New card integral to HMVs games offering

HMV believes its new customer loyalty scheme can tempt games consumers away from other retailers – and become an ‘integral’ part of the firm’s category offering.

The retailer announced Pure HMV last week, a new loyalty card that offers members the chance to snap up a range of limited edition or hard-to-find items not available on the High Street.

And the firm told MCV this week that it has enjoyed a good reaction from games suppliers, who were keen to be involved with the initiative – and that prizes might even allow customers to influence the development stage of new games.

Games buyers are actually among our biggest-spending customers, and we want to thank and reward them for their custom, which we will never take for granted,” said HMV’s head of games Tim Ellis.

We’ve already had a great response from games publishers. We presented an update to Pure HMV at our recent supplier conference, and since then we’ve had lots of pledges of commitment. Suppliers have realised that we’ll be able to promote their offers to our Pure HMV database as it grows.

One idea we’re exploring, for example, is ‘writing in’ a Pure HMV member into a games storyline – that kind of thing. Of course, we’ll also be getting lots of signed product in – including a ‘my inspiration’ poster of Will Wright.”