New Audio Section Opening
On Saturday 24th August at 11am, The Chief Minister Mr Alan Bell MHK will be officially opening the new Audio Department at hmv in The Strand Shopping Centre.
HMV have successfully re–established the store over the last few months with solid foundations now in place, the new owners have invested in a store refit to double the size of the Audio section as well as introducing a cutting edge T-Shirt department, which carries an ever-changing range of 125 titles.
With total album sales up for the first time since 2010, the extra space given over to music is to take advantage of changing trends in the music market. It also allows the store to carry and extra 2,500 to 3,500 back catalogue titles which hmv would not have previously stocked. Store Manager Pete McMurrie said “ With this extra space it is our intention as the leading specialist retailer that when you come into hmv we will have the album that you came in for. If it is outside our range then we will order it for you and aim for a 48hr turnaround. That is our goal.”
Pete added “We have had a fantastic response from our customers so far but we need to further showcase physical music and the mighty Compact Disc. Our customers know that there is a definite sound quality loss with a download compared to a CD, especially when listening through premium headphones or a quality Hi-Fi. There is also a price misconception that we need to address. For example the Beatles Sgt Pepper album is ?10.99 as a download of ?7.99 for the deluxe limited edition CD from hmv. Why pay more for less?
“Re-launching our new look store will be a fantastic achievement and we are really pleased that the Chief Minister (an hmv regular) will be doing the honours. We have a great day planned for Saturday 24th and I hope to see you there”.
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