FEATURE:
Fell for the Physical
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Will the Recent Surge of Physical Sales Continue?
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ALTHOUGH there have been some bad points…
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and it has been a tough year, there have been some positives that have come from everything. It was scary, when lockdown started earlier in the year, whether record shops would be able to survive and whether people would still be able to buy physical music easily! Not only are record shops open but, as the first drop day of Record Store Day happened on 29th August, that has really shown that people want to get out there and buy music! Whilst we cannot move as freely as before and some people are staying away from record shops, it appears many have missed that community and experience you get from buying from a shop. As NME report, Discogs have reported how online sales have boomed:
“Online music marketplace Discogs says global sales on the platform in the first half of 2020 have increased dramatically during lockdown, with vinyl, CD and cassette sales seeing a surge.
According to their mid-year report released last Friday (August 28), physical sales on the Discogs Marketplace rose 29.69 per cent – 4,228,270 orders – between January and June this year, compared to the same period last year. A dramatic spike in sales can be seen from April, shortly after the coronavirus pandemic forced many record stores to shut their physical shopfronts.
The report attributes the rise in sales partially to a larger number of users as lockdown saw more shoppers turning online, along with “a desire to support small business”. The report also cites independent music retailers making their catalogues available online as a significant contributing factor, prompted by lockdown measures around the world forcing stores to close their physical stores, at least temporarily.
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The most substantial year-over-year improvement came via vinyl record sales, which increased 33.72 per cent with over 5.8 million units sold. CD and cassette sales weren’t far behind, demonstrating a 31.03 per cent (1.6 million units sold) and 30.52 per cent (over 137,000 units) increase respectively. Vinyl sales accounted for over 75 per cent of transactions on the platform in the first half of the year.
Overall, more than 7.6million pieces of physical music were sold by independent sellers around the world throughout the first six months of the year – an overall 33.83 per cent increase over the same period last year”.
Vinyl sales have been rising for a while now, and it is good to see people buying physical music online and going out to shops. There is always talk of how digital is taking over, and some feel that vinyl is only bought by a small sector of people. I think that the surge that has been seen will continue into 2021. Of course, if the pandemic situation worsens, record shops might be forced to close, and online sales might also be affected. My feeling is that the surge will continue, but it will level off in the coming weeks. I think a lot of people have been making up for lost time and, at a particularly rough time, there has been a slight shift away from the digital to the physical.
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What has amazed me most is that the sales of C.D.s and cassettes have been pretty healthy. There is talk as to whether the C.D. is dying and, whilst they are not selling as much as they did in their heyday, people are still snapping them up, and I hope we will see a revival and a change at record shops – where there is more room for C.D.s and they are given more focus. It is strange that cassettes are doing well, and their revival has also been documented. As we move forward, I think people are going to keep physical sales healthy, as we have not really been able to go to gigs and support artists like that way, so buying their albums is a good alternative. I think people love that tangible feel of a physical album, and especially so at a time when we cannot get that close to one another. Let’s hope things regarding the pandemic will improve in the coming months, but it is heartening to see record shops do a great trade, and online sales have been really impressive. There is no telling what the future holds in terms of lockdown and virus numbers, but I think the rise of physical sales will continue to climb – maybe less steeply than the past couple of months. It is always nice to highlight some good news in the music industry, and let’s hope that the rude health and success of physical sales…
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CARRIES on unabated.