Apple today announced Complete My Album, a new iTunes service that allows customers to turn their individual tracks into a complete album at a reduced price by giving them a full 99 cent credit for every track they have previously purchased from that album.
“Music fans can now round out their music collections by upgrading their singles into complete albums with just one click, and get full credit for those songs they have previously purchased from iTunes,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, in the press release. “Complete My Album is a wonderful new way that iTunes helps customers grow and enjoy their music collections.”
“iTunes continues to revolutionize the digital music industry by offering music fans innovative ways to explore and enjoy new music,” said Thomas Hesse, president, Global Digital Business and US Sales, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, in the press release. “With Complete My Album, iTunes is giving music fans the best of both worlds—the ability to discover great new music by buying just the single and a credit toward the purchase of the complete album.”
Complete My Album offers customers up to 180 days after first purchasing individual songs from any qualifying album to purchase the rest of that album at a reduced price. When users buy any song on iTunes the corresponding album will immediately appear on their personalized Complete My Album page with the reduced price listed. For example, a user who’s already purchased three 99 cent singles and decides to buy the corresponding $9.99 album would be able to download the remaining songs to complete the album for just $7.02, without having to buy the singles again.
The iTunes Store features the world’s largest catalog with over four million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over two billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.
More info at Apple’s iTunes Store here.
This is an attempt to keep the outmoded album concept around for a little while longer. It is highly-targeted marketing; just try it and see. All of your iTunes Store-purchased songs that don’t have the rest of the album in your library (ie. the stuff you didn’t want or like the first time around) are gathered together for you and you’re presented with ads to buy the rest of the albums. Our guess as to why they (the music labels and/or Apple) put the 180-day limit on this is simply another marketing tactic: time-limited offers create additional motivation for you to buy now. This is advertising masquerading as a feature.
Related article:
Apple plans iTunes credit for purchased singles if customers later buy album – March 26, 2007
WSJ: Music sales take sharp plunge – March 21, 2007
is this u.s. only or worldwide?
Can you use Microsoft Points?
The press release doesn’t say.
tehy should use a similar concept for video, by offering a rental for like 2.99 and then deducting the price if you buy the movie within 18o days.
Come on Apple! that will be a reason for me, an investor in AAPL to buy Apple TV.
It’s only available for people in a one block radius around 1330 Connecticut Ave. NW, Ste. 300, Washington, DC.
Congrats, Apple. This is exactly the kind of revolutionary common sense that has been missing from the music biz for so very long.
wonder if the record companys have anything to do with this ?
I mean, consider that they obviously arent keen on the fact that you can purchase your music by the individual song.. and now they want to push entire albums off on you …
A good idea, maybe, if the particular album contains all good songs… but how often does that happen … anymore ? .
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For a “limited time” the new concept is retroactive to all prior purchases. Mine shows 414 albums that can be completed. The reality is less than that because they repeat albums if you’ve purchased singles at different times.
Good service, but the 180 day limit seems a little silly.
Smart move by Apple. Adds value while not changing their overall strategy much.
Well the idea is that if you get to know an album, within 180 days you’d know if you want the rest or not. The limit is there also to help you make up your mind soon, and it makes them money.
180 days sucks, effectively making this a marketing gimmick. Let me complete my albums for songs I purchased three or four years ago, and you’re talking. Refund my previous duplicate purchase costs and you’ve added real value.
get rid of time limit. i listen to certain things when i’m in the mood to hear it – not necessarily just after i purchased something.
I still want a subscription service to *complement* iTunes. I would pay a monthly fee to explore songs, then go back to buy the album if I liked them. I just hate wasting money to find out the new album I bought is crap.
Shitty record sales are finally starting to have an effect on the greed at RIAA members.
Those stuck on the time limit, without it, you’ll take forever and day to decide that you want to buy in. It is more than enough time to decide if you want the album. And anyone can buy for items they have already purchased. Again, motivation. In sales, you must create a sense of urgency. Think about it, if Ford said they were discounting cars 25% without a published end to the sale, you’d never go shopping! No reason to rush. This is a business. You love them, but they still have shareholders to please too.
It’s here in Oz…
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Must be worldwide – at least my world
Been wanting this for a long time… now create a “wish list” section and I think it would be great!
On my ‘Complete My Album’ page I see albums that I bought from over a year ago and I’m being given until June 26 to complete the album. Clearly the 180 days is just for new purchases so that’s not so bad.
As so many albums are a similar price to CDs and many actually cost a lot more than a CD then I can’t see me buying any albums on iTunes. I’ll just stick to buying the odd track here and there.
I agree! I mean, if certain checks I get have “Cash within 90 days” on them, what’s nearly 6 months?
So does this mean that if I buy 12 songs ($11.88) from an album, that I can buy the whole album and actually get money *back*?
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180 days? That’s what they said about the McRib Sandwich, and IT cames back…
It’s here on the Canadian store too.
Funny, the magic word is “europe”. Canada is in North America! lol
Getting the Message:
Shitty music makes for Shitty record sales.
I don’t use iTS, but for those who do, this is a good thing.
I think a good marketing tactic would be for Apple to sell you the physical, DRM free CD, in addition to the downloaded DRM protected album, for an additional premium, say $3 or $4. That way, the consumer would gain the benefit of immediate access to the content, albeit protected and compressed, and also to unprotected, uncompressed content a short time later. The market would establish how great a premium it is willing to pay for such a benefit, and, I believe, would reveal to the record labels the inefficacy of DRM in terms of cost benefits to them. They would quickly see that consumers are willing to pay up for DRM free music in a Lossless format, so to speak, but the amount of that increase is not enough to justify or offset the production and distribution costs associated with the pysical media. Therefore, why not simply allow Apple to sell their music in DRM free, Lossless format for the same increase in price and eliminate the costs associated with the physical media; thereby increasing their profits?
180 days is a hell of a lot better than the 0 that it was before. Quit your bitching people, at least Apple offers this service for those that want it, I don’t see anyone else doing it…