Report: Vinyl Sales Decrease 33%

They've gotten so expensive in the last few years.

 

They really have. I've pretty much filled out my back catalogue since I started collecting a decade ago, & really only preorder maybe 1 or 2 a month if that

 

Yeah. I haven't ordered many the past two years. If they brought it back to the 2020/21 prices for 2025 I'm sure the sales would go up again.

 

Seriously, it isn't cheap anymore, due to inflation and being more popular now, it's expensive as fuck! I'm not paying $50 for a double LP after shipping and taxes, no matter how much I love the album or band. I'll pay $35 for a double LP shipped all day long though, but even that feels spendy to be honest. When nobody can really afford groceries or rent anymore, they're not gonna spend on a luxury item like vinyl. I find myself waiting for major discounts on a lot of the vinyl I order. It just sucks though, because I know that doesn't help the artist as much.

 

cant afford them in this economy

 

It's way too expensive. Not many people are going to buy vinyls at the prices they're currently selling at, especially when there are free tier options to listen on Spotify and Soundcloud; not to mention YouTube. Add in the fact that stores don't carry a wide variety of music selections anymore, and that people really prefer to shop online anyhow. Consumerism as a whole has drastically changed.

 

To echo everyone else's statement, new records are priced way too high. 35, 40 dollars sometimes for a new release. Insane.

 

Piggy backing off of everyone else. Been collecting for 15 years and really had to pump the breaks the last 18 months due to pricing. A single LP for $33-$40 with shipping or instore for $33. Insane. 2xLPs approaching $40-$50 with shipping. A trip to the record store for 3 albums will result in over $100. I just cant justify it anymore.

 

The prices are ridiculous, no wonder sales are decreasing. I have my back catalogue on vinyl and I’m really happy with it, but now I limit myself to one vinyl record every month. I bought Yellowcard’s WYTTSY as my first vinyl record for 15$, and that record was just out. New records these days start at 30$, and most of the time they press double LP’s when it’s not even needed, just so they can ask more. Ridiculous.

As a consequence of that, I started buying cd’s again this year. Cold Years, State Fault’s, Green Day, Sum 41, I bought them all on cd for nothing more that 12$, and guess what, it might even sound a little bit better.

The main thing for me was always to collect records you love and to support the band or artist, not this competition where you have to set a alarm for an overpriced repress from an old record that happens to be out of stock, but maybe that’s just me.

 

Ive started to talk myself out of 2xLPs due to not only pricing, but having to keep getting up and flipping a record to enjoy it. One time getting up is enough.

 

yeah I tweeted this last night but 30 dollar single LPs and 50 dollar double LPs is a tough thing to sustain

 

Awesome news. Can only dream this is the beginning of the vinyl fad collapsing and the format goes back to being a trivial niche like 15 years ago. Then we can say goodbye to 6+ month record rollouts, last minute delays, and music releasing the year after it would've in a sane digital-first world.

 

This economy is so much worse than the numbers are saying that it is. Virtually everyone I know is struggling in some way financially. People are eating out less, drinking less, and spending less money on non essentials like this. Rent is higher than ever, so are the electricity bills, so are groceries. On average I probably purchase 10 records a year. This year I’ve only purchased 4: both records that Another Michael released in the last year (at their show), I Sing from Sinai Vessel, and the new Balance and Composure record.

 

I was recently trying to figure out what variant of a Hotelier record I own. I found the old email receipt buried away.

LP: $12
Media mail: $4

This was ten short years ago.

 

I get it. My buying has decreased dramatically over the years. High prices and media mail not being $4 anymore just kills it for me.

 

Everything is too expensive, why would they think this would be any different?

 

It really is just so expensive now, to the point where I have to assume we're losing an entire generation of music fans who would otherwise be interested in the format. I think back to when I started collecting, at the age of 23, and I just think I would have never even gotten started if the prices were what they are now. One of my first big vinyl buys was Black Friday 2014, when I got The Hotelier's Home Like NoPlace..., Butch Walker's Sycamore Meadows and Afraid of Ghosts, Yellowcard's Lift a Sail, and Valencia's We All Need a Reason to Believe for like $80 out the door with Black Friday discounts/free shipping offers. Those were the days!

 

Haha, now Billboard is back-tracking a bit, blaming "methodology" for the significant decline: Luminate Changes Record Store Sales Count Method for Billboard Charts

 

Discogs has an article about it too:

https://www.discogs.com/digs/collecting/vinyl-sales-up-in-2024

 

They’re still too expensive!

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/J7b7myXMAr2hQFAC/

 

Wow, pretty epic gaffe on Billboard's part to have interpreted and reported that data so inaccurately.

 

Billboard didn’t interpret incorrectly. Luminate provided bad data. Which they only admitted after their data created a wave of pessimism. And they didn’t explain why the data was bad particularly well, especially considering how their record store tracking was supposed to be better. And I’m a bit shocked that they didn’t apply the same methodology YOY… like, it’s a firm that specializes in data. Do data right. Such a blatantly large YOY swing would even raise red flags to an intern if there was a chance it wasn’t true.

Bad data should be corrected. But it’s dumb that there was finally a productive convo about how expensive and ridiculous this hobby has become, only to be derailed by the company admitting that the data was apparently bad and sales are “actually” up +6% (which is still inaccurate, bc record stores and excluded..). You really can’t help but wonder if there was at least some truth to the original data. But I digress

 

I have bought the smallest amount of vinyl I have in years this year. I just preordered one last night and it came out to almost 40 bucks. Shipping was 13 of that.

With prices being like this I don’t preorder much anymore. I want to listen to the album and make sure it’s something I want to have taking up space on my shelf.