Because used vinyl is cheaper than new, total revenue for vinyl should be less than 2.5 times the RIAA numbers.
EBAY VINYL RECORDS PLUS
That means that the the true total size of the vinyl market in unit volume - new plus used - is about 2.5 times what the RIAA reports. So, if most of the 1000 indie retailers don't report sales, that's about a third of retail sales of new vinyl going unreported, meaning that new vinyl sales are likely to be about 50% higher than the RIAA figures. (Major retail chains like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart sell vinyl but with insignificant market shares.) 67% of vinyl sales take place in physical stores, which means that the total retail market has an equivalent of 2000 stores, or twice the number of indie stores. The retailers that do report their new vinyl sales include Amazon (which accounts for the bulk of online sales) and specialized retailers like Urban Outfitters, Hastings, Hot Topic, and FYE, which together have about 1300 retail locations. Zia's Steve Duncan says that most indie retailers don't bother to report their sales data. In other words, the overall vinyl market is more than double the RIAA figures, over 30 million units in 2017.īut it's even bigger than that, because a lot of new vinyl sales aren't reported. Notice that the total is slightly greater than the RIAA figres for new vinyl - and it doesn't include data from Amazon (which declined to provide data). There are about 1000 true indie record stores in the U.S., plus others that sell a few vinyl items among books, clothing, coffee, etc. The estimates derive from data provided by Zia Records, a chain of independent stores in the Southwest. Discogs' Rich says that their online sales represent only "a fraction of what is out there in the used market, considering the amounts of used inventory selling through local record stores."Įstimated physical retail sales of used vinyl are shown in green in the figure above.
EBAY VINYL RECORDS OFFLINE
It takes more effort to list your records on Discogs, but collectors like having all that information.īut these figures don't count offline sales - of which there are more than online. That's because Discogs requires that sellers submit highly detailed metadata about music releases - including such things as identifiers, country of release, pressing information, artist credits, and conditions of both discs and sleeves - whereas eBay has looser metadata standards to encourage more casual sellers and buyers (and, of course, supports auctions). Discogs is becoming the preferred marketplace for serious record buyers and sellers. The figure also shows Discogs' sales are growing at roughly the same rate as new vinyl sales, while eBay's sales have stagnated.
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