Prices

[Wammer]

(2012-05-04 13:46)kimberleycinderly Wrote:  We at Linn believe that we offer a great service that backs up the high quality music we offer and that is a factor in our price setting.

tid=10138&pid=111565#pid111565)

Chandos's Classical Shop offers all lower-quality formats free when buying a lossless or studio master recording. This is a really useful service for someone like myself as it saves me the time and trouble of creating an mp3 version for my iPhone. Yet their Naxos recordings in FLAC format are £5.75 compared to Linn's £10. Classical Shop's download service has always worked just as smoothly as Linn's for me, so I get a better service for under 60% of Linn's price.

[NickP]

(2012-05-04 13:46)kimberleycinderly Wrote:  We at Linn believe that we offer a great service that backs up the high quality music we offer and that is a factor in our price setting.

Of course you believe that, and I suspect that many (most?) would agree with you. The problem is that this is not a Unique Selling Point any more. LR destroyed this USP by diversifying into the selling of the products of others, where direct price comparisons are easy, the product is identical, and the service is the same.
In web-based sales, there are two elements to the service:
1) It's easy for me to make a purchase;
2) If something goes wrong, they put it right.

1) is a given if you're to have any kind of on-line business at all, and 2) is a potential quagmire:
"Look how great we are at correcting our mistakes"
(We don't know what we're doing)
"Look how great we are at correcting our customers' mistakes"
(We don't know how to do ecommerce, but are blaming you, the customer, for it, rather than getting it right.)
The latter is the attitude of many established businesses that were late to ecommerce; it ends up with being proud of having the best Complaints Department in the industry.

So again, when it comes to bits, conventional ideas about distribution etc etc are found wanting.

[NickP]

(2012-05-03 14:41)CJMUSIC Wrote:  We believe that Studio Master is the BEST way to listen to music.[...] We simply bring you the music as it was originally recorded – after all it is not really about numbers and file size, but about the true worth of an album in its purest form.

This observation has sat with me for a few days; I knew there was something about it, but couldn't quite put my finger on it - till now!

In that post, CJMusic said that all Studio Masters are priced the same, regardless of bit depth and sampling rate i.e. the best version of all products should be priced the same, regardless of absolute quality.

<tongue in cheek>
Suppose Linn Records branched out into cars; the best Kia would be priced the same as the best Aston Martin. Or - less wildly improbably! - scotch whisky: the best malt from every distillery would be priced the same.
But don't get your hopes up: the Kia would be wildly overpriced, rather than the Aston being a bargain...
</tongue in cheek>

[mmbds32]

For classical fans , I think that the way Hyperion sell downloads is excellent and wish others would follow a similar model, provided you like their offering (admittedly rather specialized and not mainstream) , and I have been busy looking for a few weeks now

CDs are 13.99, but the 16bit download are only 7.99 with ALAC as well as FLAC. There are copious notes on the music, free PDFs all viewable before you buy, the samples are typically 60 seconds or more. A click on the cover makes it large so you can easily get good artwork.

Generous discounts too, like 25% if you spend £60, and also vouchers as prepay - I really find it very very good, and must write to these guys before they put the prices up. In addition they are now doing SM, typically £12 for 24/96 though only on some recordings.

By comparison, the DG shop seems poor, and Harmonia Mundi too, despite their excellent catalogues, so it really does show how important it is to get the offering and price right.

__
Mark

[Imseti]

(2012-05-05 12:10)Wammer Wrote:  

(2012-05-04 13:46)kimberleycinderly Wrote:  We at Linn believe that we offer a great service that backs up the high quality music we offer and that is a factor in our price setting.

tid=10138&pid=111565#pid111565)

Chandos's Classical Shop offers all lower-quality formats free when buying a lossless or studio master recording. This is a really useful service for someone like myself as it saves me the time and trouble of creating an mp3 version for my iPhone. Yet their Naxos recordings in FLAC format are £5.75 compared to Linn's £10. Classical Shop's download service has always worked just as smoothly as Linn's for me, so I get a better service for under 60% of Linn's price.

Nice one. Anything to avoid Linn's extortionate pricing.

[macrotech]

(2012-05-11 03:45)Imseti Wrote:  

(2012-05-05 12:10)Wammer Wrote:  

(2012-05-04 13:46)kimberleycinderly Wrote:  We at Linn believe that we offer a great service that backs up the high quality music we offer and that is a factor in our price setting.

tid=10138&pid=111565#pid111565)

Chandos's Classical Shop offers all lower-quality formats free when buying a lossless or studio master recording. This is a really useful service for someone like myself as it saves me the time and trouble of creating an mp3 version for my iPhone. Yet their Naxos recordings in FLAC format are £5.75 compared to Linn's £10. Classical Shop's download service has always worked just as smoothly as Linn's for me, so I get a better service for under 60% of Linn's price.

Nice one. Anything to avoid Linn's extortionate pricing.

Linn just don't get it do they? They should try reducing their prices to something more reasonable for a period and see how that influences sales.

[NickP]

(2012-05-05 12:10)Wammer Wrote:  

(2012-05-04 13:46)kimberleycinderly Wrote:  We at Linn believe that we offer a great service that backs up the high quality music we offer and that is a factor in our price setting.

Chandos's Classical Shop offers all lower-quality formats free when buying a lossless or studio master recording. This is a really useful service for someone like myself as it saves me the time and trouble of creating an mp3 version for my iPhone. Yet their Naxos recordings in FLAC format are £5.75 compared to Linn's £10. Classical Shop's download service has always worked just as smoothly as Linn's for me, so I get a better service for under 60% of Linn's price.

Gosh, that's good!

And how interesting that Chandos is based in Colchester (Essex, UK), and so operates in the same economic environment that causes Linn Records' prices to be so high.

N

[AnonyMouse]

This market needs more local (ie in the same taxation system) competition before we will see the expensive first movers needing to drop their price. Once amazon.co.uk and a handful of specialist e-businesses (perhaps powered by a backend system available off the shelf) start selling hi res downloads, the prices will head downwards. Until then there is little incentive for Linn to climb down from their £18 price point (except possibly some increased sales, but presumably they have done their numbers on this).

Also - it isn't really fair to compare HDtracks $18 with Linn £18, because by paying $18 you are essentially evading import duty and VAT. A fair comparison would be £15 ... Which still shows some comfortable margin is being made.

[Lefreck]

(2012-06-02 17:41)AnonyMouse Wrote:  This market needs more local (ie in the same taxation system) competition before we will see the expensive first movers needing to drop their price. Once amazon.co.uk and a handful of specialist e-businesses (perhaps powered by a backend system available off the shelf) start selling hi res downloads, the prices will head downwards. Until then there is little incentive for Linn to climb down from their £18 price point (except possibly some increased sales, but presumably they have done their numbers on this).

Also - it isn't really fair to compare HDtracks $18 with Linn £18, because by paying $18 you are essentially evading import duty and VAT. A fair comparison would be £15 ... Which still shows some comfortable margin is being made.

Qobuz is in Europe: You can fetch the new Melody Gardot in SM there for 15€ instead of 21€ at Linns music store...

[Aurumer]

And everybody uses proxys, buys in america and wonders, why the music industry is thinking there is no business case in europe ;-).