Re: (idm) WARP Subscription

From marmoset
Sent Wed, Dec 2nd 1998, 21:43

xxxx_xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx wrote:

> Wouldn't it be bad ass if you could just pay one lump some every year and
> have all of the WARP releases mailed to your door the day they come out,
> like a magazine??  They could give like a 10% discount on the whole
> thing, or just knock off the mailing charge so that the offer would be
> appealing.

It's a good idea in theory, but in practice I have my doubts...
Planet E tried this a few years ago, but gave up because it
was so much of a pain in the butt.  Independent record labels
have release schedules that are nowhere near as orderly
as, say, a magazine, and the simple overhead of managing
a subsciption service was way more complicated than they
originally envisioned.

Magazines and mail-order music vendors already have infrastructures
set up for shipping, mailing list management, navigating the
minefield of local/international tax and shipping regs, etc.
Taking on these additional burdens is usually not worth the
bother for an indie label.

  -d.w.