Giving one store a mega exclusive will cause a couple of different reactions in retail land - some smaller stores will send multiple employees to Best Buy to purchase as many copies of the CD as possible so they in turn can resell them at a slightly higher price at their stores in an effort to offer their customers what they will presumably be looking for. More often though when other artists have made this decision to offer a chain an exclusive many stores will boycott carrying the artist all together because who wants to support a group that one wants to support one retailer. Most certainly if the artist decides to eventually release their record to all stores, many stores will choose to pass on it, again because why would anyone want to accept hand me downs weeks or months after the exclusive hit the shelves...no less at probably will be at a higher cost. Small retailers, what the industry call regional chains and ma & pa stores curse this kind of behavior from a group, artist, or label because it sends out the message that they don't need those smaller store's support anymore, often the very account that help to break the artist in the first place. And usually these are also the stores who carry the deep catalog by these artists, something the big box stores like Best Buy do not do.
Then again it will be interesting to see if anyone still cares about this record at all. In some ways BB is taking a huge gamble on what could quite possibly be a huge steaming pile o' crap because their store name will be all over it.
"Most executives are aware that Best Buy is landing an exclusive on Chinese Democracy, the long-awaited release from Guns N' Roses. Now, that deal appears ready for official announcement, according to various reports.
On Friday, the New York Times pointed to a release date "as early as" November 25th, while Billboard predicted an appearance "before year's end," both pre-holiday timetables. The parties are reportedly finalizing late-stage negotiation details, which involve Guns representative Front Line Management. The release closely follows a high-profile, pre-release leak of nine tracks by a fan and blogger, a move that resulted in an arrest by the FBI. "
Story by news analyst Alexandra Osorio.
Permalink: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092608guns
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