Downfall in Sales of Music Albums

I have always been a music lover and my house is full of albums from different language and styles like Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, English, Rock & Pop, Jazz, Blues, Oldies, Japanese, Korean etc... Over the years, I have not seen much changes in the operation of the album retail shops and record companies and I feel that the service and album release are all getting from bad to worse.

Every now and then, there have always been news of the music industry facing piracy and file sharing issues. I do have to admit that this is part of globalization and does affect in certain areas of sales but is it the only reason that created a downfall in music sales?

When Michael Buble released his latest album "Call Me Irresponsible", I went to purchase the album in the store and that was the first album release. A few weeks back, I went to the music store and discover that there is a second edition release which include 3 bonus tracks. I been thinking why should I buy the album again? I should be a fool if I did. Does the record companies think on the consumer side? No i suppose not, making more money was their only option. In the older days, special edition albums are on first come first serve basis which the normal version will be release there after. I was more of a happy customer then as I got something bonus as I make a first move. It suddenly become the opposite now which is indeed very disappointing.



Even department stores, fashion stores know how to create more business by inviting their loyal customers to special occasion or pre-sale functions. Over the year, I don't even think that the music store know who you are and don't even bother to get to know its loyal customers. Talking about the rewards card they have invented was indeed very disappointed as well. As most of the albums are commonly priced at $17.90 - $18.90 and only if you purchased over $20.00, you will get a stamp and after collecting 20 stamps you can get a free album priced below certain prices. It mean that in order to get a stamp, you will need to purchase 2 albums or 1 album and CD cleaner or other cheaper stuff. If you calculate that I purchase 2 albums everytime, for the 20 stamps I will have brought 40 albums and that cost $17.90 x 40 = $716.00. It does seem still acceptable to get a discount of maybe $25.00 after purchasing $700.00 but the thing is that the music store only set a time period of six months. Unless you really have a lot of friends sharing over a single card, if not it just prove to be an useless card.

Well I suppose that there are many ways for the music industry to make a move and gain back all the lost and angry customers and don't always blame it on the environment, globalization, digital media etc... when they have not even look at how they are doing business when the world is already changing so fast.