Basingstoke man could lose 100,000 HMV loyalty points (From This is Hampshire)

Could be worse....he could be one of their employees that are losing their jobs!

Stop whinging about £40.00...this is hardly a new article surely!!!?

Lets hope Mr Ball didn't get a Blockbusters Gift Card for Christmas or there will be another pointless story for the Gazette to publish...

HC1 wrote:
Could be worse....he could be one of their employees that are losing their jobs! Stop whinging about £40.00...this is hardly a new article surely!!!?

I cannot see any evidence that he is whinging - in fact the only whingers that I can detect are you and me. Andrew Ball has stated his position without any whinging or calls for our sympathy. The report is straightforward and matter of fact. However, it made me wonder how much 'money' is tied up in loyalty cards. A recent report said that UK consumers are saving about £4billion a year by using loyalty cards. I always distrust this sort of figure, but currently Andrew Ball has £40 on one card and I have more than £100 spread across a range of cards (more if you consider that I can exchange some at 4x the face value). So what would happen to the economy if we all cashed in our points today?
Regarding The Gazette's invitation to give our views on the future of our High Streets and Town Centres, here are some of mine for what they are worth.
I think we want to do more than shop when we visit our town centres. We want social interaction and entertainment. I think that helps explain why there does not seem to be any limit on the number of coffee shops which keep opening. The retailers who survive will offer an experience we cannot get online: personal grooming (hair, beauty, nails); opticians and pharmacists; betting shops (even though it is easy to bet online you do not get the same social experience or satisfaction of going to the window to collect your winnings or commiseration from other punters when you lose); Argos (not long ago they were suffering because of online competition but they offer a service nobody else does - order online and collect your order from the shop and not have to wait for an uncertain delivery); specialist shops offering top quality products which you want to see and try before you buy; top end fashion shops; and most large chains which keep evolving to give us what we want. I do not wish to tempt fate by forecasting which retailers might fail, but I do not understand how WH Smith survives on our High Streets - I can see how they make money at airports, railway stations, etc., but who still uses them in our High Streets.

I do agree that he doesn't appear to be whinging, but I think the first poster is trying to highlight the fact that this is a pretty pointless news story, akin to the kettle guy from Comet, with a vaguely sensationalist headline, (I was thinking 100k points was going to equate to something like £500!)

Time would have been better spent reporting on some of the points poster 3 eludes to, what is the future of the High Street? It will still be needed, but in what form, and how do retailers adapt?

As a side point there are a number of stores that do C&C, Tesco, Schuh, Next to name a few but Argos have recently released results that were boosted by C&C so it's highlighted in peoples minds.

And regarding WH Smith, there are few other retailers on the HS that offer the range of magazines they do and they're an alternative to Waterstone's so although I personally don't shop there much I don't see why they have any less use than other shops.

As Censo and Delissimo (apologies for any sp) have stated...more realistic rents, and not just for the council to take a lead on offering this...having said this 'The Shop' in Church Street which was billed as a community space (owned and rented by BDBC I believe) has failed as that is once again being let (or it was a couple of weeks ago). Stop the 'chain stores only' stranglehold on shopping centres (I know our main one operated this policy when it reopened in 2002) and reduce the rents there too. The empty former Blue Arrow offices at the bottom of Wote Street was at one point up for rent of £52K a year...most SMEs would be hard pushed to find that sort of money for rent.

Holding a candle for you, man

http://www.bbc.co.uk
/news/business-21118
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I love living in a county where this is news, it makes me think “Yes, I live somewhere very safe”

I also have over 100,000 Hmv pure points on my card. I suspect a lot of Hmv pure card holders are also in this position as cashing points in required you to accumulate enough points to get vouchers on line before they could be redeemed for goods at a store. typically a £20 voucher cost more than 50,000 points. I wonder how many pure points card holders have been robbed of £40 or more? No indication if pure point holders will be considered to be creditors of the company?