Custom CDs Play CDNow's Song

IRCE 2008 Conference Multi-Media CD-ROM

CDNOW says custom CDs were the Valentine's Day gift of choice for music lovers, outselling by 67% Santana's multi-platinum album, Supernatural, which held the #1 sales position for the prior 12 weeks.

     The retailer's monthlong custom CD promotion for Valentine's Day showed strong sales growth over last year's promotion: Unit sales grew 156% and revenues increased 184%. Gross margins were up 10%. Sales of CDNow's custom CDs spiked an average of 78%, following a series of promotions on America Online. Under the promotion, buyers paid $19.95 to select up to 12 songs from a collection of 175 love songs for their Custom CD, arranged the tracks in any sequence, and write a personalized title and gift note.

     "The sales success of the Valentine's Day promotion shows that custom CDs are a powerful vehicle for driving incremental revenues from traditional music products, both old and new," says Tracie Reed, vice president of merchandising at CDNow . By demonstrating real sales momentum with custom CDs, we expect more record labels to open their catalogs for custom CD licensing.''