Music in the marketplace
Music have come a long way to reach where it is now, from the days of sheet music to online music. Thomas Edison in the year 1887 invented the phonograph, which made it possible to record live music. This was the first step towards modern means of selling music. In the 1980s compact disks (CD) replaced sheet music, other platforms later like cassette tapes and cable followed shortly. The CD brought about a transition from analogue technology to digital sound paving way for major advancements in the music industry. In the year 2000 CD sales began declining to the increased popularity of MP3 which the digital format that made online music selling.
Different stores in the mall play different genres of music based on their target audience, the music ranging from Rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Rhythm and Blues and Country Music. Advertisers are well aware of the power of music in creating a conducive environment, which will in turn influence the customers to buy more and even recommend the store to others. Different stores targets different customer groups based on age, gender, location, ethnicity and other factors. Stores therefore play the kind of music that the target group likes to ensure that they hang around long enough to notice something that will capture their interest and they will end up buying.
Music sale nowadays is easy and very affordable curtesy of technology. Nowadays it is easy to access and purchase music online on the various platforms that provide these services. Internet sale began to rise in the year 2000 with services like Napster, Limewire and Kazaa which resulted to sales falling drastically due to piracy. However, technological changes have come with a major impact and internet has been expanded beyond illegal downloading. Digital distributions such as Apple iTunes stores, Google stores, Amazon, Yahoo Music, Musicmatch and other legal download services has brought about a new era in online music selling where customers pay for a song online and they are then able to download it. This comes with both advantages and disadvantage. The most standing out advantage is that access to music has grown resulting to many sales. However, the sell of albums has declined as one can chose their favourite tracks in an album for downloading. This has resulted to a drop in the sale of albums.