Many in the newsagency industry have various views on Cardplai. However no-one knows how digital music will go in newsagencies because no-one has done it. Everyone is guessing.
My argument is that the digital music industry is huge. Doing a net search, I found in 2008 about 20% of recorded music sales are digital. That is 1 billion songs. Australians have embraced this and it is a big market here. For instance, in January 21, 2009 the week's ARIA chart in Australia, the No. 1 single was Jessica Mauboy's Burn. It sold 8537 copies; 7986 (94%) of those were sold digitally.
The Australian consumer wants to buy singles digitally. For example in the same week the No. 1 album, was Kings of Leon's Only By The Night. It sold 12,542 copies, of which just 923 (7%) were from legal sites.
Nor does the Australia consumer want to use subscription-based services as these have struggled to connect with music fans; they prefer to pick the tracks they want.
So the Cardplai model of the user buying a card and the user selecting the tracks is right.
With so many people buying music, why would some not buy in a newsagency? They are coming now to your shop to get a greeting card. What about the present? Say a $20 music card. A SAVVYTUNE you will make about 5% a $1. A gift card iTunes (which only POS users have) will give you about 7%, $1.40. A Cardplai gift card will give you $5.00. What would you rather get?
With 500,000 plus tracks on Cardplai, there must be something there for everyone. If some people do not like Cardplai, you are not worse off as you can still sell them an iTunes gift card. Maybe others will like it and your bigger range is a plus.
The commitment asked is small. You get paid back this amount before anyone else. If you do not like it, there is a cooling off period to return the stock.
With so little asked, why not give Cardplai a go? Maybe newsagents can make a go of digital music – others have.
