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iTMS prices are skewing from the .99/9.99 scale

J

jeeves99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I was going through the recently added albums and couldn't help but notice that an increasing number of albums are going for more than $9.99... like $13.99 or 11.99. Just curious- I thought apple was big on the whole "1 deal to rule them all" thing with the record labels. Why are some labels or some subsets of a label's collection getting away with increased prices? I know I remember a lot of mac fans making fun of buymusic.com for the hugely varied pricing structure... is apple going down this route? Like what about some of the spoken word pieces from audible going for sometimes $4 for a 5 minute clip?

Is this varied pricing structure going to do a little equilibrium action until the mean price for an album settles around the $13-$16 average for B&M stores?
 
Next time, please choose a title that explains your thread in more detail.

The audible books have nothing to do with the .99, 9.99 price scheme. Books on Tape or CD are often time twice at least twice as much as music. Why? Books cost more in general.

As for the albums at increased prices...can you give some album titles as examples?
 
ok, just running through the releases from today....

Joshua Bell- "Romance of the Violin" $12.87

Steve Tyrell- "This Guy's in Love" $13.86

Travis- "The invisible band"- $13.86


In these cases (and there are more if you go looking), they are charging 99 cents multiplied by the number of songs. As such, there is no album discount.
 
$13.86US is more or less $20AUD, and for that much I would rather own a CD, with booklet and all the trimmings. Not to mention the better quality offered buy PCM audio over MP3 or AAC.

I honestly can't see the point in iTMS, since they offer little real discount, when you realise that you are buying an inferior product.
 
Originally posted by manitoubalck
I honestly can't see the point in iTMS, since they offer little real discount, when you realise that you are buying an inferior product.
Click to expand...
The discount is not in buying a whole album. The discount comes from buying only a few songs from an album. Paying only 3 dollars for three songs that I wanted from one CD is better than buying the whole CD and only wanting 3 songs.
 
Originally posted by jeeves99
ok, just running through the releases from today....

Joshua Bell- "Romance of the Violin" $12.87

Steve Tyrell- "This Guy's in Love" $13.86

Travis- "The invisible band"- $13.86


In these cases (and there are more if you go looking), they are charging 99 cents multiplied by the number of songs. As such, there is no album discount.
Click to expand...
It sounds like they're trying to, in some cases, avoid having to sell partial albums. Perhaps there's a cut-off for number of tracks and album length? The Joshua Bell album had a number of songs that were quite long, enough so that they were only available as album only. And the Steve Tyrell one had 14 tracks. Just a theory.
 
Originally posted by LimeLite
The discount is not in buying a whole album. The discount comes from buying only a few songs from an album. Paying only 3 dollars for three songs that I wanted from one CD is better than buying the whole CD and only wanting 3 songs.
Click to expand...

You have to be a pretty straight arrow to buy one song, especially since there are so many free sharing programs out there.
But since this thread is about the increase in album prices you post is of little relevance.

I live in Australia and don't have access to iTMS(like most of the world), but even if I did I would save my money to spend it elsewear, or on a CD.
 
Originally posted by manitoubalck
You have to be a pretty straight arrow to buy one song, especially since there are so many free sharing programs out there.
But since this thread is about the increase in album prices you post is of little relevance.
Click to expand...
Considering that I was simply responding directly to something someone else said, I think my post was completely relevant.
 
1. the title is fine and fairly descriptive
2. I would assume album sales are not as high as single song sales or the idea of buying liek 3 songs which is why the pricing changes
3. Apple is adding more music / labels and they might have to change a little to be able to expand
 
Apple has always said that most albums on iTMS would be $9.99. Most, not all. This differs from the music track pricing structure which is 99 cents across the board. The reason people ragged on services such as buymusic.com is because they advertised songs for as low as 79cents, but they also had songs as high as $1.29. And of course the 79 cent tracks were all crappy and/or no-name titles very few people would even want to purchase.


Lethal
 
Originally posted by manitoubalck
You have to be a pretty straight arrow to buy one song, especially since there are so many free sharing programs out there.
Click to expand...

Considering millions of people have downloaded single songs from the iTMS, I guess there a lot of 'pretty straight arrows' out there. 🙄
 
Originally posted by Flowbee
Considering millions of people have downloaded single songs from the iTMS, I guess there a lot of 'pretty straight arrows' out there. 🙄
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and therefore a lot of good archers (sorry, couldn't help myself)
 
imho apple's screwing up here. $9.99 per album is just too great to screw up with oddly-priced albums...

i know a lot of it is the record companies, but seriously, would they rather make $10 (their cut is like $6.66 lol) per CD or $0 when people go back to ignoring the music-sales industry? 'cause the latter is going to happen if they keep making it confusing like this.

audible books are different. they can be $20-40, not uncommon.

pnw
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel
imho apple's screwing up here. $9.99 per album is just too great to screw up with oddly-priced albums...

i know a lot of it is the record companies, but seriously, would they rather make $10 (their cut is like $6.66 lol) per CD or $0 when people go back to ignoring the music-sales industry? 'cause the latter is going to happen if they keep making it confusing like this.

audible books are different. they can be $20-40, not uncommon.

pnw
Click to expand...
Well the other option would be to not sell certain albums as albums and only as individual songs. Thus, all albums would be $9.99, but sometimes you couldn't buy an album in whole, you'd have to buy the songs themselves....which is exactly what's going on right now, Apple just tried to make it convenient by only needing to hit one button rather than 12+


Kwyjibo: The *current* title is fine. It's been fixed. Originally it was simply "iTMS".
 
With some of the "legendary" artists, for instance Pink Floyd, certain songs on iTunes are availible only as part of the entire album. And the price for this album may be $30 even though there are only fifteen songs in the album all availible (except that one) for a dollar each. It's rather pathetic, I wonder if anybody buys these full albums for those songs. If I were one who used the music store this would be what pushes me to just downloading through P2P. No song is worth $15 US.
 
Originally posted by cmaracz88
With some of the "legendary" artists, for instance Pink Floyd, certain songs on iTunes are availible only as part of the entire album. And the price for this album may be $30 even though there are only fifteen songs in the album all availible (except that one) for a dollar each. It's rather pathetic, I wonder if anybody buys these full albums for those songs. If I were one who used the music store this would be what pushes me to just downloading through P2P. No song is worth $15 US.
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The "album only" songs are tracks that are very long (more than about 8 minutes I think). Pink Floyd, for example, has lots of very long tracks on some of their albums. Most pop songs that people would buy as a single track wouldn't be really long songs, so I'm sure it's rarely an issue.
 
You know, i really don't think that Apple makes more on certain songs than on others. I think it's the record labels that are affecting the pricing. I mean, we're dealing with Apple and the record industry here. One comes across in my mind as a little more money hungry and a little more controlling.
 
Okay, on the other side of the non-$9.99 album prices, I found Ima Robot's self-titled album for $7.99. Granted, you have to buy the whole album, but I liked all the songs so I had no problem with that 😀
 
Originally posted by Counterfit
Okay, on the other side of the non-$9.99 album prices, I found Ima Robot's self-titled album for $7.99. Granted, you have to buy the whole album, but I liked all the songs so I had no problem with that 😀
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I noticed that too. If I didn't already have the CD, I'd have bought it. Also, I noticed an album that sold for $9.90. I was like..what? Then I looked and there were only 10 songs. But I guess to keep the same pricing across the board, they should charge 9 cents more for buying the whole album than to buy the songs individually. 😛
 
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