Are the Great Sales on Music Done and Gone? If so, why?

As someone who mostly collects my music at a significant discount, it seems to me that the frequency of great sales has gone way down in the last several months:

• The "audiophile" stores (e.g., Music Direct, Acoustic Sounds) used to have regular 15% off sales, and included their audiophile labels. Now we're lucky to see 10%, with audiophile labels excluded.
• There have been several buy two, get one deals in a row now at Target and Amazon that haven't included CD or vinyl
• The Deep Discount bargain bin hasn't been as deep or discounty for a while.

This isn't to say that there aren't good deals to be had, or that there will never be another great sale. It just seems like, in unison, almost everyone cut way back on big sales and discounts.

Now, it's possible that I'm over-remembering too many good sales, or that ridiculous deals unique to the pandemic era have anchored me to thinking that 15% and 3 for 2 is normal.

I do wonder, though, if things like Universal trying to get itself acquired, or supply chain disruptions, or maybe even surprisingly strong pandemic sales, or a combination of things like that have changed the discounting landscape for some time to come.

Curious to hear whether anyone else has noticed this trend being widespread, or if it's just me missing all the good sales.

 

Hopefully it's okay to post a link to another forum here... This is from someone who has stayed abreast of the industry, who explains in some detail why vinyl is currently as expensive and as delayed as it it, and why labels/artists are now opening up pre-orders far into 2022 already. https://www.reddit.com/r/VGMvinyl/comments/nzib65/why_are_we_seeing_expensive_preorders_for_2022/
Anyhow, I hope this may answer some of your questions as to why we're not seeing as many vinyl sales, etc.

 

I’ve noticed it too. I figured it was the sites you mentioned realizing that the demand has increased to a frenzy and there is not much need for sales to move aging product.

Discog and eBay prices are ridiculous. I’m not talking about rare albums. Things I bought last year…at a discount.

 

The major labels are increasingly moving away from physical media and almost certainly producing less supply than the current market dictates. They are aiming to turn the remaining non-streaming market into a pricey collector's field and mostly succeeding. Some of this has been accelerated by the pandemic and ensuing shutdown, which has affected production lines and other factors critical to the products.

The days of affordable box sets are over.

 

Covid lockdown is over and the 15% off sales have gone with it.

 

Also, good luck getting a CD from newer artists. Sure you will get a vinyl and digital option, but CDs won't be as abundant.

 

Vinyl also requires a high mark up (I am an ex medium sized retailer). People are justifiably picky (especially at the prices of the last few years) & due to paying 2 way shipping if one is a B&M & 4 way shipping on the internet, retailers get soaked with the high defect rate on vinyl. Part of the reason for the high prices is to make back some of the money the retailer loses dealing with defective returns (The retailer pays shipping both ways to the wholesaler; & if it's an internet sale the retailer eats both ends of the shipping with the customer). I once threw away a case of 25 cutout LP's of The Family (collectable Prince project that I was getting fairly cheaply) because it wasn't worth paying return shipping to the wholesaler. Fortunately, that was the only bad case I got, that album paid the rent for quite a long time.

 

Not sure if that's true. Major Labels release more back-catalogue than ever.

 

And they are still releasing 24 bit digital boxes.

 

Probably easy money.

 

Mostly just paying a mastering engineer + infrastructure to store & deliver.

 

What was wrong with the 25 LPs in that box?

 

Every one was badly warped.