The average price people choose to pay for albums at Magnatune is slowly going down. The chart above shows the past year, with the average price per week having decreased about 40 cents, or 5% in the past year.
The average voluntary price paid in the past 20 days was $7.78 for downloads, and 8.67 for the music on CDs. Note that people pay an average of $1.09 more for music when they're buying a CD.
I'm guessing that this downwards trend is caused by the widening of Magnatune's audience from a core open-source activist audience to a larger mass audience. At least, that's what people have suggested would occur, and it's a plausible answer.
I don't see a problem with the lower per-album prices, since the volume of sales is up, and there is increased competition for online music spending, so people are automatically adjusting what they're willing to pay at Magnatune given the current environment.
It's about a year since you adjusted the "Recommended" Euro and GBP prices downward to reflect exchange rates. If any significant number of customers follow these recommendations, it may account for some of the drop you're seeing.
Posted by: Mike Capp | November 20, 2005 at 02:56 PM
Aw, if only the sales increases were across the board! The trend of more sales for less per sale and the increasing number of artists overall is a boon for Magnatune but the trend doesn't bode well for the artists not already doing well on the charts, as the trend there is for a decrease in sales as well as less per sale. It's probably just Darwinism in action, but is there any way lesser known but listen-worthy artists can get some visibility on the site? Wouldn't that also increase sales, as well?
Posted by: Charlie | November 21, 2005 at 12:02 PM