A subscription to the jukebox will cost£5.99 a month, giving customers access to more than 3.5 million songs in HMV’s archive and the ability to create playlists. E-commerce director Gideon Lask said the service will be ideal for customers holding dinner parties, although they will not be able to download tracks.
He said that HMV’s online sales have doubled in the past 12 months to account for 10 per cent of its sales.
HMV will also launch a separate social networking web site in December, which Lask believes is strategically important for the business. He said: “For over 80 years, HMV has operated in social spaces – stores – but the way in which customers want to interact with each other has changed. Our job is to recommend music and films and with the new site we can do this in fun and interactive ways.”
This month, the group is set to integrate its digital site, Hmvdigital.co.uk, with the main web site, Hmv.co.uk – giving customers a one-stop shop for CDs and downloads. Lask said the integrated site could give it double the visitors of Apple’s iTunes store. He said Christmas will be its biggest online.
HMV will conduct the bulk of its pre-Christmas preparation at its distribution centre, with “big sums of money” being put into more staff and machinery, according to Lask.
Meanwhile, HMV is set to reopen its flagship Fopp store in Covent Garden this Saturday. The store closed after Fopp went into administration in July.
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