Retailers Cry Foul At Interscope's Efforts To Pump Lloyd Banks Sales Numbers
G-Unit/Interscope will deliver Lloyd Banks' highly anticipated album "The Hunger for More" June 29. Observers expect Banks to give D-12 a run for its money in the rap-album-of-the-year sales sweepstakes. Interscope may have already passed the planned initial shipment of 750,000, so the album could be tipping the scales at 1 million units when it hits the street.
Needless to say, "The Hunger for More" has plenty of momentum. But stoking the excitement is a limited-edition Digipak version of the album. In addition to special packaging with completely different artwork, the special edition will contain one extra song and a 25-minute DVD.
Interscope plans to ship about 100,000 units of the limited edition.
However, retailers are claiming that in order to even receive the limited edition set, they must triple their regular orders from Interscope Records. Insiders say that this in turn guarantees that Banks album ships platinum and will debut at #1 on the Billboard charts next week.
After a retail outcry a couple of years ago at the National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers' annual convention, Interscope—previously a proponent of giving big-box accounts extra-special versions of albums—rewrote the limited-edition marketing game plan. In June 2002, the label gave away a bonus DVD with every copy of "The Eminem Show" in initial shipment orders.
"My problem is threefold," one merchant says. "One, rap suffers from being the most heavily counterfeited genre, and the bonus DVDs should be widespread to lure customers into buying legitimate copies of the album.
"Two, make [the limited edition] available to everyone, and don't play games with it. You know this record is going to sell. Titles like this only come out so many times a year, and now, when retailers have a chance to make money on a big title, by limiting the special edition you are going to feed us a few crumbs when you can feed us a buffet.
"Three, don't make it so expensive. The extra CD only costs 50 cents more, and the limited edition is [priced] $3 to $4 higher. It should only be $1 or $2 higher."
The special edition will carry a $13.95 boxlot price, sources say, while the regular version will go for the everyday JumpStart price of $10.35.
The merchant notes that 90% of shoppers are going to want the bonus version, but only 10% will score it, leaving customers confused when their friends get the limited edition and they don't. "Then you have to sit there and explain what happened," he says. "And even with the explanation, you usually end up losing the sale because the customer returns it and heads out to other stores to look for the limited edition."
Steve Berman, head of sales and marketing at Interscope, says the label is releasing the special edition because it's "important to the artist, who wanted to help create demand and excitement for the album." However, Berman denies efforts to inflate the sales numbers by having retailers order three times the amount of product to be considered for the limited edition set.
Putting together such a project is an "art with a million moving pieces," Berman adds. "Our intention is to be fair to everybody, and if anybody has criticism about how this is rolling out, we will take that into consideration toward the next time."
_________________
YOU ONLY GOOD AS WHAT YOU COME UP AGAINST
Anmelden
FAQ
Suche
