04 Sep 2003 | Darrel said...

Maybe. $13 is better than $19. $10 would be close to an ideal impulse-buy price.

$5? I'd be buying them all the time.

04 Sep 2003 | Michael Spina said...

A record company doing something that benefits its customers? Is that allowed?

That's very good to hear, and I hope it starts a trend.

04 Sep 2003 | Mal Ross said...

I just hope it crosses the Atlantic! That said, who needs it when we've got cd-wow.com?

04 Sep 2003 | Steve Miller said...

I am glad to hear that Universal is lowering it's prices to ~$13, but I don't ever remember paying more than that. Now, when I do buy a CD it is mostly at Best Buy... so many Best Buy has a pricing structure that makes CDs a loss leader, but considering how many they sell that would seem a bit odd to me.

I mean, I know if I went to Sam Goody or some place like that, the CDs were more expensive, but I have always been able to find them for > $14.

Anyone else?

04 Sep 2003 | the original steve said...

After dismissing the Internet for so long, it's at least nice to see the record companies making a move in favor of the consumer. But in the long run, the CD is going the way of the dodo bird.

04 Sep 2003 | JF said...

Looks like this move is already making an impact: EMI shares tumbled 10% after rival Universal Music said it would cut U.S. compact disc prices, sparking fears the British music company would have to follow suit.

04 Sep 2003 | monkeyinabox said...

They can probably afford it after suing all the music pirates.

04 Sep 2003 | One of several Steves said...

Well, Universal not only changed their suggested retail price (an absurd $18.98), but their wholesale as well, so retailers should be able to drop prices accordingly. (We'll see if they do.) Few retailers in this business follow the suggested pricing currently, so it's probably a safe bet they won't going forward.

(Speaking of suggested retail; why is it I never see any pricing variation for Apple products, ever? At least with the iPod. Makes me suspicious of price fixing.)

04 Sep 2003 | John said...

Best Buy, Circuit City, and Amazon.com all seem to sell below the current suggested retail price. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't drop prices for Universal CDs after October 1. We'll probably start seeing them under $10 retail.

I bought a CD at Target yesterday (the new BRMC) because it was on sale for $6.98. It's an album that I wouldn't have bought for $15, so I can vouch that this move will increase CD sales. (For the record: I don't download albums.)

05 Sep 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Last CD I purchased was $200,000.

Oh ... wait ... you mean MUSIC. Never mind. :-)

05 Sep 2003 | Darrel said...

(Speaking of suggested retail; why is it I never see any pricing variation for Apple products, ever? At least with the iPod. Makes me suspicious of price fixing.)

With Apple taking the Apple store to the extreme, in some ways, you could call it price fixing. But legally, they're just one brand of computer, so it'd be like JIF setting a price for their peanut butter...you really couldn't say it is price fixing the entire peanut butter industry (I won't get into government subsidized peanut price fixing right now... ;o)

As to why there isn't much variances, Apple vendors don't sell a ton of Apple's. They need the margins as big as they can, and apple basically sets the margins via their own stores.

When the iPods first came out, they were being sold at the same price as the Toshiba drives that were used inside if bought by themselves, so I don't think iPods ever really had a large margin to begin with.

CDs, depending on the marketing and production costs of a particular musician may have profit margins in the hundreds of percentage points.

The cost of manufacturing CDs is pennies. The cost of distribution is a factor, and a factor they could eliminate if they would start selling online directly (in a more consumer-friendly manner, of course).

05 Sep 2003 | drew said...

what I want to know is if they are still selling cd's at normal price but trying to intice the general public by packing in special dvd's then why are movie dvd's so bloody expensive in comparison.

I mean you get a cd and a movie dvd for the price of one cd see eminem as and example and what not of making dvds come with their latest release.

so why wont the price of dvd's come down?

05 Sep 2003 | One of several Steves said...

so why wont the price of dvd's come down?

DVDs have come down quite a bit in price. When I first got a player in 1999, the typical price of a movie on DVD was $25-30. Now, new releases are selling for as little as $15 (typically closer to $20), and many of them often drop to $12 a few months later.

05 Sep 2003 | chris rhee said...

About the Eminem DVDs: I don't think there was much on that DVD that they had to film specifically for the DVD. It was mostly just old footage they had lying around (except for an interview).

But really, you can't compare a free promotional DVD like that to something like the Fight Club DVD. And I think I've used the word "DVD" too much in this post...

07 Sep 2003 | JoeM said...

Found this article (from a record store employee, it has some decent perspective)::

Don't Believe The Hype

11 Sep 2003 | JL said...

Funny... they didn't include classical in the price slashing.

Granted, some classical (bad recordings) are like $4.99 on the shelves, but the good stuff is -expensive-.

I picked up the Mehta/Sutherland recording of Puccini's Turandot, and it cost me $35 for 2 CD's.

For a recording in 1963.

Eh!?

03 Oct 2003 | James said...

Hopefully this will discourage piracy. Lower price, higher sales.

03 Dec 2003 | CuriousJenna said...

Of course the price wars are on! What do you think has been happening the past 15 years?!?!?!

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