Selling vinyl online 2015
With vinyl sales at record levels again, 2015 could be
another bumper year. If you look at the major sellers of vinyl records the big
players are still Discogs.com and Gemm.com.
Discogs, Gemm..The big boys.
Last year there were many rumblings on the music forums
about issues with Gemm, Roger who owns the business is well known for being
very passionate about Gemm.com and it has carried on undoubtedly making a loss
for many years.
Earlier this year it is reported that Gemm approached Dave
Stack from Music Stack about a possible sale, but the systems Gemm have in
place and the debt that are "supposed" to be in which has caused late
payments to sellers on many occasions, the merger or sale was declined by MusicStack
as although MusicStack is no "Discogs killer" it still has a great
following and is making money and sales and you don’t see the same issues with
MusicStack. Sellers have been concerned many times and have pulled stock lists.
If you check the internet statistics for visitors to
gemm.com is does seem to be on a downward spiral.
ttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gemm.com you can clearly see the traffic drop.
Discogs on the other hand are just going from strength to
strength and are quickly becoming the Amazon of the vinyl market
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/discogs.com but they have done Their homework.
A recent design change to a mobile friendly design and page
load times around (1.209 Seconds), means they have reaped the benefits from
recent google updates.
From 2010 to 2015 the following were the top selling vinyl
items.
1. Beatles - Abbey Road (172,000)
2. Mumford & Sons - Sigh no more (110,000)
3. Bon Iver - For Emma Forever (102,000)
4. Jack White - Lazaretto (94,000)
5. Artic Moneys - AM (89,000)
Record Store Day 2015 was once again a triumph, according to
merchants who participated in the event and data supplied by Nielsen Music.
For the week ended April 19 -- Record Store Day was held on
April 18 -- the independent sector counted for 532,000 album scans, or 21.5
percent of total physical album sales, and 11.9 percent of overall sales. In
both instances, it represented the highest weekly sales percentages total for
the indie sector since 2003, according to Nielsen Entertainment senior vp Dave
Bakula.
The Foo Fighters really got involved this year which was
great this year
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6538684/foo-fighters-ohio-show-record-store-day
Last year, vinyl unit sales totaled 9.2 million, up from 6.1
million in 2013. And album sales between January and March of this year were
53% higher than during the comparable period last year, driven by a 66%
increase in catalog album sales (released at least 18 months prior) during the
same period.
There are several hypotheses as to why vinyl is on the way
up in an increasingly digital world, including nostalgia, the longing for a
physical medium, a unique listening experience, album art, and of course, the
perception that music sounds better on vinyl.
The fact that the Guardian newspaper has a dedicated vinyl
section is another good indicator http://www.theguardian.com/music/vinyl it
seems vinyl won't die; the digital age may kill the CD but not the vinyl
record, who would have thought!
Independent stores who have survived are doing well, Global Groove
have reported great sale's, ebay is listing more vinyl than ever before, so the
future looks pretty good for vinyl sellers, the question is will anyone rival Discogs?
References:
http://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/346299
http://the-secret-ogger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/gemm-platform-in-trouble.html
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/thanks-to-strong-sales-vinyl-albums-are-off-and-spinning.html
