A new dawn – just for the record
HMV boss reveals why he chose Birmingham to turn the tables on music downloads
BIRMINGHAM has waved goodbye to some big names from its high street in recent years. But rejuvenated record chain HMV has decided it wants to get back into the groove of selling physical product to music fans.
Last week, the company opened its first ever HMV Vault, an “experiential” concept where the customers’ experience is as important as the products they leave with.
Housed in the former IKEA unit in Dale End, and claimed to be the largest store of its kind in Europe, it has more than 23,000 vinyl LPs and 77,000 CDs – plus a performance stage which will welcome artists several times a week, according to HMV owner Doug Putman.
Birmingham’s appeal as a retail destination is well founded, with investment in recent years in Grand Central and a major overhaul of high-end boutique mall the Mailbox.
But what brought HMV to the city to use Birmingham as a testbed was to see whether this new ‘Vault’ concept could work elsewhere.
Mr Putman said: “Birmingham is the UK’s second largest city with a really vibrant music and film culture and great customer demand for those products.
“Our overall goal here is to create a store that our customers absolutely love and draws more people into Birmingham from outside.
“This is a great pathway for us to see how good this can be and then ask, where else can we do something like this?
“You need to make retail more experiential and vibrant, so this new store will have a very different feel to what people are used to in a normal HMV.”
Music entrepreneur Mr Putman bought HMV after it fell into administration for the second time in six years, in a deal which saved some 1,400 jobs and 100 stores.
The move followed a similar deal in 2017, when he acquired around 70 HMV stores in his native Canada through his company there, Sunrise Records.
A major launch event in Birmingham welcomed One Direction’s Liam Payne and 2012 X Factor winner James Arthur.
Looking ahead, Mr Putman said success in Birmingham would determine whether the concept was rolled out to other UK cities – but he warned this would not be judged solely by how much cash goes through the tills but feedback from Birmingham customers about their experience in the store.
Sales of CDs and DVDs have plummeted, with online streaming services and downloads proving such a popular model for today’s tech-savvy consumers, so how does he see HMV’s place in the market?
“Everything about us is counterintuitive when you look at what we’ve done with HMV.
“We’re very supportive of the high street, trying to reinvent the brand and what it means,” he told the Birmingham Post. “You see a lot of articles saying ‘It’s over’, but we just don’t believe that, so while it may be counter-intuitive to launch in Birmingham, we see a very vibrant culture in the city that sits very well with our identity.
“We think we can learn a lot by launching here which is going to help us go out into the broader market. Locations like Oxford Street in London are amazing – but the massive rents in those types of places are at a point where it becomes almost impossible for a venture to succeed,” he said.
“Even if we did open another one of these stores in London, we would have to think a little differently and know that we’re not going to be able to open on Oxford Street and be profitable.”
While investment in Birmingham’s retail sector must be welcomed, HMV’s choice of location for the Vault – the ground floor of a multistorey car park – raised eyebrows.
Why did the company choose to locate a new 25,000 sq ft shop in a unit which is set to be demolished as part of the Martineau Galleries project?
Mr Putman is sanguine, rightly pointing out the site has been earmarked for demolition for many years and those future plans could change anyway.
But he remained tight-lipped about the length of lease he has signed – other than to say it is multi year.
“Everybody has long-term plans in place and the thing about those long-term plans is that they can change,” he said.
“We have a great opportunity, a good-sized lease term, we feel comfortable where it is and, if something changes down the road, we are prepared for that.
“At least it gives us a great proof of concept and allows us to figure out where we go next whatever that long-term vision is for that site.”
Clearly a passionate advocate for the high street, he added: “Bricks and mortar retail is really something special – it is something nobody really wants to see go away.
“There’s something amazing about being able to go into a shop and actually have an experience and talk to staff about what you’re listening to and reading.
“That sense of community is really quite important and something we stand for as a company.
“You see a lot of businesses shrink but we see that as an opportunity for us, we think retail has a long life and don’t see it going away.”
We’re very supportive of the high street, trying to reinvent the brand and what it means
HMV boss Doug Putman