This HMV store is located inside Intu Potteries in Hanley, Stoke On-Trent. It is quite a nice…read morestore, it is a good size and a good selection of dvd's and cd's.
I mainly come in to take a look at the cd's, especially albums from Englebert and Frank Sinatra, I noticed a wide selection of CD's, in some form of alphabetical order, yet I found it to be disorganized, it was arranged into categories and then alphabetical order, hence became confusing, and I didn't realize that until I got all the way through the alphabet a good 2-3 times.
The layout of CD's really needs sorting, as it did seem confusing, as they was such a big selection it always would be hard arranging them, but they didn't seem to do a job here.
Prices for me seemed a little pricey, a little expensive but still some of them were on par with Amazon's price for new, but considering what used CD's can be bought for and from other sellers new on Amazon, it was a little pricy. For example, as CD's are going out of fashion, they should be much cheaper, and I still was hesitant about paying £6.99
The signal in this store is weak, so it can be hard to price-check on your phone. As this store appeals to a younger market, selling entertainment products, this is one of the stores that doe and should have some sort of wi-fi, or at the very least some 3G/4G signal, and considering even Lush has free wifi, HMV should too!
The staff here seemed okay, although he seemed hesitant about signing me up to the loyalty scheme and telling me it wasn't free, as I thought it would have been, which is a little bit of a rip-off and makes it less of a rewards based system, and more of a punishment. I decided not to subscribe as I rarely visit HMV.
The range of all other items was okay / good, but still the prices remained poor / satisfactory, even the offers were confusing, for example Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked can be bought for £5.99 or £2.99 for any purchase, but still it remains £3 to buy on Amazon and it sells for about that, making it not much of a savings. The 2 for £5 / £10 offer also was confusing, it was on cheaper albums that were not really worth much online, and only few of them.
Overall, it is just too pricey here and they make the prices seem great by using "Special Offer" promotions which is a little misleading, considering this factor, an issue with the arrangements of the CD's, the staff being merely average, I feel I can only give this HMV store 2 stars.