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Thread: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

  1. #33
    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Matsy View Post
    No matter which way you look at it, people have given them money and gotten nothing out of it.
    But a lot of other people will have.

    Hell the taxpayer might even loose out if they've lost enough.

    A company going in to administration is just bad news all round for anyone connected with that firm.
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  2. #34
    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    I'm going to tell a story, that I figured I shouldn't but it might help illustrate.

    My company did some work for someone, I made a bad call, I knew that had problems but thought the worst might have been over. Things took a turn for the worse. The owner of the other firm said to me politely that he didn't not know what to do, my bill was going to push him over the edge, he simply didn't have the cash flow. I was able to see from a simple land registry search he had sold his house already to provide capital. In the end I decided to take one on the chin. I took about 10% of the money owed and wrote down the loss, thankfully software sometimes has high margins. That 10% would have been more than I would ever have received if I had forced matters. He could also have easily turned round and said go fish, wait your place in turn. HMRC would have been waaay ahead. Instead he gave me what would have covered my core expenses almost, whilst allowing him one more payroll. The company of course did not survive much longer.

    Things going bad, are always bad. Sometimes someone despirately clinging on to hope is nothing more than human nature. They are not criminals.

    Some people who've no experience in business, often it appears the real world love to be a loud mouthed "anti-corperationist". Singling out Gift Vouchers makes this understandable to the average man on the street. They however will likely bear the costs in other ways.
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by BobF64 View Post
    Creditors, not debtors. and creditors are paid/protected, in a set order. Consumers are unsecured, so last in line so that a wound up company pays off secured creditors first, along with whatever other obligations they have.

    .
    yes creditors not debtors of course!

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Spectoor View Post
    True, but this is mostly due to the fact the internet and home computing has become such a common thing, brick and mortar have extra running costs which either reduce the profit margins (due to trying to remain competitive with those that can afford to lower the price) or force them to keep prices higher than people are willing to pay.

    On the mention of jobs, i think its a shame that a lot of the people that lose jobs from retail positions aren't immediately able to go into customer service jobs for online stores, the skill-sets cross-over a bit, but not enough to guarantee easy access to essentially the job market shift from retail to IT.

    Damnit, now i want to research the reduction in retail positions in brick and mortar stores for every-day items and cheper retail stores (electronics, clothing etc, not cars or expensive items) and see if the respective online stores in those same areas have grown in proportion with job the loss of retail positions available.
    I want the answer, but i'm not going to put the several dozen hours needed to find it out
    part of the problem is perhaps most retail workers are pretty much unskilled workers. they may be experienced in retail, but with comet and jessops going very recently on top of hmv, and on top of the other closures in the past few months like woolworths etc, literally thousands of retail workers losing jobs at once is going to make it hard for them to get other suitable jobs. of course the same can also happen for skilled workers. close down a mine and lots of skilled workers have nowhere else to go as mines don't just open up often

    and it's taxpayers pockets that have to cover a lot of the costs of these closures, from lack of rates to local governments to unemployment benefits and even redundancy payments if the company can't pay. that side of things puts issues of "overpriced" goods and bad customer service into perspective

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Smudger View Post
    You might have an argument there, or not...

    http://www.philipbeeching.com/2012/0...ll-of-hmv.html

    It seems arrogance, overspending and inability to see what's coming did for them...
    well there really is a lot of reasons why they've ended up in trouble, from hit by piracy and internet sales and VAT loopholes, corporation tax loopholes and then everything else on top. with that double or triple blow it's understandable to some degree that they would struggle to manage it. without knowing a lot more about internal management it's hard to comment accurately on it. i'm sure like many companies they will have made mistakes but also tried their best at the same time

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    No, people gave them money, which would only be redemable with them, and they have gone in to administration.
    Irrelevant, people paid for a cash-equivalent token only usable in their stores, and did so in good faith. HMV just ignored their value despite having not been redeemed, and so cheated people out of their money. Nevermind that most of them would have been included in Christmas cards and whatnot as gifts, so they ruined many a person's Christmas on top of theft.
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

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    Chillie in here j.o.s.h.1408's Avatar
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Kanoe View Post
    Bad news in general that another big UK employer and tax payer has gone. All we are left with is Amazon who dont pay corporate tax in the UK and have little to no serious competition left in the UK (especially with Play turning itself into just another ebay). That means now that Amazon have corned the market what is to stop them raising prices and taking the UK consumer for everything they've got?

    Pretty soon the only thing left on the british high street will be coffee shops, charity shops and a Gregg's!

    P.S: Im not supporting HMV's pricing btw it was too high compared to the likes of amazon and they wouldnt even price match to their own website which was rubbish.
    i disagree with the coffee places as you can uy a decent coffee machine from "amazon" lol


    Next that will go will be pc world/currys

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by aidanjt View Post
    Irrelevant, people paid for a cash-equivalent token only usable in their stores, and did so in good faith. HMV just ignored their value despite having not been redeemed, and so cheated people out of their money. Nevermind that most of them would have been included in Christmas cards and whatnot as gifts, so they ruined many a person's Christmas on top of theft.
    It's as if you just can't grasp the idea of administration.

    Nothing has been ignored, the company that made the agreement about that is gnoe, its dead, its pushing up the daisies.....
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    Senior Member Smudger's Avatar
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Unique View Post
    well there really is a lot of reasons why they've ended up in trouble, from hit by piracy and internet sales and VAT loopholes, corporation tax loopholes and then everything else on top. with that double or triple blow it's understandable to some degree that they would struggle to manage it. without knowing a lot more about internal management it's hard to comment accurately on it. i'm sure like many companies they will have made mistakes but also tried their best at the same time
    People were suggesting very early on, before Amazon was the behemoth it is now, that they should go into online sales. The management wilfully ignored them, as they 'knew best'. That's arrogance to me. If you look at the comments on the article, lots of staff are saying they also suggested online presence, and were rebuffed. HMV were in a position to be the online supplier of CDs, DVDs and video games, already being the biggest bricks and mortar supplier. They sat on their 'arrises, assuming that they could maintain the status quo. They were wrong. They were on the gravy train and thought it would last forever.

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Brewster0101 View Post
    I predict we will see more older chains close this year, maybe WH Smiths will be next.
    Quote Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408 View Post
    Next that will go will be pc world/currys
    Can't see either of these coming to pass, what I think we might see is places with PCW and Currys stores losing one or the other to save retail space costs.
    No if I had to point at future closures then I'm going to nominate GAME, Waterstones or Thorntons.
    Quote Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408 View Post
    i disagree with the coffee places as you can uy a decent coffee machine from "amazon" lol
    Bought mine from Rombouts UK - don't like the output of these Nespresso machines as any I've tried always seem to have a plasticy after taste. Just wished there was a common format pod that lots of coffee manufacturer would use. (Yes, I know, I'm naive)

    Career status: still enjoying my new career in DevOps, but it's keeping me busy...

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    Senior Member Smudger's Avatar
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by crossy View Post

    Bought mine from Rombouts UK - don't like the output of these Nespresso machines as any I've tried always seem to have a plasticy after taste. Just wished there was a common format pod that lots of coffee manufacturer would use. (Yes, I know, I'm naive)
    There is - ESE. It's like a teabag, but for coffee. There's a 3rd fitting that goes in the handle thing, so you get single, double or ESE. Easy as.

    http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk/coffee-...offee-pod.html

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    It's as if you just can't grasp the idea of administration.

    Nothing has been ignored, the company that made the agreement about that is gnoe, its dead, its pushing up the daisies.....
    No it isn't. It is in administration. Very unlikely but in theory it could come out the other side. However you are right in that the company that is/was HMV aren't calling the shots any more so it is unfair to slag them off for not honouring the vouchers - that is up to the the administrators to decide.

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Smudger View Post
    People were suggesting very early on, before Amazon was the behemoth it is now, that they should go into online sales. The management wilfully ignored them, as they 'knew best'. That's arrogance to me. If you look at the comments on the article, lots of staff are saying they also suggested online presence, and were rebuffed. HMV were in a position to be the online supplier of CDs, DVDs and video games, already being the biggest bricks and mortar supplier. They sat on their 'arrises, assuming that they could maintain the status quo. They were wrong. They were on the gravy train and thought it would last forever.
    i don't know myself why they didn't do something bigger sooner, and i don't mean the download market, but the online one. they were so late to the game in setting up an online store, i'm not sure when it started, but around the turn of the millenium for example you had cdwow, play and amazon offering cd's and dvd's way cheaper than hmv. at the same time p2p was picking up with napster and earlier pre torrent programs. of course in the UK broadband wasn't commonplace back then, and even pc's in homes weren't that common. so at the time you had a few early adopters that got into p2p and started downloading for free, and stopped buying cds at least, and those who did want to buy as p2p took too long or they didn't have computers at home to do so, would buy online. and back in the early days you could place orders by phone to play. so hmv were hit by both sides. itunes wasn't out for another couple of years so there was no legal download market. even when itunes started, it would have been difficult for hmv to try and compete as they didn't have the same type of capital and power as apple, and perhaps record companies would have wanted to stick with one download service to find out how it went first. as itunes took off, home pc's took off and i heard a number of people in the early to mid 00's saying they bought pc's and got broadband simply to download music for free. a £200 computer let them do that and about £20 a month ISP. cheaper than buying cd's. by that time hmv was a dead man walking. i'm surprised they managed for so long.

    to some degree the record companies, which are now not really really companies but huge global corporations that are an umbrella to many different things from hardware to movies and television and music, were late to the game too, and let piracy get a huge grip as there were no legal alternatives, it was easy to do, no-one was getting caught, and with tens or hundreds of millions of people doing it, it must have been alright surely? so by the time legal options were available, people were used to not paying and many stuck to it

    but then think back 120 years ago. no record industry. musicians played music and got paid directly. no middle men making money, no retailers, distributers, managers. maybe one day it will go back to something like that with artists selling music direct via some ebay/itunes option. but then how are you going to find out about new artists? who is going to pay for music videos? maybe instead of a few artists making millions you will have millions of artists making thousands

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    And the next company to go on the High Street is....drum Roll please!

    Blockbuster!!!
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    I know a lot of people are blaming the internet but I think the Government has to take the blame here as well, you give people less money to spend while prices are still going up and of course people are going to be spending less, I know its not a luxury but just look at the places closing down, electrical shops, entertainment and dvd rental, all of them those little extra things you may buy yourself.
    Jon

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: News - HMV in administration, 4,500 jobs at risk, all vouchers nullified

    Quote Originally Posted by Jonj1611 View Post
    I know a lot of people are blaming the internet but I think the Government has to take the blame here as well, you give people less money to spend while prices are still going up and of course people are going to be spending less, I know its not a luxury but just look at the places closing down, electrical shops, entertainment and dvd rental, all of them those little extra things you may buy yourself.
    Yes if only the government paid people more money we wouldn't have any of these problems!

    We should give teachers £100k a year and a unicorn each, everyone knows unicorn hair wards off inflation.
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