Just building and testing the blog features and I happened to use this image of one of the latest releases from Peter Murphy. Since I need some filler content and this is something which has always bugged me, I’ll go on…
As a shop that sells records, and lots of reissues on vinyl, it irks me when Beggars Arkive pre-sells their titles for just a couple of dollars over dealer cost, then lists the “retail price” at the distributor as $5-6 more.
For example, they were selling many of the new Peter Murphy limited edition reissues for $21 or $22 as a pre-order and after the day of release. My dealer cost for the same records was $17 or $18 with a suggested retail price of $25 or $26.
I still ordered some because, well, it’s Peter Murphy! And his reissues are in demand. BUT I had to slash the price of the records to be competitive with the record label. That shouldn’t be happening. I’m not for price fixing, I think everyone should be allowed to sell for whatever they want to. But it just rubs me the wrong way. It seems like they just want to sell all of their releases directly instead of offering it to stores (which is okay to me too).
So, if you see a Beggars Arkive release coming out that you want, feel free to order it from me. I’ll match Beggars price on it (if they have it in stock). But the chances of me carrying a lot of Beggars Arkive back stock are very slim. :)
