more on insound, sales are up
Shaky Hands at the Crystal Ballroom
I wrote last week about Insound and its creative attempts to stay alive in the world of music retailing as it seems that retailers are going the way of the Dodo. Matt Wishnow who runs Insound wrote to tell me that Insounds‘ sales are not only up but growing.
From Matt: I did want to mention that I was thrilled to see your quote that bands are in the tshirt business and not the music business. While I know precisely the ways in which you are being pointed, I also know the ways in which that is very very true. Our business at Insound is way way up over last year largely due to the sale of vinyl, tshirts and posters. In fact, we are the only place online that does a serious business with indie rock that combines ALL formats and product types, including digital. As a result, digital music does have a strange, evolving function on our site, which is why you will see us continuing to be experimental and ambitious in how we think about it. That said, our end goals are always to support the bands and labels we love and admire and to sell product in the process. Based on the responses of Insound customers (the number of whom is growing more than ever) I don’t believe that digital music services or a la cart track sales are necessarily the death of the album for ALL music fans (our vinyl sales would seem to indicate otherwise), even if it is for the “average” music fan. Additionally, I’ve witnessed a direct correlation between free music sampling and the health of the merch and live concert business (as well as the vinyl business).
My ostensible point is that Insound’s business and future health MUST correlate digital music and physical band merch. That is what we do and have done for a long time. I think we are finally getting better at it as becomes clearer to us what the super avid music fans want from us. Like the bands themselves, we are very much in the tshirt business.