[BEAR]

wrote:
I came across this article about the retail music business and I think it
fits in with some of the recent discussion here.

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/a...ls.php?id=9735

From the article:

There is a story doing the rounds in the US that says a lot about the state
of the music business. It concerns a young rock band who decided to stop
selling their CDs at concerts. Selling CDs has, for many years, been a good
way for an act to reclaim the margin that would otherwise have been
snaffled by a retailer. But it made no sense to this band once they
discovered that by selling CDs for $10 they were cannibalising sales of
their $20 T-shirts...

Sounds like, ummm... something less than a "truthful representation"?
Perhaps a story "planted" for the benefit of one of the protagonists in
the endless music biz fighting.

Why? Because you have to ask *what the margin is on each product*!!

They almost certainly make more *margin* (profit) on the CDs of the concert
than they do on the T-shirts!

Spec the costs on both, you might see that the T-shirt is surprisingly expensive,
and costs money to cart around besides.

I strongly suspect that the MOST profit can be had by selling *both*, not one
or the other.

Therefore, my suspicion about the source of the article remains.

_-_-bear