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ROUGH TRADE IS THRIVING – SO WHY IS HMV SO PESSIMISTIC ABOUT PHYSICAL MUSIC?


Rough justice for CD R


RETAIL  BY TIMINGHAM


oughTrade has issued a rallying cry for an industry-wide rethink on


the ambitions of British music retail – as it mulls over plans to expand nationwide. The award-winning retailer


has toldMusicWeek it is on course to post yet another double-digit growth in revenues this year,whilst encouraging an injection of belief into the potential of physical media RoughTrade’s comments


come afterHMV posted a £38.6m loss for the year ending April.HMV appeared pessimistic over CD’s future in its financial statement last week, commenting: “TheHigh Street physical audio market is expected to decline in value by approximately 20%.The directors expect this trend to continue over the next three years as both physical music sold by internet mail order and digital downloads continue to take market share.” Independent retailers


country-wide have expressed concern over an industry culture accelerating physical music’s decline, after overall albums sales dropped 2.9m in the first half of the year to 20.6m. In the past chart week, those numbers hit an embarrassing nadir:UK album artists sold under a million units in total,with Rihanna’sTalkThat Talk reaching No.1 on less than 10,000 sales. Responding toHMV’s 20% reduction forecast, Stephen


than it is a seismic shift in consumer demand toward digital. “The polarised retail-scape


currently suffers a hugely embarrassingmismatch between what the listener would like and what it receives. If presented with a compelling physical format retail offer, the public respond with demand.RoughTrade continues double-digit sales growth based on CDand vinyl only, serving amillion visitors per year, and growing.At present,


there isn’t a sufficiently compelling physical format retail offer (nationwide), hence the fall in physical demand. “It’s no secret we have


ambitions for a series of Rough Trades across the country, giving all ages of curious mind a place to congregate, communicate, celebrate and discover inventive culture. “Music retail is 1% purchase,


99% an experience.That 99% experience provides a critical


proactive in supporting ‘showcase’ retailers like RoughTrade, Jumbo, Piccadilly,Resident etc, as it was protecting the copyright holder frompiracy, the industry would ‘kill a flock of birds with one stone’ - driving higher-margin physical sales growth, injecting back value extracted in the name of technology adoption, increasing diversity in consumer taste and reflecting the wonder of our cultural diversity so applauded in thisOlympic spotlight.


Godfroy, co-owner of Rough Trade Shops, toldMusicWeek: “PuttingHMV’s woes aside, this is a classic example of creative industry myopia. “Venturing outside our


industry bubble finds the correlation with physical format sales decline is more a result of a failure in frontline physical retail


“Ifwehada dozenRough Tradesacross theUK,physical


saleswouldbemore likelytoincrease20%” STEPHEN GODFROY,ROUGH TRADE


interface of learning and appreciation of music in all its formats, and tragically, this environment has all but vanished from the UK. “If we had a dozen Rough


Trades across the UK, physical sales would bemore likely to increase 20% a year,not decline 20%. If our industry was as


“I was lucky enough to attend


the Olympic opening ceremony and whilst I felt a great sense of wonderment and pride, I also felt deeply ashamed at how our creative industries are represented at a wider retail level. “Technology companies have brilliantly stepped into the sales void and secured revenues lost from theHigh Street, but to think this is a reflection of overall consumer demand as opposed to beingHobson’s choice, is nothing but sheer folly.” When pressed on when


RoughTrade might expand across the UK,Godfroy added: “We’re naturally concentrating on opening RoughTrade in New York right now, along with our forthcoming new online platform.But UK expansion is never far from our thoughts, especially given the increasing scale of opportunity.” AnHMV spokesperson told


MusicWeek: “The [20%market decline] figures are based on the data modelling we tend to use along with other market info. We’re not saying that it will definitely happen in this way - we’d be more than happy to be proved wrong. “But as a business you have to


plan for the future based on what you expect the market to do. It doesn’t mean we’re giving up on physical music, if anything, we’re investing more into it. Ultimately,we can only sell what’s put in front of us and the demand that exists for it, though we feel more could be done to increase that demand.”


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