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Pricing and Costs of Music Distributors and Wholesalers

Choose music wholesalers that offer the best prices on all types of music

By Terri Deno
Music distributors and wholesalers can give you the best price on music for your retail or online store. Many labels and independent artists will try to sell directly to you, but they can easily charge twice as much as a wholesaler or music distributor. And music CD distributors are beginning to see a lot more competition with the online digital downloads, so this is something else that you'll need to consider.

The pricing and costs of music distributors and wholesalers all depends on the medium they sell and what type of music they offer. International music is often more expensive than domestic music. Other pricing factors to consider are:

1. Shipping costs to buy CDs.

2. The price of online music distributors that can offer digital downloads.

3. Whether you plan to sell music in a retail space or primarily online.

 

Consider music distribution outlets that specialize in music imports

The higher price of international music titles is reflected in the retail prices, as well as the wholesale prices. For retail, international titles are generally $3.00 to $6.00 more than popular titles. This is about the same percentage of difference in wholesale prices; but as the world gets smaller, more and more people are fans of international artists.
Try: Super D is a CD distributor that offers more than 700,000 music titles from around the world, many of which cannot be found easily in the United States. The Orchard is a music distributor that offers both international and domestic music titles.

Choose wholesale music distributors that work with digital downloads

Digital downloads are here to stay. With most of the general public carrying around an MP3 device or an MP3 capable phone, digital downloads are more important than ever. Since the consumers can buy digital downloads by the song, this cuts down what they have to spend, and it also allows you to offer individual songs instead of whole albums. Distributors of digital downloads get to keep around 9 percent of the profits, with about 91 percent going to the artist or label.
Try: Shatatantri Media is an Indian music distributor that offers both CDs and digital downloads. Bluegrass Publishing offers wholesale digital downloads to those who have a wholesale account with the company.

Buy wholesale music from independent artists

There are many independent artists who give their music away for free, but you can find distributors and wholesalers that offer independent artists and labels that are popular in niche audiences around the world. Prices will vary for independent artists according to their production costs, but most CDs and digital songs are around the same price as mainstream music.
Try: Amie Street is a music distributor that caters to the work of independent artists. Heartistry Music is a wholesaler of independent music that offers many of its titles as digital downloads.

 

  • If you are a company that sells music online but have yet to switch to digital music download options, find online music distributors that can help you with the transition to digital.

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