CD Baby closing its online store

Indie music distributor CD Baby will close its online store at the end of March. So if you want one last scrounge thru their famed $5 section, you'd better do it quick!

https://variety.com/2020/music/news/cd-baby-retail-store-closing-1203506690/

They will continue to distribute artist's physical product via Amazon and other online outlets.

I wonder how our pal Stormspell will be affected by this? It seemed like his CD Baby page was his main "store."

Interesting, I only bought one CD from there back in 2006. it was a local band my son & I saw and he wanted the CD. CDBaby was the only place to get it. I think I may have bought an mp3 album there at one time as well (King James maybe?). So I take it by closing the store that means CD's and digital downloads.

This also has me thinking about bandcamp. I visit there more than CD Baby (in fact, just checked out CDbaby today for the first time in years and bandcamp is so much better).
You can hear full tunes on bandcamp and order downloads or a CD just like CD baby. Plus bandcamp is much easier to navigate when searching for something like metal or 80's music.

Wonder how much business bandcamp does?

I've bought albums from them before (none for years, though), but Bandcamp and CDUniverse.com are where I do most of my CD purchasing online.

I use to buy a lot from them. Haven’t for several years though. Seems like Amazon is taking over.!

I can't say I'm really surprised here. The pricing on CDBaby seemed stuck firmly in the '90s for most acts I looked up - which is unfortunate.

Also, they briefly introduced FLAC downloads, which was tremendous, only to rescind and bring us back to MP3 only. I don't care if people like MP3, but only having that as an option feels like a throwback.

Still feels like the end of an era though.

I’ve bought a few cds from there over the years. I’m surprised they’re closing because they are an online business. It’s usually the brick and mortar stores that close.

Their prices always scared me away.

Something tells me that SecondSpin may be the next online retailer to go down ... their FB has been pimping an "Inventory Reduction Sale" for the past several days, and if you go to their site it sez they are no longer buying used CDs, DVDs or games.

https://www.secondspin.com/?cid=1334025

There was a Second Spin retail store I used to go to that closed a year ago. I didn’t think their online business would soon follow... but these days, you never know. Music is treated as disposable and collectors are few and far between.

Troublezone wrote:

There was a Second Spin retail store I used to go to that closed a year ago. I didn’t think their online business would soon follow... but these days, you never know. Music is treated as disposable and collectors are few and far between.

Second Spin was owned by Trans World Entertainment, who also owned the F.Y.E. store chain. Earlier this year they sold the company to Sunrise, a Canadian music/video retailer. Maybe SecondSpin was a victim of this merger.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Troublezone wrote:

There was a Second Spin retail store I used to go to that closed a year ago. I didn’t think their online business would soon follow... but these days, you never know. Music is treated as disposable and collectors are few and far between.

Second Spin was owned by Trans World Entertainment, who also owned the F.Y.E. store chain. Earlier this year they sold the company to Sunrise, a Canadian music/video retailer. Maybe SecondSpin was a victim of this merger.

I was reading about the merger the other day and I am with you on this one, FF. Also, the final nail in the proverbial coffin for CD's was the unmitigated rise of vinyl sales for the last decade or so (and a few cassettes, too) that took dollars away from disc purchases. I would venture a guess that most of what we all like is coming in from overseas as imports at a higher cost, so the prices keep going up. Only one of the three local places I go (Armageddon Shop, In Your Ear, and Kangaroo) actually buys any new stock on a regular basis, the other 2 deal mostly in used stuff.

Shame about CD Baby. I used to buy from them quite a bit, especially from their $5 bin, but cut way back in the last few years.

Today, CD Universe is on its final day of being active.

I placed my final order with them earlier this month, ordering the new albums by Riot V and Atrophy. The Atrophy CD arrived today, but the Riot V album was backordered, and got shipped later, so I should get that later this week.