"Wal-Mart starts selling 88-cent songs online

Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. officially entered the increasingly crowded online music market Tuesday with a service that offers songs for 11 cents less each than competitors like Apple Computer Inc.

Wal-Mart's online division, which is based in Brisbane, has been testing its Music Downloads store since December, selling tunes for 88 cents each or $8.88 per album. Wal-Mart said the test has been successful enough to formally start the service, at www.walmart.com, with an expanded selection of 300,000 songs and exclusive tracks from artists like Jessica Simpson, Black Eyed Peas and Tim McGraw.

But even though Wal-Mart is the big cheese in retailing, analyst Michael Goodman said the Bentonville, Ark., firm is only a small player in an emerging online music market dominated by Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store.

"Right now, this is going to be more of a ripple than a tidal wave,'' said Goodman, senior media and entertainment analyst for Yankee Group, a Boston research firm.

Wal-Mart will promote its Music Downloads service at all of its retail outlets, which will also sell gift cards that can be used to buy songs online, Walmart.com spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said.

The online store has 300,000 tracks for sale, about 100,000 more than were available during the test period. In addition, Walmart.com will have about 3,000 songs exclusively for the next two months from Curb Records, which has a catalog of country artists like McGraw, LeAnn Rimes and Jo Dee Messina. Wal-Mart will also have exclusive tunes from finalists in Oprah Winfrey's "Pop Star Challenge.''
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88 cents is still twice what I would pay for an MP3...Once they come down to 44 cents I might jump on the wagon. They just dont get it.. These "legit" MP3 services are still charging the same outrageous amount they did 5 years ago which ultimately helped spark file sharing. The majority of people will not spend 99 cents, or even 88 cents on one song. I'd like to see a company start up that charges 25 cents or even 10 for a song. Business would BOOM for them...

having a problem with peerguardian blocking this site again the block is going to Connection Rejected: 205.180.85.40 - media.fastclick.netATBP ATBP (03-24-2004 @ 07:42:31)a string of about 50 times and its logging me out

"88 cents is still twice what I would pay for an MP3"

...and 88 cents higher than I would pay for anything in WMA format.

I will throw a hammer through my TV if I see a yellow happy face dancing around an mp3 player for a commercial

then I'll go to kmart and buy another TV

I find it interetsing that their service is based in Brisbane Australia, and not long ago, we saw a big "Raid" of major song file sharing site Kazaa, also located in Australia. Hmmm....using the MIPI to persecute your competition using the arcane Anton Pillar law...very interesting!

.88 cents for edited music...gee let me hurry up and get some music.

Didn't Wal-Mart's online cds start at .88Cents? I was positive they did. Now, lets see those "always hammering their prices down get to "Free Music" oh, sorry, there are a lot of others already doing that. ~pepe~

If you compare the value fo an audio CD
to the value of a DVD you will find
that a CD audio album is worth about 19 cents. If you consider the NON-MP3
format, then the RIAA should be paying us
to listen to their music.

""88 cents is still twice what I would pay for an MP3"

...and 88 cents higher than I would pay for anything in WMA format."

and 87.95 cents higher than i would pay for anyworthless digital file that can be made with ctrl+c and ctrl+v.

but those exclusive tracks from country artists, i think walmart's online music store will make a quite huge impact, alot more than any analyst expects just because who loves walmarts the most? =P

"I'd like to see a company start up that charges 25 cents or even 10 for a song. Business would BOOM for them..."

There is. www.allofmp3.com. And I think their business is booming.

LOL>..ok..check my new idea...
Wal*Mart should have a NICKEL download of the day...to feature that song...and they should have all their friggin' GREETERS humming that stupid tune over and over and over....

And they should start with that "Hit me with your best shot" song....
Pat Benatar's theme song...

I will never ever pay for another song from the big 5. EVER!

Ah, don't bother. All the songs are probably mass manufactured in China by slave labor.

Seriously though, whenever possible, don't buy anything from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is bad for communities, bad for women, bad for the USA, and just generally bad. Screw them, let them rot. I'd have more feeling for all the employee's that are out of work when a Walla-whoopie goes tets up, but none of them were ever nice to me anyway.

At least there's some competition. A competitive price i mean.

i'm waiting for that yellow-happy face to fly around and smack that 88cents down to 22cents!!!

Am I the only one? Or is this company the fucking Devil?

heh, Wal-Mart was the first place i ever began to boycott in 1998, for their blanant yet unlabeled censorship of cd's. I don't want thier watered down crap, on the computer or in physical form.

Hel*Mart- Jesus Wouldn't Shop There....And Neither Would I.....

Always Censored Music. Always.
Always Cheap Shit. Always.
Always RIAA Crap. Always.

Buy anti WalMart (I mean, China*Mart t-shirts at www.hel-mart.com)

:-:~ Phantom

You couldn't PAY me to download from them.

what if walmart got non-riaa music on their online music store. WOuld you do pay them for the music at walmart then, independentman? (just curious)

i know thats not directed at me, but no, Wal-Mart is still one of the worst possible places to purchase music from, regardless if its RIAA music or not.

True.