Sainsbury's to stop selling CDs and DVDs

lolly

Rowena? From Kuwait?
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Supermarket giant Sainsbury's says it has decided to stop selling CDs and DVDs as streaming services take their toll on sales of the products.

A spokesperson said Sainsbury's customers increasingly went for music and films online instead of buying the shiny silver discs. The firm said sales were being phased out, although it would continue to sell vinyl records in some stores. CD sales have shrunk in the past decade but were still worth £115m last year.

Other big supermarkets show no sign of following Sainsbury's lead, with larger branches of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons still stocking a range of CDs and DVDs.
"Our customers increasingly go online for entertainment, so earlier this year we took the decision to gradually phase out the sale of DVDs and CDs, so that we can dedicate extra space to food and popular products like clothing and homewares," Sainsbury's said.

The decision is another sign that the CD, once the dominant means of buying and selling recorded music, is long past its heyday. With sales hit first by the MP3 music file, then by streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer, the silver disc is now seen as unfashionable in many circles. Worse still, the format that it was designed to kill off, the vinyl record, has enjoyed a resurgence, with UK sales climbing to 4.8 million last year, bringing in revenue of more than £86m.

That was still well short of the money brought in by CDs. But according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the value of record sales in 2021 is expected to surpass that of CDs for the first time since the late 1980s. "The CD has proved exceptionally successful for nearly 40 years and remains a format of choice for many music fans who value sound quality, convenience and collectability," said a BPI spokesperson. "Although demand has been following a long-term trend as consumers increasingly transition to streaming, resilient demand is likely to continue for many years, enhanced by special editions and other collectible releases. If some retailers now see the format as less of a priority, this will create a further opportunity for others, such as independent shops and specialist chains such as HMV, to cater to the continuing demand."

Music industry observer Graham Jones points out that supermarkets have always carried a very limited selection of CDs, with an emphasis on big names such as Ed Sheeran. But as his book Last Shop Standing makes clear, the supermarkets could still make life difficult for record shops, especially by undercutting them on price. In one chapter, he recounts an incident from 2008, when a shop in the East Midlands found that rather than ordering copies of the latest Coldplay CD from the record company, it was cheaper to buy them on special offer from Morrisons and Asda and resell them. However, such incidents are unlikely to be repeated these days. "Sales of CDs are slowing down, so I can understand why Sainsbury's are pulling out, really," he told the BBC."Vinyl is incredibly fashionable and the CD has gone out of fashion. A lot of indies [independent shops] may be stocking less CDs than they used to, but they're still selling. There's this myth that the CD is completely dead."
 
Saying shops like HMV and indies can cater to the continuing demand is one thing, but how many towns don't have any of those? And there's no way Tesco etc won't follow suit. We went to one of the huge Tesco Extra stores last week and apart from about a dozen various artist comps, I think they had about 5 artist CDs, and they were all compilations. And this is a shop which only a few years ago had a top 100 album chart, a nice price chart and I think a small alphabetical selection.
 
I wouldn't even think of getting a CD from a supermarket anyway. Without even looking I'd predict they just stocked the latest Now album, plus anything that's so popular if you wanted it then you probably already have it like Ed Sheeran, Adele, ABBA Gold and Queen's GH.

I do still buy a couple of CDs a year to top up a discography of any of my existing favourite acts. Like BNL have a new album out in a few weeks and Prince's Welcome 2 America release, but it's not like they'd would be stocked anywhere aside from Amazon.
 
The range in the supermarkets is very small now - sometimes less than 5 titles in my nearest Tesco and an invented "top 20" in Sainsbury's and Morrisons. I have picked up a few of those very cheap 3CD sets that have been coming out in Sainsbury's - if they're not going to stock them any more, that'll be a blow to those releases and may even bring them to a close, given that was the core audience.
 
It feels like a shame but I’m guilty of not buying cds due to the range offered in supermarkets and also mainly as I’m trying to minimise physical product to my faves only or limited editions due to spacing issues. The only supermarket buys I’ve had over the past couple of years were Chromatica and Thank U Next which I paid for with my Tesco vouchers.
 
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I loved all the reports saying it’s because “customers are turning to streaming”


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Just shocked that Vinyl has almost matched CD sales :o madness

mind you they are a LOT more expensive of course
 
To be honest, most supermarkets don’t stock actual chart CDs anyway and haven’t for ages. I don’t think this is going to make the remotest bit of difference except that (hopefully), the old GHs will begin to stop clogging up the chart.
 
To be honest, most supermarkets don’t stock actual chart CDs anyway and haven’t for ages. I don’t think this is going to make the remotest bit of difference except that (hopefully), the old GHs will begin to stop clogging up the chart.
I think the impact in that respect will be negligible. Gold for example has done far better recently on streaming than it has on sales - #16 on streaming, #58 sales, #17 overall last week.

Looks like the same is true for Elton John and Fleetwood Mac as well.
 
I thought Greatest Hits did well on streaming because you only had to listen to a certain percentage of the album for it to count as a sale, meaning that if you're having a binge on an artist's hits, you're probably adding at least one sale to the Greatest Hits album whether you mean to or not.
 
I think 'one sale' is pushing it somewhat, but yes, you're right in terms of not having to listen to the whole thing.
 
Saying shops like HMV and indies can cater to the continuing demand is one thing, but how many towns don't have any of those? And there's no way Tesco etc won't follow suit. We went to one of the huge Tesco Extra stores last week and apart from about a dozen various artist comps, I think they had about 5 artist CDs, and they were all compilations. And this is a shop which only a few years ago had a top 100 album chart, a nice price chart and I think a small alphabetical selection.
Does it really matter though? If someone's that desperate they can just order online. How many people can there really be who a. have no access whatsoever to the internet / a smartphone and b. are just DYING to get the latest Ed Sheeran on CD?
 
Yes, one streaming sale, before taking into account whatever their silly conversion ratio is these days.
 
Does it really matter though? If someone's that desperate they can just order online. How many people can there really be who a. have no access whatsoever to the internet / a smartphone and b. are just DYING to get the latest Ed Sheeran on CD?
Well yes, but I guess it just ruins the chance of the last few remaining impulse buys.

(Also Pen, just back from Sainsbury's Kingswood and they have already binned them).
 
2 years ago, the supermarkets would all have stocked that Queen reissue. None of them did (at least not in the Tesco, Sainsbury's or Morrisons stores I've been in this last week) and they missed the number one. First major impact of the supermarket bailout?
 
Whats Nadine meant to do for her comeback if she can't do a deal with Tesco. Hope they continue to stock.
The Queen Of Pop explains:

Nadine Coyle has insisted that she has "no regrets whatsoever" about the way she released her debut solo album, Insatiable. The former Girls Aloud singer released the album in November 2010, exclusively in Tesco stores, and saw it stall at Number 47 on the UK's Official Albums Chart. The album's only single, also called Insatiable, peaked at Number 26 on the Official Singles Chart. "We only released it in one shop. We didn't have any digital downloads, or iTunes, except for Tesco. That was the deal that we had done, to try something new," Coyle explains in an interview in the latest issue of Attitude. "So no, I don't have any regrets whatsoever."
 
I can honestly still remember the SAD SIGHT of dusty leftover copies of Insatiable in my (at-time) local Tesco Metro a few years back.
They were shoved on the bottom section of the racks by the till where they used to sell crisps and chewing gum (now replaced by NUTS and packs of DRIED CRANBERRIES!).
I wonder what happened to them :D

It was like....WOOOAAAAH, who knew :(
 
When Queen Louise did a deal with ASDA for her SINGAL it went top ten. Poor Nadine wet pants age 37 expose :(
 
"So no, I don't have any regrets whatsoever."

Love that this sounds like she had just finished giving some insight into WHY she has no regrets, when all she did was state the notoriously terrible release strategy for the 500th time

"We released it in one shop, with no downloads, SO I HAVE NO REGRETS"

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Love that this sounds like she had just finished giving some insight into WHY she has no regrets, when all she did was state the notoriously terrible release strategy for the 500th time

"We released it in one shop, with no downloads, SO I HAVE NO REGRETS"

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It's like she called up DAME MARTINE for PR ADVICE. 'Tell them stocking problems! It worked with me, although I got in NO SHOPS!'
 
2 years ago, the supermarkets would all have stocked that Queen reissue. None of them did (at least not in the Tesco, Sainsbury's or Morrisons stores I've been in this last week) and they missed the number one. First major impact of the supermarket bailout?
Quite possibly. They were less than 300 sales behind.
 

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