Rich Fiscus
13 Jul 2007 22:03
The success of newcomer Sara Bareilles is being partly attributed to iTunes offering her album for download at a discounted price of $6.99 instead of the usual $9.99.
A week after iTunes launched a new discount section on their site called "The Next Big Thing" which included Bareilles' album among other releases. Around 14,000 ownloads from the site accounted for around 80% of her total sales. By comparison, albums from Paul McCartney and the White Stripes sold around 16,000 digital copies during their first week of release earlier this year.
As music sales have moved online from traditional brick and mortar stores, music labels have complained that if iTunes would adopt a variable pricing model it would help boost industry sales. Judging from iTunes' results, including a 152% spike in sales of Atlanta rapper Unk's several month old album, they may have a point.
While labels themselves are popular targets for blame regarding sales figures, it's reasonable to believe that nearly all aspects of the fledgling online music business have room for improvement in the coming years.
Source: The Wall Street Journal