"Fair" pricing for CDs? (1 Viewer)

[MarkHastings]

Sorry if I sound like a smart ass but I think people DO need to think of the artist's point of view when purchasing music

I'm not claiming to know what Gary->Dee meant by his response, but the way I interpreted it was that the artists point of view shouldn't really influence the price. I'm sure every artist out there would think there stuff is "better than everyone elses" and that they put 110% of their blood and sweat into the product, so it deserves to be priced higher than others.

I (as a consumer) don't agree with that at all. If the market says that CD's are priced at an average of $10-$12 than that's what they should be priced at. Making them higher because you feel the quality is great, shouldn't make a difference. The fact is, the quality should ALWAYS be great. What should really happen is, the lower quality/crappier CD's should be cheaper because they don't live up to the $12 mark.

 

[Gary->dee]

Sorry if I sound like a smart ass but I think people DO need to think of the artist's point of view when purchasing music, especially the independents.

So for example if I actually liked 50 Cents should I pay $50 or more for his CD since he was almost killed at one point because someone shot him in the face? He struggled, perhaps he thinks his CD should cost more than anyone elses because he almost died. Meanwhile I should have paid $5 for the new Steely Dan album because the high quality of music comes so easy to them and they didn't really have to put up with too much to get it out there since they're backed by a major label. Ok perhaps I was being a smart ass there but really, once you start to factor in the actual cost and effort it takes to produce and distribute an album and have that dictate the price it becomes a whole other ball game. Somehow I think the music industry is doing bad enough already.

 

[Steve Owen]

Jeff, from the sounds of it, you're looking for justification of the price that you've chosen rather than feedback about what it should actually be.

Even with all the things you mentioned... "heard it before, have samples available to judge from in some form, or have some pretty convincing reviews or recommendations to go by"... there's still PLENTY of good things out there worth listening to. I don't have an unlimited budget to buy every release that might be worthy, even in light of the possibilities you mentioned. So I try to get the best value for my money. If that means buying a $9 CD and leaving the $14 one on the shelf (even if I've heard it and know that it's pretty good), so be it. The $9 one is pretty good too. I've now learned to find new things to listen to, and I do that through the internet (radio is less than useless these days).

So you can stick with your pricing scheme if you want, but don't be surprised if you hit more resistance like the anonymous email you got that started this discussion.

The other thing is that I think you need to forget about the money spent on this thing already. That money is gone. History. Bye-bye. What you have right now is a product to sell. You need to pick a price point that maximizes your profit (or minimizes your losses) from this point forward. The only costs you should be worried about now are reproduction, distribution, and administration costs. Your "product development" costs are irrelevant at this point in the game.

Just to throw out some numbers (no idea how close they are)... lets say each CD costs you $6 to make, distribute, etc. You sell it for $13. So there's a profit of $7 on each one. So you sell 10,000. That's $70,000. Now if you price it at $10, how many will you sell? Twice as many? Maybe more? Let's say 2x. $4 profit on each one x 20,000 = $80,000. See where I'm going with this...?

At $13 + shipping, you may see a lot of people choose to spend their money elsewhere... that's just where the market is right now. But at something cheaper... $8, $9, $10... maybe you're in the game. Who knows...

-Steve

 

[Rachael B]

I think that the real value of music by the minute/album/song, anyway you want to measure it had dropped. Even if piracy was nonexistent it would stille be true. The mass market has been flooded with music for so long it's rather saturated IMO. Most people now own CD's that don't wear out easily...if you're careful. I know I bought Johnny Winter And on vinyl a bare minimum of three times. We wore them out and then took'em outside and played friss-bee with them in those dayz.
$2.99 or less a pop!

I think if the music industry can't supply CD's or other audio discs for $4 to $10 ($20 tops for premium stuff, M/C, ect.), they'll drive people to trading and sharing even more than they do now, ...or they'll listen to old stuff, ...or go buy used CD's or records or tapes or MP3's (free and/or paid) or gramophones or whatever.

30 years ago the music industry sold records that kids generally could afford to buy. Today's prices are nebulous. Do they think kids should commit armed robbery or somethin' to be able to afford CD's? Day in and day out, the 15-25 year olds, are the industry's target market. They need these folk's biz. They're not going to get their biz with the $18 price strategy IMO.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I only listen to classical music so perhaps my viewpoint is skewed. But I've purchased many very nice $3 and $4 CDs from various classical lables such as Laserlight using musicians mostly from eastern Europe. Tremendous amounts of classical back-label recordings from such big-name labels such as London, Deutsche Gramophone, and Philips sell for $6 a disk. And this was buying them from expensive brick&mortar stores such as Tower. For example, you can get the Dvorak 9 Symphonies on a 6 - CD set on London with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Istvan Kertesz (perhaps the best set) for $36 at Amazon. I have a hard time justifying spending $15 on a CD of "pop" music when I can purchase a great Beethoven recording for $10. Put another way, Jeff, would you consider your $13 disk worth more than the $13 DVD of Zardoz?

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

The discussion isn't about me or whether my CD is worth $13- that is irrelevant-it is about what the magic number people wouldn't think twice about buying at. I mean, even at $13, we are talking about the cost of two packs of smokes or a half case of Canadian beer. Surely a lifetime of entertainment is worth that!

The mass market has been flooded with music for so long it's rather saturated IMO.

Yes, but saturated with crap. There is a distinct shortage of really excellent new music out there, at least by my taste. I can count the number of good new albums I have bought since 2000 on one hand. The rest are reissues of older music.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Jeff,

What kind of music are you doing these days? I searched the All Music Guide and only found Metal Massacre Volume 4...

But I've purchased many very nice $3 and $4 CDs from various classical lables such as Laserlight using musicians mostly from eastern Europe.

Dennis, that's an excellent point. I love to buy Naxos discs which are always cheap. I think there is so much profit in the CD markup that these budget labels can do well even at prices below $10. By using good but more unkwown musicians in parts of Europe they keep the cost down. And when Tony Faulkner is the engineer, the sonics are better than mainstream classical releases.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Lee, check you private messages.

One thing to keep in mind is that it is not really fair to compare the low end classical market with popular music, since the production costs are completely different. You are also not dealing with original material (other than arrangements), and the works are in the public domain so licensing isn't involved, both of which lower the cost. That's not to say you can't get a highly enjoyable listening experience out of either, just that looking at the end price isn't really something that can be compared fairly.

 

[gregD]

Agree with Lee on this one... there is a TON of challenging, interesting music being produced outside the mainstream, and it takes an effort to find it... and an equal effort on the artist's part to promote it.

What I pay is determined by quality... I pay a premium for my faves (Zappa, King Crimson) because I must have 'em and some of it is hard to come by... if I want mainstream music (Santana), I'll pick it up in the used bin... and the independents - like Jeff - can only make a guess as to what to ask for their discs... there is no predicting whether ANY music will catch on with buyers at any cost... especially with so many choices out there.

I wish all CDs had a $10 limit... ain't gonna happen... meanwhile, Jeff's suggested $13 for 'new' music seems a feasible middle ground between an unattainable $10 and an unreasonable $17.

All I can do is search-n-shop, pick up on some things, ignore others... a big effort made on pricing won't sway me... do you make mind-bending progressive music?... THAT'S what will get my attention.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Interestingly, I got a reply from the fellow who prompted this thread, and his real issue wasn't with the pricing, but more with having to pay $9 for an International Money Order on top of the cost of the disc. He also clarified that his pricing comments were in regards to our limited edition remaster, which is selling (well, I might add) at $25 (shipped), since he already has the original vinyl version, plus a CD bootleg of the same material (highly inferior, and mastered off vinyl). However, he sounds like he may still buy it, since the disc is near impossible to find second hand, and as a collector, well...

Now, if EMI would only release the rest of the Eloy remasters, there is some good music.

 

[Ken Stuart]

Yes, but saturated with crap. There is a distinct shortage of really excellent new music out there, at least by my taste. I can count the number of good new albums I have bought since 2000 on one hand. The rest are reissues of older music.

Definitely true.

But the problem is that the vast quantity of crap has made it impossible to find anything good.

Suppose I said that I created the best music CD of the past 15 years, and that I had put a crate of those CDs at the base of ... a tree somewhere in Oregon.

That's equivalent to the current situation.

Back 40, 50 years ago, people in the music industry definitely wanted to make money -- but they also liked good music.

Nowadays, the music industry seems to consist entirely of people who are only interested in making money - otherwise so-called "music" today wouldn't consist of experiences that consist of everything but music - cf Brittany Spears.

===

Now, as far as downloading music goes, you have to look at how the public treat paying for products in general. There are several newstands in places like London and New York that have been totally on the honor system for decades, and find that virtually everyone pays for the magazines and newspapers. Countless grocery stores have displays of fruit outside with no one there watching.

Generally, people are willing to pay voluntarily if they feel they are getting a fair deal. Two factors (mentioned before in the thread) make people feel they are not getting a fair deal on CDs: the fact that prices never came down when costs came down, and the fact that fewer and fewer CDs have anything worth listening to (see first half of my post).

Thus, I am surprised that anyone is buying any CDs at this point (and the fact that they do proves my point about basic honesty).

==

If I were putting out music these days, I would make it available exclusively on my website for download. Thus, no distributor, no pressing plant, no record label, no music industry.

I would make one song available free in its entirety, and then all the other songs would be available using a typical shopping cart system, which would allow the user to download that title in several different MP3 qualities, or as a .WAV file equivalent to CD. And then ask people not to distribute any file other than the free song.

Sending physical media through the mail is soooo twentieth century.

 

[MarkHastings]

There is a distinct shortage of really excellent new music out there

and the "Big Picture" we're in a new ball game.

This is also true, so I probably have to buy (for example) 10 crappy "Blind Buy" CD's in order to get 1 CD that is GREAT. With numbers like $13-$15 per CD, I'm not going to risk such an investment on possible crap.

This is why consumers aren't willing to pay $13 for a CD unless they are absolutely positive they are going to like it. Now $13 may not seem like much more when we compare it to the $9-$10 that people are "willing" to pay, but considering how much music people buy, it can add up.

If the music industry could guarantee that every CD I purchased would be of the utmost quality and worth every penny, then I'd have no issues with an average of $15-$20, but considering all the "crap" out there, it's just not viable.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

If the music industry could guarantee that every CD I purchased would be of the utmost quality and worth every penny, then I'd have no issues with an average of $15-$20, but considering all the "crap" out there, it's just not viable.

Well, this is where reviews and online samples come into play. I agree that buying blind is a crap shoot (pun intended), with the odds stacked on the house. I don't usually need to hear a whole album to make a buying decision, but having some idea of what I'm getting is pretty much mandatory.

As for Ken's download idea, the issue is the quality of the entire package. In my case, the album is meant to be heard as a whole, and breaking the songs out individually ruins my artistic intent. Second, I can't make an mp3 that sounds anywhere near as good as the original studio recording, so I wouldn't expect my customers to pay for that inferior quality. Also, packaging is an integral part of the product to me, so releasing without a high quality print job isn't an option.

And yes, dealing with the mail sucks - if you want to talk gouging, why should it cost $14CAN to mail 1 CD to Europe?

 

[MarkHastings]

In my case, the album is meant to be heard as a whole, and breaking the songs out individually ruins my artistic intent.

First off, please see this as constructive criticism...

With the advent of the MP3 (which I know you're not thrilled with), this concept is something that an artist needs to REALLY consider. Most people (even if they buy CD's) will rip that CD to an MP3 player and (as I do) create either a playlist of just the songs they like or play everything in a random order.

Like it or not, the idea of an "Entire" album is fading fast. Again, I'm not saying that you can't do it, just you have to keep the consumers playing habits in the back of your mind whenever you create something because the consumer is the one buying the music and if you don't cater to the consumer, they won't like paying more for your product.

Again, since I have no idea what the product is, I am responding in a very "General" manor. What may be the standard is not always the case, but you have to accept the way people do things now a days as far as their music is concerned.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

If it was music I liked, $13 seems like a fair price, especially since the artist, in this case, gets to keep the lion's share of the profits.

 

[john gilson]

Nice discussion.

I have little problem paying up to $20 dollars for a CD. As far as inflation has gone this has gone up less (since 1988) then movies have for example...and music is something that I listen to over and over and over for years (unlike all non Lord of the Rings DVDs . Because of the repeat listenings, I find more value in a 'good' CD then a good 'DVD'. I just buy more DVD's now because there are more good ones.

The problem is getting me to believe that the $20 dollars will be well spent. I as a consumer have been burned far to often and have learned (slowly) to be careful because of albums with one good song. The depth of the album is much more important to me then the 'hit'. Typically the 'hit' on an album is the one I listen to least often after the CD buy. So how do you convince me it is a value? Word of mouth I guess. No price is too little to get me to buy an album blind. The radio used to be my mode of hearing new music, that has almost completely been closed. So now it is just recommendations from people I know.

Back to Mark's comments...I find this change (if it is a change) sad but true. I buy only albums (I do not buy soundtracks unless they are a single composer and buy few 'greatest hits albums'. I demand that nearly a single voice (by that I mean writer) put together a coherent story throughout the album. It may be as little as a mood and not necessarily a 'story album' like was put out by Pink Floyd etc in the past (although I wish more artists would). One of my past roommates once told me that I was the only person they had ever met who actually sat in a room and listened to an entire album (and I thought I was normal . On the new Zep DVD a question was asked to Robert Plant about why there were so few singles of theirs in the UK...and his reply was that Atlantic (I think) demanded it in the US. So I guess the US has always been 'single crazy' and not 'album crazy'. But if the US is 'single crazy', how can the US consumer be angry when the music industry puts out albums with only one good song. It is sort of a chicken and the egg thing.

I realize I'm not the type of person the music industry markets to so maybe I shouldn't be chiming in here

So I guess my response is if I deem the album as good, a good value, I will buy it whatever the cost. But if I was to throw out a number it would be about $20 dollars for most music. If I knew the album was marketed directly I would be more likely to buy it...but I don't think I would pay more for it.

I've rambled on enough....

john gilson

 

[Thomas Newton]

I mean, even at $13, we are talking about the cost of two packs of smokes or a half case of Canadian beer. Surely a lifetime of entertainment is worth that!

An uninterrupted supply of breathable air is worth your very life. But you don't see people lining up to pay for air.

 

[Ken Stuart]

And yes, dealing with the mail sucks - if you want to talk gouging, why should it cost $14CAN to mail 1 CD to Europe?

I noticed that most of your press coverage was in Germany.

Why not either have the CDs pressed in Germany to begin with, or else send them over by the case via sea mail, and then have a contact in Germany mail them to purchasers in Europe?

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

With the advent of the MP3 (which I know you're not thrilled with), this concept is something that an artist needs to REALLY consider.

Sure, it can be considered, but that doesn't mean the artist should conform to what the public thinks it wants. I feel that those with the creative force have to follow their own paths, and in that way their brilliance can come forth, evidenced the dozens of groundbreaking recordings that have emerged over the last century - the best went places no one had gone before. If you want to fit in with everyone else, that's fine, but I believe that compromising your integrity because of market pressures is wrong. Do your thing, and if people like it they will come.

 

[Graeme Clark]

I can't remember the last album I bought blind, anything lately I've usually heard the whole thing numerous times before purchasing, even if it's by an artist that I love.

$15 is a steal for an album I like and will listen to over and over again. I'd only pay a few dollars for anything else.