Entertainment retailer HMV has announced today that it is tentatively launching an online marketplace service as it seeks to extend its offer and compete with its rivals.
Earlier this month the retailer, which recently reported a like-for-like sales fall of 11.6 per cent in the 20 weeks to September 15th 2012, began a soft-trial of the service with a view to launching it more widely once functionality testing has been completed.
Selling third-party products via its website, the retailer will be up against fierce competition from e-commerce giant Amazon, which this month announced its intention to create 10,000 jobs in the run-up to Christmas due to predicted huge demand for its products.
However, an HMV spokesman told Retail Gazette that the retailer is firmly concentrating on delivering a successful Christmas and as such a full roll out of the offer is not planned until early next year.
The spokesman added: “We‘re in the process of soft-launching a marketplace offer on hmv.com.
“It‘s very early days and purposely low key for the time being, while we test the functionality to ensure everything works and the experience is a good one for the customer.
“Our priority is to focus on delivering a successful Christmas, but we will look to officially launch early next year with a wide range of partners.
“For the moment we should have at least ten partner offerings up over the next few weeks, including with DVD Gaming, who are the first to go live.
“Ultimately it‘s about complementing our existing core offer and filling any gaps so that we can extend an even greater content-related choice to our customers.”
