planet GONG bazaar

How Much For a CD?

Hi Jonny

thanks for the great mail out and great news!

I got to say it I really want the MotherGong Uncon CD (I was there) and all the others but the total price is the ONLY thing stopping me. I don't know what you think but £14 seems a lot nowadays.

JD

Hi JD,

I absolutely agree about the price of a CD. It's even worse when you break down why that is so, and work out what I make and what the artist makes via the various record labels. With the 'big boys' playing the games they play, it becomes harder and harder for us to survive.

So I thought I'd do the maths on a CD sale using a Voiceprint CD as a model. The dealer prices are often much higher on other CDs.

Voiceprint CD 'special' dealer price to GAS - £6.00 (at time of writing)… I won't go into how much of that record company money ends up with the artist.

VAT on dealer price = £1.50
total dealer cost £7.50
CD sells for £10.64 + VAT & P&P

VAT is fixed and can't be avoided (as I'm not selling thru the Channel Islands and all the crap (despite what governments do with some of the money they receive I don't have a problem with the concept of taxation). Unlike many online shops I don't charge VAT to overseas customers who do not need to pay it.
Postage and Packing is charged pretty much at cost.

£10.64 minus £7.50 dealer cost = £3.14 gross profit
minus credit card percentage fee (varies with the card averages about £0.25)
net profit £2.89

from this must also be deducted :
  • shopping cart fees
  • credit card terminal rental
  • web server
  • phone lines
  • phone calls to debit the cards
  • office rent and Council Tax
  • office/stock insurance
  • stationery (paper, printer ink, etc.)
  • and probably other stuff I forget

I have never worked out what all these costs are per CD, but it's obviously more the fewer sold.

It sort of comes down to whether a person is prepared to sometimes pay slightly over-the-odds for a CD so an independent like us exists to do all the other things it does. For example I buy a local whenever possible because I want the Glastonbury community to be here.

As daevid once said to me, "I choose to live in a community, not an economy!".

As always I strive for ways to step outside the economic imperative, but sometimes I'm (just about) existing within it - which is why a CD from us costs what it does.

Jonny