Entertainment retailer HMV has announced that they will be closing their flagship Robson store and replacing it with another downtown store 80 to 90 percent smaller. This comes as a result of the growing trend of consumers acquiring media such as music and movies online, coupled with high rent.

James Smerdon of Colliers International estimates that the rent of the 50,000 square foot downtown store is around $60 to $80 per square foot, which equates to a sizable cost of around $3.5 million in rent. HMV Canada’s total sales in 2011 are (on a pro-forma basis) around $357 million, which means an average of around $3 million sales in each of the 121 Canadian stores. Of course, the giant Robson store would be expected to have sales well above this average. But this $3 million still gives an idea of how difficult it has been for the flagship store to break even when compared to the $3.5 million fixed cost of rent.

Other stores in downtown Vancouver of comparable size are few, and include much more diversified retailers such as The Bay. In hindsight, it’s perhaps surprising that a massive store selling music and movies – a market long known to have gone digital – wasn’t closed sooner.