Amazon is well known for its aggressive pricing when it comes to digital music, but now the company’s MP3 Store has upped its battle with iTunes a notch. Amazon has now dropped the price of a wide swathe of songs – including current chart hits – to $0.69. Director of Amazon Music Craig Pape tells AP that the aim is to create a “halo effect” around the MP3 Store. “It’ll give a boost that lasts into the future,” he says, before claiming that the price drop will also act as a promotion for Amazon’s new cloud service. “All of that ties into this experience of getting them to discover and buy and listen to more music, so it’s all interrelated.” As Billboard points out, Amazon is likely to be taking a hit on every song sold for 69 cents that would otherwise be retailing for $1.29. However, NPD Group’s Russ Crupnick warns that the promotion could simply attract cherry-picking existing digital music customers rather than fresh buyers. “The average music consumer spends $46 a year on digital music, which is half of what it was last year,” he tells the LA Times. “The question is not whether you can sell a 69-cent track. It’s whether you can get a customer to spend $69.”
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