Another one bites the dust – HMV the latest high street store in administration

When I think back to the phenomenal amount of money I used to spend in HMV back in the day it’s staggering to try and comprehend its current plight.

It seems that the established high street brand of HMV, a fixture across towns and cities of Britain for over 80 years, is on its last legs. The administrators have been called in and analysts warn it will need a buyer with deep pockets to stand any chance of survival.

It’s the latest big name retailer to suffer problems on the high street and looks set to follow the likes of Comet, Woolworths and Zavvi by disappearing all together. But what causes once mighty brands like HMV to fail on such a grand scale? In short it’s a failure to adapt quickly enough to a changing market. People buy music and films online nowadays, receiving digital content instantly rather than needing physical media, and HMV just didn’t embrace this shift in time. They have an online operation but by the time it was up and running other players had taken the initiative and gotten ahead of the game.

It just goes to show how important it is to stay at the forefront of technology and keep up with the ever shifting focus towards conducting more and more of our everyday business on the web.

In exactly the same way, local businesses who fail to embrace the internet for their own marketing endeavours risk falling by the wayside as customers fail to find them and their offerings. You might have the best product and the lowest prices but if nobody can find you when they’re looking, they’re just going to go elsewhere. And where are these potential customers looking? Google of course.

Don’t go the way of so many failing British retailers by leaving it too late to adapt. Get your online operation working for you and reap the many rewards that a comprehensive internet marketing campaign brings.