HMV shuts one of its two Birmingham stores

MUSIC and DVD retailer HMV has shut its High Street, Birmingham store.

A sign in the window of the shop advises customers to visit the nearby Bullring store or to purchase products via its online site.

But earlier reports that nine branches of the retailer shut their doors for the last time on Sunday proved incorrect.

An HMV store on the ramp leading to New Street Station ceased trading as part of an earlier tranche of closures in January 2011.

The HMV Group announced at the beginning of the year it would shut 40 HMV stores and 20 Waterstone’s shops within 12 months in a bid to cut costs.

There are two Waterstone’s stores in central Birmingham within close proximity of each other: in High Street and New Street.

A HMV statement said: “We’ve begun the process of reviewing our store portfolio, with the main focus right now being locations where we have more than one store trading in close proximity to each other, which means we are broadly catering to the same public.

“The stores we’ve just closed are pretty much secondary sites, leaving much larger superstores in place to ensure that we maintain our specialist offer in these locations. We’re currently in consultation with affected work colleagues, who we’re doing our best to redeploy to nearby stores where we can.”

HMV and Waterstones have struggled against a changing consumer environment in which books and music are increasingly bought online – or from supermarkets – or downloaded.