Seated in the lobby of the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre wearing a casual shirt and jeans, Nick Williams doesn’t fit the stereotype of a corporate president and CEO. The Manchester native who heads hmv Canada is easygoing, and he’s not wearing a suit. On this evening, Williams is in an upbeat mood as he speaks to the Georgia Straight about his Toronto-based company’s impending opening of a new downtown store in a space at 1148 Robson Street formerly occupied by lululemon.

“I’ve listened to music since I was a young teenager and watched movies since I was a young teenager,” Williams says. “It’s an absolute pleasure to work in an organization that sells it.”

The opening of a new Robson Street location is the latest development in a remarkable comeback for Canada’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer of music and movies. The company’s former parent, publicly traded HMV Group plc, fell on hard times a few years ago, partly because it was far behind digital competitors when it opened an online music store in 2010.

Three years ago, when a Canadian subsidiary of U.K.–based Hilco Capital bought HMV Canada, media coverage was somewhat scornful, even though the British private equity firm had a reputation for turning around troubled companies.

A professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management brazenly told the Financial Post that the 2011 sale to Hilco was “the obituary” for the music and video chain.

The subsequent closure of its 50,000-square-foot store at the corner of Robson and Burrard streets gave credence to that prediction.

It seemed like a sad situation for a company that had opened its first store in London, England, in 1921. The name HMV is a reference to a famous Francis Barraud painting, His Master’s Voice, which features a dog sitting next to a gramophone.

Flashforward three years and hmv Canada is doing a roaring $240 million in annual sales, according to Williams. The new Robson location will be its ninth B.C. store, and there are more than 100 outlets across the country. Underlying the company’s success is the addition of what Williams calls “new income streams”: T-shirts, gifts, and collectibles.

Hmv’s customer-loyalty program, called purehmv, has 1.6 million members across Canada. But an even bigger factor may be the decline in paid digital downloading in recent years. In 2013, Billboard reported that digital-music-track sales fell 5.7 percent as streaming services such as YouTube and Spotify cannibalized the industry.

Williams says that nowadays, half of all music sold in Canada is on CDs and vinyl. He admits that digital downloading is more convenient, but insists that it doesn’t offer the same experience as browsing through a store’s collection, buying a disc or an album on impulse, and reading the sleeve notes.

“I maintain that there are still a lot of people who collect books, music, and film who want the physical form,” he says. “It’s still an important part of people’s lives.”

He acknowledges that vinyl is a small part of the overall business, but he says it’s rapidly growing. “Not only are people getting back into vinyl, but youngsters are getting into it for the first time altogether.”

Hilco was so satisfied with hmv Canada’s results that in 2013, it bought 141 stores from U.K.–based HMV, hoping to replicate this success in Britain.

Williams says that last year, hmv’s temporary downtown Vancouver location did a brisk holiday business, which reinforced his belief in launching the permanent 3,100-square-foot store on Robson Street. To celebrate the opening, Canadian singer-songwriter Lights will perform an acoustic set inside the shop on Wednesday (December 3). A maximum of 100 wristbands will be given out at the December 1 store opening to those who want to attend the show.

Williams promises this won’t be the only concert at the Robson Street location. The appearance by Lights is part of a broader strategy to enable musicians and people in the movie industry to interact with customers.

“Vancouver has a big music presence, as you know,” Williams says. “Lots of bands travel through Vancouver, which also has an association with film. It was important to try and find a store that had a little bit of space to allow us to do that.”