BestBuy to stop selling CDs... Target may be next

[amirm]

The decline of CD may be accelerating: https://www.digitaltrends.com/music/best-buy-to-stop-selling-music-cds/

With the popularity of digital music surging, Best Buy is officially pulling the plug on music CDs, and another retail giant may soon join them. Although CDs remain a relatively popular format worldwide, sales in the U.S. dropped more than 18% last year, prompting Best Buy to drop the format entirely.

Billboard is reporting that the retailer has informed music suppliers that it will stop selling CDs and pull them from shelves on July 1. Although Best Buy used to be the top music seller in the U.S., nowadays its CD sales generate a relatively low $40 million per year.

Digital music sales overtook physical format sales in 2015, and that trend is likely to continue. Paid subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music are experiencing substantial growth, increasing by more than 60% in 2017.


Best Buy will continue to sell vinyl records in its turntables section, however, due to a commitment it made with vendors. Vinyl album sales hit a record high in 2017, accounting for 14% of all physical album sales. The best-selling vinyl LP of 2017 was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Target may soon follow Best Buy’s lead if music suppliers don’t alter their current sales arrangement. Currently, Target purchases music and videos when they’re released, with unsold product shipped back after 60 days at Target’s expense for a credit. According to Billboard, Target issued an ultimatum to both CD and DVD suppliers that it wants to move to a scan-based system — in other words, the supplier wouldn’t get paid until the discs are rung up and sold at the register.

Target’s deadline for these changes is either April or May, and music companies are on the fence about whether they’re going to go along with the arrangement or not. According to insiders, at least one of the three major music suppliers opposes the arrangement, with the other two undecided.

Target used to be a major outlet for CD sales, but recently their inventory has dwindled to fewer than 100 titles in many stores. Big releases can still pack a punch though, as they sold more than half a million copies of Taylor Swift’s 2017 Reputationalbum.

Music suppliers may be waiting to see what happens with Target and DVDs. It seems unlikely that the retailer would pull DVDs from their shelves, but who knows? The digital age has arrived, and some traditional stores are struggling to stay in the game.​

 

[RayDunzl]

Some people online-stream, others online-shop.

I'm mulling buying two discs, one from Japan, the other Brazil.

 

[Wombat]

Think of all of those LPs that were offloaded when CD arrived. Now it is happening with CDs. Happy me, the CD buyer.

When you see New Old Stock(NOS) applied to CDs you will know there is value in the old discs.

That's progress.

 

[RayDunzl]

Happy me, the CD buyer.

You gonna get this one?

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/coming-soon/date

 

[Wombat]

You gonna get this one?

View attachment 10368

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/coming-soon/date

 

[DonH56]

I for one hate to see this, although Best Buy and Target have been struggling for a while with more than just CD sales. I much prefer physical media and, while I do have a SONOS:Connect talking to my NAS with all my ripped CDs, I do not have any way to stream hi-res nor do I have any sort of online music service. Yes, it's the future, "everyone" is doing it, and all that jazz but I cannot help but think a large segment of the population is getting left behind. Nothing new, but now I am one of the cranky old farts being left behind...

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I for one hate to see this, although Best Buy and Target have been struggling for a while with more than just CD sales. I much prefer physical media and, while I do have a SONOS:Connect talking to my NAS with all my ripped CDs, I do not have any way to stream hi-res nor do I have any sort of online music service. Yes, it's the future, "everyone" is doing it, and all that jazz but I cannot help but think a large segment of the population is getting left behind. Nothing new, but now I am one of the cranky old farts being left behind...

I think the BB and Target decisions about discontinuing their puny CD selections do not have too much to do with streaming/downloading. Maybe somewhat, due to Apple and mobile apps. I think it is online sales of the discs from huge selections by Amazon and numerous others that really hurts their business in a big way. Although CD sales numbers have been steadily declining, the market is still pretty big for CDs. But, the gradually shrinking CD market makes it tougher and tougher on retailers, especially brick and mortar stores with more profitable ways to invest their precious floor and display space.

I think CD discs will still be available for quite some time as the preferred choice of most music buyers, especially more quality conscious audiophiles, eventually giving way, perhaps totally, to streaming/downloading, but not for a long time. Old habits die hard. Meanwhile, streaming/downloading providers might find acceptance of their music delivery concept slower than expected and some may have a hard time surviving until streaming/downloading become widely accepted or preferred to physical discs. It might take the next generation of younger folks, with less of a concern about owning physical media, to displace old farts with older habits. Meanwhile, discs still offer an edge in convenience to many who cannot be bothered with PC technology hooked to their audio systems.

So, I don't think there is any rush. The "next big thing" idea may be ahead of its time by a decade or even much more in replacing physical CDs.

 

[Soniclife]

How price competitive are these shops?

It's a pincer movement between failing physical sales, online sales, and probably some shifting demographics of who shops in those shops.

Look on the bright side, in 10 years time hipsters will be buying first generation 14bit CD players, so CD sales will return.

 

[Sal1950]

With the popularity of digital music surging, Best Buy is officially pulling the plug on music CDs, and another retail giant may soon join them

Sad for those of us who remember the exciting intro of CD's and their replacement of vinyl with all its audible failings and negative convenience factors. I was so happy to get my first Magnavox CD560 player, one of the early affordable units. We participated in a revolution in home sound reproduction.
But time marches on, streaming, downloading, etc; has trumped the physical media in every detail of both sound (hirez), convenience, AND costs. In 25 years all physical media will be as dead as the Edison cylinder. RIP CD, we loved ya so.

Best Buy will continue to sell vinyl records in its turntables section, however, due to a commitment it made with vendors. Vinyl album sales hit a record high in 2017, accounting for 14% of all physical album sales. The best-selling vinyl LP of 2017 was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Vinyl is a ticking time bomb, the biggest section of sales is in the hipster fad section, Those fads drop as fast as a pet rock thru a plate glass window.
Who knows what will go on in the audiophool world, that market is driven by things that have nothing to do with High Fidelity reproduction with even crazier fads than pet rocks. Who remembers the CD Stoplight pen? LOL

Think of all of those LPs that were offloaded when CD arrived. Now it is happening with CDs. Happy me, the CD buyer.When you see New Old Stock(NOS) applied to CDs you will know there is value in the old discs.
That's progress.

Yep, me too. I havent't bought a new full priced off the shelf CD in many many a year. They're either used or NOS off ebay for no more than a few buck a piece

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

How price competitive are these shops?

It's a pincer movement between failing physical sales, online sales, and probably some shifting demographics of who shops in those shops.

Look on the bright side, in 10 years time hipsters will be buying first generation 14bit CD players, so CD sales will return.

I don't think their pricing was particularly good at BB or Target. The CDs were there in the stores more for impulse purchases from puny selections by unknowlegeable buyers who had no comparative pricing information. No moderately serious buyer would waste gas on a trip to those stores for additions to their CD collection.

Yup, ladder DACs with tube output stages are already on their way to being the next hot, retro items.

 

[Sal1950]

I don't think their pricing was particularly good at BB or Target

Their middle of the floor barrels of cutouts for just a few bucks were a point of interest for me in the past. Mostly gone now replaced with BluRay barrels. Same at WallyWorld.

 

[amirm]

I am wondering what their future strategy is. CDs (and DVDs) are "door pulls." They come out frequently and would entice customers to make the trip to the store. They would put them on sale and sell at a loss, getting the profit when the customer bought something else. With that gone, I wonder what will replace it.

 

[Soniclife]

Who says they have a strategy? Most large established B&M retailers haven't had one for years, other than to die as slowly as possible at the hands of the internet.

 

[NorthSky]

I did not see albums (vinyl LPs) @ my local Best Buys. London Drugs, yes, and CDs too. I did not see LPs @ my local libraires, CDs yes. Second hand stores they carry both, plus cassette tapes. They have DVDs and VHS tapes. ...And some Blu-rays, but no 4K and no 3D.

Two links, one from 2016 and the other from last year (end of December 2017):
• https://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/in-defense-of-the-cd-20160204
• http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/entertainment/cds-future-1.4467596

 

[Nathan Raymond]

Meanwhile, in the last couple of years some boutique CD publishers have come to my attention and I've started to buy direct from them. Places like this:

http://store.intrada.com

So maybe that's the direction CDs are going to go... ?

 

[amirm]

This is a bit of a new experiment. In the past the retail stores had to justify the high cost of shelves in the store so they killed formats that were sliding backward with vengeance. Today with online sales, that is not an issue so formats can can survive far longer that way.

 

[jhaider]

Is there any point to buying CDs at a physical store now? When I was a kid there were stores where you could go and hear something before you bought it. Even if you could get it cheaper, you wouldn't because you would have to drive somewhere else. Now if you want to sample a disk before you buy it there's usually somewhere online to sample it. It makes

 

[Sal1950]

Looks like my old friend Chris at ChicagoDigital will end up a icon. One of the very first and soon to be one of the very last.
One of the first places in Chicago to sell CD's, he opened what was then (1985) the only "record" store I knew of that only sold CD's.
It was the place to go as he had everything, if it was available on CD, he had it.. Then shortly after, it was the first one I knew that also sold used CD's
Nice guy, if your looking for something rare or special, give him a call.
http://www.chicagocompactdiscs.com/

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Is there any point to buying CDs at a physical store now?

Agreed but, also, I don't know of any physical stores with anything of interest except used disks.

 

[NorthSky]

I was reading this new article yesterday (read it please):
• https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...e-price-of-vinyl-albums-at-a-record-high.html

I don't know the exact number of sales in the world for compact disks, for LPs, for digital music downloads...hi-res, for lossy ones, for any music format, in generated revenues; what I do know is what sounds good to me enough to invest money in. But my choice has nothing to do with what the market do.

I also respect other people's choice on their preferred music formats.
We build our music passion on a personal inner vibration.
When we go to music concerts in large groups it's a different business, a social gathering of a music genre liked by a large group of people.
And smaller groups go to smaller venues, more intimate.

Perhaps it is the key word; music intimacy when it comes to a music format, and not what the masses go for and purchase. Different groups listening to different music formats, and on the state of the affairs, the music business stage, we are free. And that freedom dictates where the money is for music sales people, like Best Buy, Target, and next Wal-Mart, Costco, etc.

The Internet music stores are a vast field, from Amazon, Tidal, Hi-Res, iTune, from super cheap to super expensive, from all sound quality, preference, with age, to mono stereo multichannel, to all the music genres...Pop, rock, jazz, classical and everything between...hard heavy metal, rap, blues, international, new age, Motown, soul, Calypso, tango, flamenco, Gypsy, progressive avantgarde psychedelic fusion, and a million more music genres.

The decline of the CD empire reflects the rise of the digital music downloads.
The physical CD format is on the precipice of technology progression.
And the rise of the vinyl revival with higher prices is the retribution of a niche market who can afford it, afford what they like Best.

We cannot tell Best Buy to stock on CDs when CDs don't sell, or LPs if they don't sell, or 3D Blu-rays if they don't sell, SACDs, ...etc.

It is obvious; music is in space, on the cloud, the internet, on the radio inside Elon Musk's Roadster heading towards the Asteroid Belt.