, 3 videos! Whereas in other shops they have been sold separately for £11.99 each! If I think something’s too expensive I’ll go elsewhere, but then again nowhere else stocks such a wide range of products as HMV.
All in all, HMV is an excellent shop, a leader in the entertainment retailers, stocking as wide a range of products n different ranges as is imaginable, and keeping a modern image. Their constant special offers keep me coming in out of curiosity and often making purchases I did not plan.
Advantages: Lots to choose from, they have a lot of sales Disadvantages: Can sometimes be a bit pricey
HMV is one of the top high street shops in the UK, it is one of the main places to go for chart music CDs and DVDs, however there is a lot of competition with Virgin and supermarkets such as Asda and Tesco which all sell CD's and DVD's at reasonable prices. The HMV store in Plymouth is fairly large, there are two floors. When you first walk in, you notice that it is fairly dark inside...however you can still see where everything is! There is always ... ...What I like about HMV is that they seem to have sales every week, whether it is 3 DVDs for £20 or CD's for £3.99. There is usually quite a lot to choose from, most of the time I never see anything I want...but you can be lucky sometimes, especially if there is something you have been looking for, for a while.
The chart CDs are positioned against the wall and it is clear to see where the albums are and where the singles are. The singles are reasonably ...
Natanna 02.07.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HMV (Shop)
Advantages: Great offers, huge selection in every store, helpful staff Disadvantages: Full price goods can often be found cheaper elsewhere
...I have ever been to HMV when there hasn’t been some offer on some of their products. Whether it is a 2 for £22 CD sale or a 4 for £20 video sale, there is always something from this, my favourite mainstream, chain music shops.
HMV sell everything you could want from a music shop and more:
CD’s of every genre – pop, rock, classical, alternative, easy listening, folk, world music, spoken word books, etc;
Videos of both TV and film, ... ...is a fantastic bargain;
HMV also has a large selection of computer and console games available.
There are a range of shop sizes. In Glasgow there is a couple of HUGE shops and also at least one littler one. However, like the old saying – size doesn’t matter – it’s what you do with it that counts!!!!!! All the shops, big or small sell a wide selection of products available.
If they don’t have what you want in store ...
Clare_1 30.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HMV (Shop)
...IT ALL?
~SELECTION~
HMV has a wide variety of products. In the Leicester store alone there are two levels. The ground level for games (X-Box, Playstation 2 and Playstation amongst a few others such as Games Cube and Nintendo 64). The main people who hang around in the “underground” are teenagers with far too much pocket money to spend. Also on this floor are the “other” items which can include anything; posters, DVDs and ... ...me but the lighting in HMV is weird. The lights are quite normal but are then backed up with surreal pink and purple lighting around areas, which make up the same lighting used on juke machines. Others are just in pitch black so not exactly the friendly enticing image I would assume they’d want. The layout is pretty poor in my opinion; yes all the same music is in the same areas but vinyl’s look like they’ve been dumped and resemble ...
Katecgreen 24.04.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HMV (Shop)
Advantages: A good range of CDs. You will be able to pick up semi-obscure stuff here. (I found it to be the only place who'll sell Weird Al) Disadvantages: More costly than Virgin. Queues are badly arranged.
...they are slightly better than HMV and very much better than the awful Our Price.
Fairly often, though, I find myself trudging out of the Virgin and down to the HMV which is conveniently only two stores down. The HMV is nearly as nice as the Virgin store. It is just that the blues and purples of HMV tend to give their outlets a darker (and I feel, more cramped) atmosphere than the brighter tones of Virgin’s yellows and reds. The HMV in question is ... ...I did say Heavy Metal. HMV has a number of shelves filled up with Heavy Metal CDs! I know (and it is great!) that harder, better, music is on the climb again. This is partly thanks to movies such as the Matrix making use of the adrenaline inspiring tracks, the increasingly number of commercial Boy Bands that only 14 year old girls want to listen to and a sadly lacklustre Indie scene. It is also thanks to HMV’s wider selection of music.
In short: ...
Manx 20.12.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HMV (Shop)
Advantages: GREAT Variety Disadvantages: Sometimes Shockin' Prices
Even though my local HMV is a very small one it still has nearly all the variety that it’s bigger brothers and sisters have. It has a range of all different kinds of music, all formats of games, videos, DVDs and posters. Bigger HMV stores also stock clothing but sadly my local store doesn’t have this available.
The different kinds of music it offers are Rock, Punk, R+B, Garage, trance, Pop, Hard House, Acid House, Rap, Indy and more. ... ...go for Rock music and HMV are not bad for supplying new and old albums of bands that aren’t that popular in the rock world nevermind the Pop world. But with good news comes bad news, these albums come with not so good prices.
The game section in the store near me is very limited. It still has all the formats but most space is taken up by Playstation games which is a disadvantage to other non-PSX gamers and I’m one of those disadvantaged ...
skinheed87 29.06.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HMV (Shop)
Price
Layout & presentation
Selection & range
Availability
In store customer service
Staff knowledge
Waiting / queues
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Advantages: Cool, Fun, Modern, Nice Staff Disadvantages: Mainly in Large Towns Only
~~THE COMPANY~~
I am writing an opinion on Waterstones, the book store owned by HMV Media. The company has about 200 shops nationwide, mainly found in large cities only.
~~WHAT THEY SELL AND SERVICES~~
Well the obvious is books. Waterstones sell every kind of book imagineable, and if they have not got it, they order it for your or refer you to another shop in the area. Also, Waterstones sell gift vouchers for HMV and the Waterstones itself. Another great service is the gift wrapping service and the Costa Coffe shops in many of the larger stores, which tend to fall into the category of 60+ staff members.
~~ORDERING~~
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Advantages: Rewards for spending money I do anyway Disadvantages: Different system of rewards, points expire
Some time ago, when I walked into my Local (Cambridge) HMV, I noticed some posters advertising a little card, ?HMV Pure Points?. I wandered what it was, and so when I was paying for my purchases, I enquired with the guy on the tills.
The Basics
HMV Pure Points, as the name might suggest, is the reward card offered by the shopHMV. Like all other reward cards, you earn points when you spend money in store, or online, the remuneration rate is 1 point per penny. So, spend £2.99 and get 299 points.
The first difference to other reward cards, is that it costs money to join, currently this is £3.00, though when I joined, it was £5.00. However, what is a bonus to that, is that the spend gives you your first points. Since I had spare money at the time, I signed up straight away, though, I guess it could put some people off ...
obscuredbykep 02.10.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HMV Pure Points
