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The Variable Pricing 'Infection' Spreads

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on April 08, 2009

What Engadget yesterday characterized as an “infection” has spread with alarming speed.

PaidContent.org reports this morning that variable pricing has now come to Amazon’s MP3 store as well as that of Wal-Mart. Amazon’s top tier is now equal to that of Apple’s iTunes at $1.29. Scroll down the list of Amazon’s most popular downloads and you can see a few going for $1.29. Wal-Mart, being Wal-Mart has knocked a nickel off its price and is selling its upper-tier songs for $1.24, and presumably eating the nickel difference in hopes of generating traffic, while its mid-tier songs are going for 94 cents.

I guess that brings the argument over variable pricing to a close for now. Studies have shown that there’s little difference in the mind of a consumer between a song that $1.29 and a song that’s 99 cents. We’ll soon see, because there’s a very real chance that this move will backfire, and not in the favor of the record labels who have driven this change in pricing.

About the lower tiers, Peter Kafka over at AllThingsD.com says he’s hearing from executives at music labels that more songs selling in the 69-cent price band are coming to iTunes soon, so don’t despair. “For every one track at $1.29, there are about 10 tracks at 69 cents,” one exec tells him.

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Reader Comments

dave

April 9, 2009 03:36 AM

Someone should slap that exec out of his cocaine high and teach him that "are" is the present tense, and "will be" is the future tense.

Because there sure as hell isn't 10X as many songs at $0.69 that there are at $1.29. Right now, it's pretty much the other way.

Gary

April 9, 2009 09:04 AM

I suggest Wal Mart, et. al., concentrate on filling out their catalogs instead of worrying about prices. I am rapidly approaching senior status, and I am interested in filling out my library with singles from the 50s and 60s, songs that rarely are available in the 'biggest hits' collections, as well as live versions of some of these songs. But the on-line stores are weak in these areas. I would think that the cost to add songs to those available would be essentially zero.

Dale

April 9, 2009 11:27 AM

I'm a big fan of the site www.lala.com which has not as of yet caved to variable pricing and is a fantastic little site.

Dale

April 9, 2009 11:28 AM

I'm a big fan of the site www.lala.com which has not as of yet caved to variable pricing and is a fantastic little site.

RodG

April 9, 2009 01:14 PM

@ Gary: Try eMusic.com

.paz

April 10, 2009 04:48 AM

look dumbasses: buy the whole cd used off of amazon or half.com & encode it yourself. while you wait for delivery download the song/album from zshare or your favorite torrent site. as you've bought the physical copy (and technically now the license), you're allowed one backup copy (ie the file you downloaded LEGALLY at this point). i will never pay for compressed music if the uncompressed source is available & priced fairly.

nick b.

April 17, 2009 08:18 PM

Wrote about this on my blog. http://digg.com/u11G9j

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A blog on the daily doings of Apple and the many companies in its orbit, with insight and analysis by two longtime Apple-watchers BusinessWeek Senior Writer Peter Burrows and BusinessWeek.com Senior Technology Writer Arik Hesseldahl.

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