Walmart Music Store - Beta Testing

[MacRumors]

Reuters notes that Wal-Mart had begun testing its new music download service on Thursday.

According to Reuters, Walmark will be gathering customer feedback over the next few months and make changes before the official launch in 2004.

The new service boasts "88cents, Every Song, Every Day" and offers music downloads in Windows Media format.

Early reports had noted that Walmart sells CDs at a loss to attract customers. Its unclear if their online music store follows this model but at 88cents for every song, it appears to represent the (consistently) least expensive music download store.

[Pablo]

WMA.

No thanks.

[sickracer2015]

it may be a cheap 88 cents.. but its walmart not a nice interface as itunes.. plus after reading the info.. you can transfer to only 2 computer (3 with itms) and only limited to 10 burns (unlimited with itms) this is still very limiting

[macMaestro]

If Apple is losing money at 99 cents, Walmart must be taking an insane hit with this 88 cent service. How on earth does Walmart expect this to be a good thing? Apple's could be in big trouble though...

[jcshas]

we're happy for them...ITMS rules.

[mailhojo]

Well, I know I don't have a PC. But I down loaded their trial song. It down loaded fast and opened WMP9 just fine and played. It is recorded at 128. Don't know how that compares to AAC at 128. The only problem I saw was that when it downloaded it to my computer desktop it doesn't have a name that I would even understand. Just a bunch of numbers. I definately don't want that. It will get too confusing and I don't want to relabel it.

[jeremy.king]

Originally posted by macMaestro
If Apple is losing money at 99 cents, Walmart must be taking an insane hit with this 88 cent service. How on earth does Walmart expect this to be a good thing? Apple's could be in big trouble though...

Not really. Even if the "break even" point was $1, Walmart stand to lose very little compared to their daily sales. Black Friday, they did something like $1.3 BILLION in sales. Thats one day.

Even if they sold 100,000,000 songs in a year at a $.12 loss each, its only $12 million or less than 1% of a single days total sales.

[dynamicd]

So assuming they sell 100 million songs and make 12 million profit, then why even bother going through the trouble of setting a music service up when they probably won't even hit 100 million songs per year?

[the_mole1314]

This is not good guys.....

[mrsebastian]

walmart is all about making small profits on each product they sell, but they sell mass quantities to make money. as for selling music online, i assume they have some sort of marketing plan set up so people purchase other items as well. it's like them selling cds in the store for a loss.

[jeremy.king]

My logic was reversed. I said they lose $12 million (granted, those numbers are made up by me as I have no idea what the profit margin/loss is per song).

They do it because they want name recognition in the digital music realm. Sort of like when Amazon.com first came out, they were operating at a loss and then BAM, profits!

Seems everyone and their brother is jumping on the music d/l bandwagon and I hate to say it, but if Apple doesn't support other players, they are going to fall to the wayside.

Aside, thought this was funny when I tried to sample any song.

http://www.jeremyron.com/images/test.jpg

Stupid Windows.

[Stella]

Works on a Mac fine - including preview and playing.

However the interface is sucks.

[Steamboatwillie]

I think it's funny that they sell the tracks for $0.88, Like $0.11 a track makes that much of a difference? The only thing that, in my humble opinion, could be better than ITMS would be OGG-Vorbis tracks at $0.25, unlimited burns AND OGG support for the iPod... Like that's gonna happen. I don't get why all these companies are jumping on the music store bandwagon when the industry leader, Apple, openly admits it is not profitable? Bizarre.

[AmigoMac]

My grandma-mart is keen to open her own music store... I hope she will deliver AAC instead...

[MongoTheGeek]

Walmart is infamous for screwing suppliers. If you want to sell to them bring the KY.

They might be doing it as a loss leader. Remember collectively the Waltons are richer than Gates! and can afford to loose money for a while

They could also be getting ready to gouge the music companies. If they have the same deal as Apple, then they loose money for a while and say, hey how about a discount.

[jasonbw]

before people get too worried, just remember how infamous wal-mart is due to their music censoring policies.

[TMay]

Pave it and people will come. But not everybody, thank you very much.

Apple needs to keep focused on quality. If Walmart kills everbody else off, Apple still stands for quality, and I for one, and many others, prefer it that way.

BTW. My small berg of Carson City is soon to be the recipient of a second Super Walmart. It gets worse. It's across the parkway (and soon to be completed freeway), less than a quarter of a mile from the location of my tranquil business.

...pave paradise, put up a parking lot...

(my apologies to Joni)

[ceriess]

Don't under rate style and ease of use. Apple has momentum right now, and if they can keep on synergising their sales efforts with the iPod, they should be able to maintain their dominant stance for the forseeable future. I'd be more worried about Sony than anyone else.

[ces1965]

Most full albums are 9.44. Wow, a whopping 50 cents less. Also, look at this from their questions:


How many days do I have to play a song for the first time after I purchase it?

You must play a song within 120 days of purchase. After 120 days, the license file that is required to play the song will no longer be available After you play the song for the first time, you will be able to play it any time thereafter.

You don't always listent to a full album right away, so this is kinda stupid.

[TomSmithMacEd]

Originally posted by MongoTheGeek
Walmart is infamous for screwing suppliers. If you want to sell to them bring the KY.

They might be doing it as a loss leader. Remember collectively the Waltons are richer than Gates! and can afford to loose money for a while

They could also be getting ready to gouge the music companies. If they have the same deal as Apple, then they loose money for a while and say, hey how about a discount.

What does Walmart really have to gain about this? I don't understand. Even if they did make a little money on this. There isn't anything in it for them. Errr... I hate wal mart.

[McToast]

It's Wal-Mart, it's WMA, it's got horrible DRM and Wal-Mart only sells sanitized versions of songs and albums. Who the hell could possibly want this?

[winmacguy]

Originally posted by dynamicd
So assuming they sell 100 million songs and make 12 million profit, then why even bother going through the trouble of setting a music service up when they probably won't even hit 100 million songs per year?

Something interesting to note, they dont appear to have put a country speciffic limit on it at this stage for countries outside the US who may not be able to download music yet. It is just the beta version..
Other than that I cant really see any wrong with it at this stage. The lay out is simple and easy to follow.
It doesnt appear to cater for Mac users.
The 88c is an interesting price point
It appears basic and funcional which I would imagine is what Wal Mart is all about so they are consistent with their image.
Navigation is simple and straight forward, it also has step by step instructions with screen shots on how to do down load and play music which can actually be an important factor for the many non tech savy fans out there who have a limited PC knowledge.
I havent really fully browsed the full range at this stage so I wont comment but will say that the process looked like it was easy to do.

My initial thoughts would be that this will be some well backed compteton for iTMS- good price point and simple design

Let the music battle commence!

[kwtneo]

here's what it says:
Music Downloads from Walmart.com are 128-bit WMA files. The WMA format allows record companies to protect their music by using Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption. This means that music downloads are legal, safe, and easy to use. The 128-bit WMA files also offer superior sound quality.

Superior sound quality ???!!!

Can I play music from Walmart.com Music Downloads on my Macintosh® computer?
No. Music Downloads from Walmart.com are not compatible with any Macintosh computer. The music that you download requires Digital Rights Management 9 (DRM 9) software, which is not compatible with the Macintosh operating system.

THIS SUCKS!

[bwintx]

Originally posted by kingjr3
Even if the "break even" point was $1, Walmart stand to lose very little compared to their daily sales. Black Friday, they did something like $1.3 BILLION in sales. Thats one day.

Even if they sold 100,000,000 songs in a year at a $.12 loss each, its only $12 million or less than 1% of a single days total sales.

Quite true. As Lamar Hunt's father observed in the early 1960s about his losing a million dollars a year on his American Football League team (which eventually became the Kansas City Chiefs): "At that rate, Lamar would go broke in about 150 years."

[SiliconAddict]

However, as noted, the Digital Rights allowed limit burning a song to 10 burns. (iTunes and most other services allow unlimited individual song burns, but limited playlist burns).

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are the weakest link.....Goodbye!

I can't wait to see the reaction from some of its users when they hit the 10 limit mark. Walmart's store may fly for about 6 months to a year until people realize this and get pissed off in a big way.