HMV - Cheap? sometimes (HMV)

Member Name: Palmer89

Product:	HMV
Date:	29/07/09 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amount of produtcs/size of store

Disadvantages: Not cheapest

HMV is the biggest entertainment store in the UK and one of the biggest worldwide with stores in far away places such as Tokyo. It primarily sells DVD's and CD's but also sells magazines, books and games in all of its stores. They can be found in almost every (I can imagine EVERY) big town or city, living in Bristol a new store has recently opened up which is huge and the same size I can imagine countrywide.

HMV is the biggest store in the UK now for entertainment purposes after the collapse of Zavvi, I always preffered Zavvi on price and for deals, they also had a wider array of products as far as I was concerned, but since they are no longer it's unfair to compare them. HMV does have a very large product portfolio, if you want to find something you most likely will (although I have been in a few times recently to be dissapointed). I would say there is a wider selection of DVD's than there are cd's, perhbaps the whole downloading aspect is reducing their cd sales so much they're stocking less.

I personally do not find HMV as cheap as other places, primarily Fopp (owned by HMV) and CEX (and exchange store), I usually only buy DVD's from HMV, CD's I get elsewhere but the DVD prices are normally expensive, although I have noticed a reduction in the price in recent times. They are now even selling some dvd's for as cheap as £3, however new or post-2005 films still sell for a higher rate than most shops these days, such as £9/10 for a year old film, these days I wouldn't pay a huge amount for a film and unfortunatly unless you don't want a deal you'll end up paying more for less, the offer most on at HMV is a 3 for £20 deal, this compares to Fopp where I got 5 top films for £15 or Zavvi where the usual deal was 4 for £20, they also do a 2 for £10 deal on some dvd's and cd's usually only old cd's though that they are trying to ship. Their array of games is not huge, they seem to only incorporate a little section of their store to games which is confusing since I would have thought that would be one of the biggest sellers.

Overall, the main positive with regards to HMV is the amount of products and films/cd's they actually sell, on occasions they will not have something you are looking for (whereas Zavvi did), I also found the lay out at Zavvi was better and easier to find certain genre of films or certain titles of films, the main problem with HMV however is the cost, every now and then you will find 3/4 films you've been waiting for for ages in a deal or find a really cheap boxset, for me however thats usually a one off, not as cheap as most places but being the sole remaining big entertainment store I can't see prices falling. I must say I have seen a small improvement in the cost of items but still not enough to be cheap enough.

HMV is a well know, every now and then cheap brilliant store.

Summary: Best and most well known entertainment store.