Big Hit In Hitsville

More bad times for the international music loving community.

Rising Postal Rates Squeeze Small Record Labels

This is hitting a lot of people I know really hard. Not good at all, especially to those of us who insist on tangible merchandise when it comes to buying music. Digital is for convenience; physical is for the love of the art.

I get that the solution is not as simple as just going back to the old rates but I'm also convinced that they've just crossed the consumer's line of whether or not to buy the product. This will only end up biting the USPS in the butt, as well as all of the other businesses who will be affected by this drastic increase.

Just a couple weeks ago I experienced the same thing for an import which I reluctantly put back on the shelf. A few friends of mine in the UK had some limited edition vinyl of some new material up for sale. Really love their music and wanted it badly. Had a limit in my mind of what I could reasonably afford to splurge on, which was still ridiculously high all told. The item was in my cart but when all was calculated, it came to about $10 more than what I could consider tossing towards a record that only contained a few short songs. Between the devaluation of the USD and the Royal Mail rates, it was too far on the wrong side of a justifable splurged purchase. Please don't give me the value of the art arguement. It's great work but only one of many other consumables dependent on descretionary spending, of which I have very little. Sadly, it was put back because some (many!) of us must make a few responsible decisions regardless of the quality of the product and the value of the service. Not like I'm the only one making such decisions and with these rates we are going to see many, many more making such decisions to the detriment of a whole lot of smaller, and even larger, businesses.

Trying to look at the bright side, I do think this is an opportunity for a few entrepreneurial minded and spirited music lovers to start their own cottage industry. That and I think that the various merchants left will have to go back to doing what they did in the old days of the '60s and '70s and import large quanties of imports to sell as special sectioned items. I'm just hoping they pick some of the stuff I really love instead of a few extra copies of crap like Lady GagMe.

So much for shrinking the world into one cohesive unit. This is more like breaking it all up into isolated chunks who do business mostly within their own boundries. BACKWARDS!  ::)

I had to quit buying the low run CDR/Cassette/Vinyl releases from one of my favorite labesl, Phantasma Disques out of Germany, simply because it wasnt worth it to pay for the insane shipping.  The last CDR i bought was 6.66 Euros (about 9 good old US dollars) and ended up being 18 USD with shipping added in.  Of course the SAME thing can be bought digitally for 7 USD.  I would much rather support 2 (or even 3) bands for the price of one and stick with digital, though I will buy physical media at a concert, which of course does not have the extra shipping costs added (i am more of a poster and t shirt guy, but still). 

Jaguar wrote:
More bad times for the international music loving community.

Rising Postal Rates Squeeze Small Record Labels

This is hitting a lot of people I know really hard. Not good at all, especially to those of us who insist on tangible merchandise when it comes to buying music. Digital is for convenience; physical is for the love of the art.

I get that the solution is not as simple as just going back to the old rates but I'm also convinced that they've just crossed the consumer's line of whether or not to buy the product. This will only end up biting the USPS in the butt, as well as all of the other businesses who will be affected by this drastic increase.

Just a couple weeks ago I experienced the same thing for an import which I reluctantly put back on the shelf. A few friends of mine in the UK had some limited edition vinyl of some new material up for sale. Really love their music and wanted it badly. Had a limit in my mind of what I could reasonably afford to splurge on, which was still ridiculously high all told. The item was in my cart but when all was calculated, it came to about $10 more than what I could consider tossing towards a record that only contained a few short songs. Between the devaluation of the USD and the Royal Mail rates, it was too far on the wrong side of a justifable splurged purchase. Please don't give me the value of the art arguement. It's great work but only one of many other consumables dependent on descretionary spending, of which I have very little. Sadly, it was put back because some (many!) of us must make a few responsible decisions regardless of the quality of the product and the value of the service. Not like I'm the only one making such decisions and with these rates we are going to see many, many more making such decisions to the detriment of a whole lot of smaller, and even larger, businesses.

Trying to look at the bright side, I do think this is an opportunity for a few entrepreneurial minded and spirited music lovers to start their own cottage industry. That and I think that the various merchants left will have to go back to doing what they did in the old days of the '60s and '70s and import large quanties of imports to sell as special sectioned items. I'm just hoping they pick some of the stuff I really love instead of a few extra copies of crap like Lady GagMe.

So much for shrinking the world into one cohesive unit. This is more like breaking it all up into isolated chunks who do business mostly within their own boundries. BACKWARDS!  ::)

people have to spend their money on something.  So if you aren't spending money on some british artist's album you could buy something from one of the many talented local bands from your local record store.  You don't have to pay postage and you are supporting your local scene. 

Reading the article the problem seems to be that they can't raise first class domestic mail rates higher than the rate of inflation.  And congress is making the postal service pre-fund their pensions.  So in order to get more revenue they are raising shipping costs for overseas mail.

Like the article mentions as a way around this is ship it overseas in bulk and then have someone in the other country fill orders for you.  If Walmart can import crap from china and sell it for next to nothing I think there are ways around the problem.

atomicfront wrote:
people have to spend their money on something. 

Huh? Since when? Guess by this statement, we all have too much money sitting around that we must unload. If that were the case, Killsaly and I would have gladly made those purchases. This is about basic economics and having to forfeit something we want and supporting those we prefer over setteling for something else because 'we have to spend our money on something.'  ::) My point was that, ultimately, the small independent supplier and artist will suffer. You blew this off and sidewinded it into something else.

Fuck Wal-Mart! They have plenty of money to work out bulk deals and are very much in bed with China. Besides, I haven't found too many Chinese bands yet I want music from. Besides, Wal-Mart is too busy limiting their music stock to what the big labels want them to push which usually does not coincide with my taste. I prefer to pick and choose my own music rather than have some biggie select it for me.

Both the article and my post would indicate that we do agree with you about a way around will develop but Wal-Mart (at least, I hope!) will not be the solution. Preferably, this will give a little guy a chance to get ahead of this crumbling economy.

I don't have the books for the USPS, nor do you, so I don't have a solution to their problems and if you bothered to notice, I did say that I don't think going back to the old rates was it. I also am not fully convinced that all the woes are due to their pensions either. That's a line that I tend to believe is more about a certain agenda trying to gut any and everyone's pensions, especially if they work for the government in some aspect.

The point is that these increases are going to greatly hurt a lot of little lables and bands who have an international fan base who would love to support them and want the tangibles but won't be able to justify doing so. Very same thing for many other non-music related companies trying to eek out a living by selling products overseas.

Jaguar wrote:

atomicfront wrote:
people have to spend their money on something. 

Huh? Since when? Guess by this statement, we all have too much money sitting around that we must unload. If that were the case, Killsaly and I would have gladly made those purchases. This is about basic economics and having to forfeit something we want and supporting those we prefer over setteling for something else because 'we have to spend our money on something.'  ::) My point was that, ultimately, the small independent supplier and artist will suffer. You blew this off and sidewinded it into something else.

Fuck Wal-Mart! They have plenty of money to work out bulk deals and are very much in bed with China. Besides, I haven't found too many Chinese bands yet I want music from. Besides, Wal-Mart is too busy limiting their music stock to what the big labels want them to push which usually does not coincide with my taste. I prefer to pick and choose my own music rather than have some biggie select it for me.

Both the article and my post would indicate that we do agree with you about a way around will develop but Wal-Mart (at least, I hope!) will not be the solution. Preferably, this will give a little guy a chance to get ahead of this crumbling economy.

I don't have the books for the USPS, nor do you, so I don't have a solution to their problems and if you bothered to notice, I did say that I don't think going back to the old rates was it. I also am not fully convinced that all the woes are due to their pensions either. That's a line that I tend to believe is more about a certain agenda trying to gut any and everyone's pensions, especially if they work for the government in some aspect.

The point is that these increases are going to greatly hurt a lot of little lables and bands who have an international fan base who would love to support them and want the tangibles but won't be able to justify doing so. Very same thing for many other non-music related companies trying to eek out a living by selling products overseas.

What??? My comment is if you don't buy from someone in the UK you will probably use that money to buy something similar in the US. So another record label will benefit.  Like Friends Records in Baltimore.  They could use your money as well.  It is not like you are going to stop buying records.

As for Walmart I am not suggesting that you buy records from walmart. I am saying their are ways around the shipping costs.  Label in Uk could have a deal with label in US and they fill each other's orders in their country. 

I buy italian soda, norwegian water, german cookies, french jams, argentine wine, icelandic yogurt etc. etc when I go to the grocery store so of course this can be cost effective.  They just need to find ways to ship that bypass mailing directly a single record from the US to Europe or vice versa. 

The exchange rate is because the government under Obama and GW has run huge defecits.  That is making your currency worth less and less. 

Oh, I am fully aware of the many reasons for the devaluation of the USD, and I might even agree with you on many of its causes, but I'm not about to get into a debate with you on that. That too is not the point of the article though it is part of its cause.

Again, it's not that some of us are itching to spend money on a music product though I will admit to getting that itch at times. It's about not being able to easily obtain specific works one would prefer to have. I've got lots of friends overseas selling music and sometimes supporting them is part of my desire for that particular product. Not so much that I end up cuttiing into my necessaties but enough that they are the ones I choose to select. In most cases, it's because that's the music I really like whether I know them or not. Not like I'm not buying local either. I do but there's also a lot here I don't like and buying something sub-par to my personal taste instead of what I really want just doesn't cut it.

Apparently, you are totally missing the aspect of how this will hurt small businesses or DIYers who get a percentage of their support from overseas. That's really the biggest issue. It's just that the small side of the music industry seems to be right on the cutting edge of this problem though many other industries will soon follow as their bottom lines are hit. Kind of thought you would be pro-American business from your posts. An American company being able to sell products overseas would only benefit them. This is going to only hurt them. 

Labels voice their concerns here as well as the dude behind Pink Reason. http://stereogum.com/1247822/deconstructing-how-the-usps-is-killing-indie/top-stories/lead-story/