June 1st will become a grim day for several of us, as that’s the last day Best Buy will be selling CDs. Billboard reports the technology retailer, once the most powerful music merchandiser in the U.S., doesn’t perform nearly as well due to the boom of digital downloads and streaming. Strangely enough, the physical medium’s time will be up two years sooner than vinyl; the latter medium will be merchandised with record players in the stores when CDs have been taken off of the shelves. As sad as it is, CDs only accounted for $40 million a year for the company, so to make more of a profit, this decision had to be made.
Target, while not pulling CD sales altogether, will be making a move that makes it harder for CDs to sell: they plan to be sold product on a consignment basis. Billboard reports that the company has demanded to end their current process of paying for any goods (including CDs and DVDs) shipped to them within 60 days as well as paying to ship unsold CDs for credit. This procedure was causing an inventory risk for the company for a product that is not guaranteed to sell well. Target also lacks the force in CD sales that it did, going from 800 different titles at a time to 100. Target allegedly gave companies until the first of this month to make their decision. Music suppliers have apparently been given until the beginning of spring(April or May) to deliberate further. A declined offer to accept these new terms could mean more bad news for the CD market. Looks like Amazon.com are about to bring in all the major business in for CDs come this Summer.
Do you see a reason for stores to continue selling CDs? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @GlobalDanceElec.
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