This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Retail
HMV’s flagship Tokyo store re-opens with vinyl focus
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 12 August 2014
Four years after being closed down, what was Tokyo’s flagship HMV store in the Shibuya district has reopened, specialising in vinyl and second hand CDs.
The six floor shop was shut in August 2010, shortly before convenience store chain Lawson bought HMV’s Japanese business. The Shibuya area is still well-served by record retailers though – from small independents to the massive Tower Records – despite the record industry in the country experiencing considerable decline of late, especially in the last eighteen months. Nonetheless, HMV Japan reckons it’s found the right time and place to stage a comeback for its largest store.
Lawson HMV Entertainment exec Masato Komatsu told Qetic that before opening the store, he and his team had visited various record shops in Japan and overseas as research. As a result, it was felt that “specialisation” would be the key to the re-opened store’s success, in competition with online retailers like Amazon, and other establish physical stores.
Komatsu says that he sees the target market at launch as people in their 40s and above who still own record players, though hopes that, by stocking new releases (which make up 20-30% of stock), it will attract a younger audience too – who can buy the required hardware in store if needs be. HMV is also working with artists to press exclusive limited edition seven-inches.
Look through some photographs of the new HMV Shibuya here.
