AfterDawn: News

End of an era: Best Buy stops selling CDs

Kids nowadays might not even remember, but most of the music was sold in physical format still back in last decade or so. Actually, in 2001, the U.S. CD sales peaked at 800 million copies sold - having collapsed to mere 89 million in 2017.

During the CD's heyday, Best Buy was one of the major CD retailers in the U.S. Now, Best Buy has decided to cease selling CDs altogether as they generate only $40 in revenue. In June, CDs will disappear from all Best Buy stores across the U.S.



At the same time, another large retail chain, Target, is pressuring record labels to agree to buy back the unsold CDs it cannot sell through its stores. Traditionally, the unsold inventory has been retailer's problem, not labels' problem, but as CD sales continue to plummet, Target wants to change that.

According to IFPI's global stats, physical records still generate appx 34 percent of the global sales and are still somewhat strong in certain geographical areas, like in Japan and Germany. But digital revenue, driven by Spotify and YouTube grew as much as 177 percent in 2016 and are unlikely to slow down.

So, the concept of owning a physical piece of plastic that has music on it, is about to end. Sure, vinyl records and CDs will be made also in future. But you wont find those from local convenience stores, supermarkets or gas stations anymore. You have to find a specialist record store - physical one or an e-commerce site - to buy one.

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 3 Feb 2018 16:01

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• 9 comments

• Semperfipal

  The ERA ended for me about 10 years ago. I remember when they came out, the price would drop as they be came more popular, which really never happened. Love thumbdrive technology now!
  

  "Do not underestimate the power of an enemy, no matter how great or small, to rise against you another day." - Atilla

  3.2.2018 19:42 #1

• cart0181

  What's a thumbdrive?
  

  4.2.2018 21:25 #2

• ffg7

  an usb flash drive.

  4.2.2018 23:05 #3

• nu2duo

  For me it's all about streaming music. Haven't purchased a CD in at least 10 years.

  5.2.2018 16:55 #4

• hearme0

  Originally posted by cart0181: What's a thumbdrive? Did you seriously ask this??? A dios mio!

  6.2.2018 14:47 #5

• hearme0

  I just bought David Gilmore on HD bluray audio. LOVE IT. I'm 44 and a CD baby but, ditched buying CDs probably 15 years ago, maybe 10.
  
  This was a truly smart play on BestBuy's part. Way to go for actually making a solid decision in corp America BestBuy!!!
  
  
  Sadly, in 20 years when you want to listen to that obscure album or maybe even not-so-obscure albums, you won't be able to locate the actual song to download because it'll be a rarity. This is where CDs and physical formats of media are seriously beneficial.

  6.2.2018 14:51 #6

• KennyBo

  I still buy CDs from Amazon. I still want physical copy where I can easily play or transfer to various devices such as my car's hard-drive. I just like having the medium and knowing I will always have access to it. Something about trusting the internet for availability still concerns me. And I am not into piracy of music. I'm not saying all do that, but there is a faction out there that has added to CD sales decline.

  14.2.2018 07:50 #7

• Vancouversailor

  Originally posted by Semperfipal: The ERA ended for me about 10 years ago. I remember when they came out, the price would drop as they be came more popular, which really never happened. Love thumbdrive technology now! Thumbdrives or USB memory sticks as they are officially called are great until the day they are not, when you go to access a particular song or document and see nothing but blank space. With frequent use they are about 10 times more likely to get corrupted than a regular hard drive and 50 times more than a cd. Then there is the day the memory stick slips out of your pocket and on to the pavement, and the cheap plastic casing cracks, spilling out the storage media on to the street. Hopefully it did not contain the only copies you had of the pictures you took of a friend's wedding.

  16.2.2018 13:12 #8

• Semperfipal

  Originally posted by Vancouversailor: Originally posted by Semperfipal: The ERA ended for me about 10 years ago. I remember when they came out, the price would drop as they be came more popular, which really never happened. Love thumbdrive technology now! Thumbdrives or USB memory sticks as they are officially called are great until the day they are not, when you go to access a particular song or document and see nothing but blank space. With frequent use they are about 10 times more likely to get corrupted than a regular hard drive and 50 times more than a cd. Then there is the day the memory stick slips out of your pocket and on to the pavement, and the cheap plastic casing cracks, spilling out the storage media on to the street. Hopefully it did not contain the only copies you had of the pictures you took of a friend's wedding. Your right, nothing lasts forever, but if you back up your data, music, videos, etc. like most of us do, it shouldn't be a problem. Redundancy is the key to saving all your important files. I back up to two different sources, non of them are in the cloud.
  

  "Do not underestimate the power of an enemy, no matter how great or small, to rise against you another day." - Atilla

  17.2.2018 10:31 #9