CDs at Best Buy are going the way of the dodo

[steven36]

Best Buy has stopped selling CDs at its stores as of Sunday, CBS Pittsburgh reports. The arrest of CD sales will happen nationwide.

 

 

Due to digital streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and others, CD sales have been falling in recent years. Best Buy's CD sales have recently only brought in about $40 million annually.

 

Interestingly, though, Best Buy will continue to sell vinyl records for the next two years. Vinyl has seen a resurgence lately, with vinyl album sales last year at a 27-year-high, according to Billboard.

 

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[steven36]

Breaking News Update:   No, Best Buy Has Not Completely Stopped Selling CDs—Yet, Anyway

 

 

Numerous news sites reported that as of this weekend, retailer Best Buy was calling it quits on CD sales, apparently all citing a report from Billboard in February giving a July 1st, 2018 kill date at the chain. That’s not the case, though it does appear to be true that Best Buy has made the fairly obvious business decision to begin phasing out CD sales in its US stores.

 

According to WSPA 7 News, reports of the total termination of CD sales at Best Buy are premature—though the company says it is significantly reducing retail space dedicated to CD sales and will only offer “select CDs”:

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Earlier reports indicated that the big chain store stopped selling CDs in their stores nationwide as of July 1, but Best Buy officials said that’s not the case and said they’ll still be selling CDs but on a smaller scale.

 

“The way people buy and listen to music has dramatically changed and, as a result, we are reducing the amount of space devoted to CDs in our stores. However, we will still offer select CDs, vinyl and digital music options at all stores.”

 

 

In other words, people just aren’t buying CDs anymore in an era when they can stream music (or even just buy downloads of albums) over the internet at a much more favorable price point. Digital music sales outpaced CD sales in 2015, and in 2017 downloads were themselves overtaken by streaming sales.

 

Barring the complete and total collapse of all web infrastructure, it’s probably hard for consumers to justify spending money on CDs (even if they are splurging on vinyl). This does create a tough position for artists, whose revenue streams have been disrupted by the death of hard-copy albums—but they can’t exactly rely on a resurgence of an aging format to fix the problem.

 

As Billboard noted in February, Best Buy was once “the most powerful music merchandiser in the U.S.,” but sources said the amount of revenue generated has declined to a mere $40 million annually. (For comparison, Best Buy pulled in over $42 billion in revenue globally in the last fiscal year.) Declines in the sales of CDs are by no measure the chain’s only woes, with the company offering product rentals and even traveling salesmen in attempts to compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon.

 

Billboard wrote that retail competitor Target is still pulling in significant CD sales. But it apparently was demanding a switch to “scan-based trading terms,” better known as consignment, for music and video suppliers. That meant they wouldn’t pay for the merchandise until shoppers had actually paid for it, instead of the pre-existing system where they shipped unsold merchandise back to the suppliers for credit.

 

While customers might still be able to pick up some CDs at Best Buy for the time being, the writing is on the door. On the other hand, this may be a good time to start looking for bargain bin sales.

More at [WSPA 7News]

 

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[Archanus]

Oh Wow  Well, one reason would be that M4A file are significantly smaller and it sounds very good, algo the physical space (CD vs Digital File)

[debebee]

There is an opposite phenomenon in ASIA... particular with JPOP and KPOP fans,

 

CDs usually contain exclusive photobooks of their favorite artists..

Can you imagine they create LIMITED EDITION CDS (if a girl group has  9 members, you have 9 LE CDs + The regular Edition and Some 2 or More Special Edition Releases)... New Single out, they create a repackaged album, and FANS go for it.

 

So WOTAKUS and diehard fans pony up large amount of cash for MERCHANDISE

 

Example. https://www.koreaboo.com/stories/the-ultimate-guide-to-twices-official-merchandise-since-debut/

 

 

[debebee]

Why do many bands release limited edition album only in Japan?

 

Japan has a voracious appetite for consuming music.  Particularly around micro niches - think of all the relatively obscure Western artists that can be considered 'big in Japan'; think specific genres, big and small (jazz, hip hop, folk, Hawaiian slack key guitar, etc) that enjoy a deep and knowledgable following; then add the vast and dedicated fanatical devotion legacy artists such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, etc, still command.  

Add all this together, and then pause to consider that Western popular music still only forms less than half all the music sold in Japan. The less obvious segment (to most outside of Japan) is the domestic market: J-Pop, traditional music, some very interesting underground and electronic stuff and all the Japanese analogues of Western rock and pop acts, some more obviously slavish and/or reverential copyists than others.

Such a huge market still shifts units, even in the download/torrent era.  Walk into a Shibuya megastore (yes, Japan can still support their existence, just) like Tower Records (http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new...) or Disc Union and you will see most new albums racked out as both cheap imports from the US or Europe, alongside the more expensive domestic edition.

The pull of this market poses issues for domestic Japanese labels and publishers. Imported and often cheap music cuts them out of the loop. As do bootleg live shows. Hence the proliferation of unique Japanese only editions, with bonus tracks, bonus discs, tour editions, live albums (at the Budokan or elsewhere), Japan-only EPs, bonus plectrums, stickers, mini-condoms (yes, really!) etc etc. 

The Japanese cultural obsession with exquisite packaging and presentation also extends to unique covers, deluxe slipcases (sometimes as a retail premium), and in the past 15 years or so to the faithful reproduction in miniature of the precise look and feel of the original vinyl artefact but in digital form by way of 'paper sleeve editions' of classic and collectable rock, jazz and  classical albums - all beautifully packaged with pasted card covers, inserts etc as per the original release.

Such desirable product certainly carries enough appeal for the home market to make sufficient headway against imports, but in doing so also makes itself a very attractive export commodity. Indeed some of the most collectable and beautiful physical music product in the world has originated out of Japan over the past 50 years or so -by way of such specific cultural attributes and marketing ploys as translucent coloured vinyl, paper 'obi' strips or sashes, unique picture covers, bonus singles or other premium items bundled in with albums, exclusive releases, bonus tracks, live albums, charmingly mis-transcribed lyric inserts, etc.

 

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-many-bands-release-limited-edition-album-only-in-Japan

Also it helps that the Japan government has actively curbed a lot of the online piracy by closing blogs, torrent sites that hosted pirated material.. SO TV Shows, Blurays, rips CD ISOS and rips are not as prolific as they used to..