In-store digital music sales

Guillaume Lebleu — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:30:08 +0000

I was at an InMotion store at SFO international airport earlier today looking for a fabulous device called InFlight Power. There was a wonderful piaono/violoncel music piece playing. I didn’t think of using Shazam to figure out what is was. Instead I asked the sales guy what is was. He told me it was Melos by Anja Lechner & Vassilis Tsabropoulos. I memorized it (well… part of), then tried to pull it out from iTunes (not available there, but available at Amazon.com).

This got me wondering: shouldn’t InMotion get a share of that purchase? after all, they pay the rent, CD inventory and the salary of the store manager.

Why not providing a free Wi-Fi service at InMotion that would allow a user to get the playlist, say in the format of an OpenTape, then purchase it from iTunes or Amazon on the spot. I guess 5% of $.99 from iTunes is not enough. Amazon MP3 10% affiliate commission makes more sense but does not seem like it would be enough either.

I wonder what it would take for such a service to be profitable for InMotion. Maybe forcing the full album purchase with a convenience fee for the download service, roughly an average $15 price that would get the DJ/musician a $3 commission. Next an extension to iTunes that would publish automatically the playlist in OpenTape format with the download link would be a great way for DJs and musicians to promote their music in public spaces.

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In-store digital music sales