Woolies launches new digital store ahead of CD single withdrawal

by Staff, Brand Republic 27-May-08, 12:30

LONDON - Woolworths is to launch an online music shop coinciding with its decision to stop selling CD singles in its stores from August.

The end of the CD single in Woolworths comes as the market has dropped to under a sixth of what it was at the beginning of the decade.

The retailer will only sell singles for special events, such as the 'X-Factor' winner. Other than that, the top 20 singles, which are currently sold in about half of Woolworths high-street stores, will disappear in the summer.

At the same time, Woolworths has launched a new digital download site, woolworthsdownload.com, which will sell the top 10 tracks for 59p for the first week the site is live, and other tracks for 77p. It is built on completely different technology to the previous Woolworths download site, which has now been closed.

Jim Batchelor, commercial director at Woolworths, said: "CDs are alive and well for album sales, but unfortunately the physical singles market is in terminal decline. Our customers are now starting to embrace the world of download, which is why we feel the time is right to launch our new digital site."

According to figures released by Woolworths, the singles market peaked in 1999 when 78m CD, tape and vinyl singles were sold. In 2000, 55m CD singles were bought in the UK but by last year this had dwindled to 8m.

Comments

Felix Velarde - 27/05/2008

However, the website states that Macs and Safari aren't supported... what kind of blithering idiot commissions a website that is not only not accessible (a legal requirement) but which doesn't actually work - in this day and age? The mind boggles at how incompetent some major brands are.

Tim Fleetwood - 01/06/2008

There is a fundamental point that you have to understand. Think about Woolworths. Think about their brand and their customer base. Think about the penetration of Internet Explorer amongst that customer base. I'm reasonably close to some of the people that are behind this site, and I can assure you that well over 95% of people have one browser installed on their computers, IE. The market is young, volume of sales are relatively small and there is thus not infinite funds available to build and maintain these platforms. I think you should embrace and celebrate what is the world's first website selling digital content across all entertainment formats, not just music but video, games and mobile. I say a job well done.