Vivian Leung's Blog

After reading an article on Canadian Business Online, “HMV Canada to remodel stores with bigger range of products, new interactive feel”, I was quite interested in HMV’s recent repositioning for the Canada division.

As the trend for online downloading and Internet streaming skyrocketed over the past decades, the music business has been stuck in a declining stage. Less and less people are buying CD’s when it took a matter of seconds to download a mp3 version of a song and sync it into their iPods. How does HMV cope with this?

They decided to go with a whole new approach by completely remodeling their current Toronto branches. “The redesigned locations will sell a wider variety of products like more t-shirts, video games and headphones, and will have new fixtures and colour schemes.” A type of product growth strategy, product development, HMV is brand extending by introducing these new products to their current market, in hope of also capturing new customers. This may allow HMV to generate more sales from their broadened customer base.

They are also “bring[ing] in more interactive guest environments and the (video) game section”. According to the Diffusion of Innovation Theory, this is strategy accelerates the rate of adoption as it is it free to try out and those who don’t can observe the demos and demonstrations available. Creating such an interactive environment allows the customers to have a hands-on experience before purchasing, similarly to how Apple presents its products for customers to try out.

Let’s hope that HMV Canada’s remodeled stores are worth the expenses!