Is the high street coming in-line with the web?

Published
by
Adam Hopkinson
on June 12, 2005
in marketing
.

I went into HMV today; not surprising, as I regularly go to check out what’s new on the dvd scene. For the first time in a long while though, I took notice of the price of chart cd’s.

Until recently, current single-artist releases were priced at around �13 on the high street, with back catalogue tracks priced around �16-17 ($30). Many high street retailers offered the same products cheaper on their websites than in stores.

Now a shift has been made to bring these prices more in line with the web, and a browse through HMV’s top 40 albums list shows all but a few of the albums to be �9.99 or less.

Before this change, HMV were not struggling; in June 2004 the company (which also owns Waterstones bookstores) posted a record profit of �117million, up 22% on the previous year. In December 2004, announcements were made of the companys’ intentions to move into the download market by partnering with Microsoft.