Heat

Wal-Mart is pushing for a five-tier CD pricing structure with the top 15 to 20 best sellers being at $10, other popular titles at $12, and catalog titles at $9, $7, and $5. The record companies are currently resisting, but keep in mind that their CD sales are in a downward spiral and Wal-Mart is the largest seller of CDs with a 22% market share.

Lower CD sales is hurting Wal-Mart too, it is apparently getting to the point where they would rather use the space where CDs are stocked for something else, or at least part of it. Unless they can increase CD sales, thus the 5-tier strategy. And if Wal-Mart gets this, the record companies will have to offer the same pricing schedule for others as well.

Per a Sound Opinions podcast I was listening to (rock reviewers from the two Chicago newspapers), when you buy a CD only a dollar or less goes to the artist ($1 being for the top bands), $1.50 to $2.00 to the retailer, and the remainder to the record company – the proposal to reduce the prices would basically come straight out of the record company’s pockets so of course they aren’t happy.

Anyway, if you can't tell I'm all for this - I think it's crazy that some CDs are offered at $14 or $15 for new releases. Guess what, I don't buy CDs at that price.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080302/media_nm/walmart_dc

nothingfails

sounds like a good idea. I never understood why cd catalog prices don't come down the way DVD's do. If a movie that was popular five years ago can now be found for $5, why shouldn't the same happen with a CD? Catalog sales would see a raise as well. Once a cd has sold all it's going to sell at one price, either you drop the price or it'll stop selling, the labels just don't seem to do that tho, and then wonder why albums from 10 years ago that still retail for the same price it retailed for ten years ago don't sell anymore.

EdTheRipper

I'd buy more cds if they were more reasonably priced so this works out well for me.

story

I likes it.

GreenMonkey

Yup

There's plenty of CDs from the 80s-90s I'd still pick up, including re-buying some that got stolen years ago, but I'm not paying $10 for them. Normally I scrape them up used. Or these days, I really don't buy music at all.

neiname

I just bought a cd from Bestbuy yesterday. It was $12.99 and I used a $3 coupon I had from some chex snack pack I bought. I really prefer buying cds as I've learned the hardway that anything off iTunes is gone if the hard drive dies and no backup (plus all other sorts of copy protection). For me my limit is around $10-11 for a cd.

cdollaz

I am still a fan of buying actual cds as well, but I always wait until a good price comes or trade for them/buy them used.

Decker

I read a recent article in the LA Times that most teenages did not buy a single cd in the past year. Thinking back to my teen years, that's pretty stunning. No wonder the industry is suffering.

stingermck

This is something I would like to see, and Wal-Mart could make it happen quicker than anyone else. Sure the studios wont get fat, but some money is better than none.

chris_sc77

Wal-Mart has proposed what I think is a great idea.

The Bus

They proposed this years ago and it never happened.

wendersfan

The market's changed a bit since then, I bet.

Hiro11

This is probably self-evident, but this is why the Billboard charts are completely meaningless these days. Seemingly, only 10 year old girls and Boomers buy CDs these days.

reverie

Good idea.. and I'll never give up on buying cds until they're gone. One the other hand, I sure hope Wal-Mart would increase their selection, since they've got next-to-none that I've ever seen.

cdollaz

Yep, Walmart has shitty selection. I think I've bought maybe 2 cds there ever. but more power to them on this.

FantasticVSDoom

I would certainly buy more CDs... I think I have bought 10 CDs in the last 5 years.

BravesMG

Does WM still only carry "clean" versions of CDs? I got burned a couple of years ago by that shit and haven't bought a CD from them since.

islandclaws

I still buy plenty of CDs. I'm part of the dying breed that likes to have a tangible piece of merch in my hands. I don't like paying too much for them, though. I usually use a 30% coupon at Borders to get a good deal, but I agree that catalog titles should ALL be $10 tops.

cdollaz

There is a 40% Borders cd coupon good thru today. Check the Hot Deals forum.

Michael Corvin

As long as they only sell the edited version of albums, I could give two shits about their pricing structure.

UAIOE

I admit I don't buy many CD's at Wal-Mart because my musical taste favors stuff they don't really carry (more electronic type stuff) but I did buy Kraftwerk's Minimum-Maximum there.

But I'm all for this pricing. $5 for catalog CD's? I could finally build up my AC/DC collection then.

Heat

I don’t buy at Wal-Mart either, but the fact is that Wal-Mart is the number one retailer of CDs in the US and if they get this pricing structure it will be carried over to other retailers.

Also noted above is that the selection at Wal-Mart is shrinking. This is because CDs aren’t selling as well as they used to, thus the proposed pricing structure. The implied threat to the record companies is that if they don’t agree to this, their #1 salesman (Wal-Mart) will further reduce the number of titles they carry, possibly to a “new releases” only selection or possibly no CDs at all.

rw2516

I guess they won't be carrying The Beatles cds if this goes through. There may be other artists who set the retail price of their cds also. Wal-Mart can probably sell them for whatever they want but I doubt if Paul, Ringo, and the estates of John and George will cut the wholesale price. The Beatles keep the price high in order to keep demand consistent from year to year. They would rather sell a million a year over 20 years than 20 million in one year. This also keeps them always in print. They sell as many this year as they did last year, and the year before that, and so on.

wendersfan

While that is indeed the motivation for their pricing structure, the main reason why they sell consistently from year to year is because they're The Beatles.

C-Mart

I recognize the desire for the tangible CD, and for my favorite stuff I still get it - mainly for bonus disks, etc... but if I have a choice between $12.99 for the disk and $9.99 for digital only, then I typically take the digital; especially given that the first thing I do is rip the disk to digital and then put it away.

-Good point about losing the purchased iTunes music if I lose my HD though. I think its time to back up my music.

-Oh, and I rarely buy at Wal-Mart due to poor selection, but if other retailers pick up this pricing structure then that would be cool.