HMV Canada cuts prices, considers streaming music, rental videos
Beleaguered music and movie retailer HMV Canada says sales are up since it changed its pricing structure. It’s looking at launching the country’s first subscription-based digital music service next year.
And it’s considering a move into movie rentals as a way to boost future revenues.
There’s a hole in market since video rental retailer Blockbuster Canada filed for bankruptcy, HMV president Nick Williams said in an interview.
Blockbuster failed under the weight of its U.S. parent’s debts, but many of its Canadian locations were profitable and will soon be coming on the market, he said.
However, Williams cautioned discussions are at the preliminary, internal stage. “Nothing’s been decided.”
Like other traditional music and movie retailers, HMV is under pressure to change its ways as more people buy and download entertainment content from the Internet.
The Canadian unit was sold last spring by its debt-laden U.K.-based parent, HMV plc to U.K.-based Hilco for $3.2 million.
Wide range of firms use QR codes to target tech-savvy consumers
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have become standard marketing tools for businesses to connect with the public online. Now marketers are targeting tech-savvy early adopters with QR codes – those rectangular codes that are popping up in store circulars, print ads, brochures, billboards, T-shirts and store windows.
“It’s the whole linking of the offline world with the online world that makes it work,” said Greg Robertson, owner of PowerFlite Communications in Quincy.
A Toyota subsidiary invented QR – short for quick response – technology in 1994 to help track automotive parts.
With the advent of widespread smartphone use, QR technology is going mainstream. Users of camera-equipped phones can download free apps that enable them to scan QR codes. The phone’s camera is used to scan the codes. The app, a QR reader, then translates the information and sends them to web pages and videos with information on products.
For example, readers who scan a QR code next to an ad for chrysanthemums in Home Depot’s flier are sent to a web page containing planting and care tips.
Their entire business is premised upon delivering two of the market's needs. On the consumer side, a growing desire for individuals to parlay something unique about their identity to the outside world and on the business end, real-time market research
