Music Retailers
Music Retailers Online
I am going to look into music retailers online, which means you can buy music physically and digitally online from lots of different online music stores and different countries, such as Tesco Entertainment (UK), Virgin Digital (UK or US), Emusic, HMV, Amazon, CDbaby, iTunes and etc.
Online music store is popular now, to be honest to say the last time I purchased music in store was about three years ago. It is much easier that you purchase music online because you will have your music immediately after you pay or you only need to wait for three or four days to shipping to your home, it will help you save your money on transport.
You can purchase your music online by different payment methods, such as paypal or different bank cards. Your credit card information is safe because most of them are use SSL encryption technology to secure their commerce transactions. ‘Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers.’ (SSL definition at wikipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer 4th Oct 2007)
The price of purchase music online is normally cheaper then in the stores. The reasons are 1.The organization will save money to pay people who they employed. 2. They will not need to open a physical store during working hours. 3. Online store will increase sales as it work for 24 hours and normally the digital music will not need to produce a physical CD.
Here are two examples; 1.The store price is £17.99 for ‘Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’ from Oasis but the price of online store is £11.98. 2. Emusic they offer three subscription plans for customers and all of their plans cost less than the price of a CD each month, from £8.99 of maximum 30 downloads to £14.99 of maximum 75 downloads per month.
Online music stores also have competitions which is same as the really shops. Such as Virgin Digital Site had a blog which allow audiences to post their review of music or anything they wish to say on this blog. Now they have already reached 2119546 numbers of tracks at 23:35 4th October 2007.
An example of a post at 21 September 2007 ‘So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye…goodbye’ (Big Mouth Blog at Virgin Digital at http://blog.virgindigital.co.uk/)
HMV site offer student discount 15% for music and international shoppers which allow customers to shop online from more than 30 different countries.
Online music stores also offer pre-order with extras, it means you can order new album as your wishing list when it release the online store will send it to you the first time, sometimes customers will also have free gifts, such as T-shirt, posters and etc.
Online music store will offer some free versions or try versions like 30 seconds to listen the music before you purchase them.
Customer service online is able in every online music store which is same as the customer service in store, it usually use email to ask questiones or customers can find common questiones at FAQ or live chat, eg Emusic.
To purchase music online in the same county it often free delivery, and it will reasonable delivery fee for international customers, the beneficial of this for customers is you can purchase the music online as a gift to your friends, some site had gift wrapping service.
Independent retailers like Cdbaby.com. It is a little online record store that sells albums by independent musicians. Derek Sivers he was selling his own CD in 1997, and he started to asked some fellow musicians if they would like him to sell their CD, too. But then it become popular day by day and now this little online music store has paid over $50 million directly to independent musicians around the world. The cool thing of this site is in a regular record deal or destribution deal, musicians only make $1-$2 per album, but when they sell through CD Baby, musicians make $6-$12 per album, and get paid weekly. Personally after I searched this site, I start to love to buy music from Cdbaby.com, the site is in a easy format, very easy to understand it. And they have variety music and etc.
‘Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’ from Oasis Price
http://www.amazon.co.uk/music-rock-classical-pop-jazz/b/ref=topnav__w_h_/202-8014421-0887833?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=229816) [Viewed 4/10/2007]
Live chat at Emusic
https://www.emusic.com/registration/2.html?SNID=EC204EC2D935E982CE87BBDA631B4F52 [Viewed 4/10/2007]
Good use of examples, links and information regarding the consumption of online music. Could have added some recent news on the amazon deal, offering mp3 downloads for a cheaper price than other large competitors such as itunes. Shame we both got the same layout copy cat! Im joking!
I think the pricing thing you mention is really interesting, because even though the prices are quite often lower than CD retail, they’re not often THAT much lower… despite the fact that there are fewer overheads like storage, distribution, pressing, etc.
Why do you think that might be?
You have analysed the way paid-for music nowadays is consumed by the public to a realistic standard.
Perhaps think about music that is consumed via illegal websites, as this makes a huge difference to artists as they lose out on royalties because the music is free. Illegal sites also offer the convenience of not having to register or wait around at home for a CD to arrive, the way legal sites do.