And there it was, on my Sellaband homepage, a drop down list to select how many Second Person CD's I'd actually like to be sent home once they were finished... What? Don't I get them all sent home? Oh, that too is an option.They caught me by surprise, the Sellaband team, but that's part of the fun in being in this unique experiment. Nothing they do, however, is without consequence. I won't speak about 'small' things like "where does the postage go" or "whose CD will be sold first" because that will sort itself out as the team has a record of being transparent and open to comments. No, I believe there are slightly bigger consequences of opening up shop with the limited edition CDs.
For one, up until now I'd figured that people who had still CDs to spare after harrassing all their friends into buying one would turn to eBay and sell the remainder to the highest bidder. "Limited Edition" would actually mean "not for sale in shops", and the sale price would soon be determined by rarity and demand and could be $15, $18 or perhaps $20. In time, a healthy second hand market would put an incentive on believing in artists that could gather a cult following willing to pay a premium over $15 per CD. Also, Sellaband CDs for sale on auction sites outside of Sellaband.com may be free promotion for the whole concept. All this is not lost, of course, but by setting the sale price at $15 an upper limit is set to any auction price, at least until the shop runs dry.
Secondly, Sellaband started off promoting (though not enforcing) "5000 believers per artist" or every believer one part per artist. Soon we saw people investing 100 parts, 250 parts and up to 500 parts in one artist. Because having 5000 fans may be considered better in the long run than having 10 with deep pockets, some people (including myself) say this should not be encouraged. Until now there has been a rather natural brake on the number of large investors, as they'd all have to find a way to sell their CDs. I've always imagined these people to be record shop owners, or at least have the spare time for selling each CD separately. The Sellaband Limited Edition CD Shop has negated this need for DIY in return for just a 10% profit margin. A margin that equals a small $5 if you own 5 CDs, but which is totally acceptable when leveraged by 100 CDs or more. Intentional or not, the shop means a significant change from the 1-part-per-investor policy that Sellaband started off with and opens Sellaband to more professional (albeit risky) investments.
The shop is here, and is probably here to stay, because it's a smart scheme. Not because of the truly sympathetic gesture of giving the artist another $1, but because (we can safely assume) the sales will end up on your SAB account which makes that it's easier re-invested than claimed!
2 comments:
mmh.... I don't think it's bad that sellaband would put available for sale the limited editions that you own as long as you'd get the money you spent and the artist gets $1. They're definatly making money for putting up the whole thing right, like a label.
I agree that this shop seems to be put up with the best intentions. I like the dollar for the artist, and Sellaband itself gets nothing. My point is however that by setting a fixed price instead of using the market mechanism of auction sites we can't see the true value of the CD whether it is less or more than $15. The proof of the pudding, or artist in this case, is in the eating. Also, I believe this shop makes Sellaband more of an investment site and less of a fansite, as buying hundreds of CDs no longer implies the job of selling them yourself. People with money to spare could just blindly invest in any artist over $40k without any interest in the music itself. Would this make Sellaband bigger? Perhaps. Does it make Sellaband less of a fun place? We'll see - let's hope not.
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