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Top DVD-As outselling CD counterparts on Amazon.de

Posted by Eric LeRouge (A) on May 3, 2003 at 07:27:03

There's some useful information in the Amazon websites, which tell you the "Amazon sales rank" (ASR) for each item. Over a period of 5 days, I checked the sales ranks of the top pop/rock DVD-As on Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.com. All of this is public information, provided to customers as they navigate on the websites. These figures fluctuate up and down as new items move up ("movers and shakers") and, I believe, as time goes by. If you verify the figures, you will notice that they may vary from day to day.

Caveat

As a caveat, this is by no means a scientific sample, nor is it an indication of total sales. The amazon methodology for these figures is not known, and we have no indication of the scale of these rankings (eg the sales position 5,000 could be only a few units away from 50,000). In other words, I don't believe the differences are meaningful for one title only, and for a small interval, but for a series of titles

To make things clear: the difference between the ASR 5,000 and ASR 6,000 for one title (or between 2 titles) may be negligible, as we have no indication of the number of units between these two ASRs. But the overall sample distribution in terms of ranking, and the comparative distribution of equivalent CDs, is probably meaningful.

I believe, in any event, that these figures indicate the success of several "mainstream" titles over one of the most visible Internet stores in Europe.

A total of 65 titles, primarily from Warner, were included, because they were available and were in the highest selling ranks. The sample was fairly similar on all 3 websites. There were only a few titles available on one site only (Bryan Ferry / Frantic, available only on Amazon.de). Only the UK website was missing several key references (somebody should give these guys a call).

Finally, I didn't do this as a scientific study, but as a "quick and dirty" and I may have ommitted some key titles. I did check for alternate editions when the ASR was extremely low or surprising, especially for the CD counterpart edition. The Bjork Vespertine DVD-A had two editions (Canada and UK), with very similar sales ranking (in the low 40,000).

Snapshot Analysis

When analysing these figures, the sales rank (Amazon.de-Verkaufsrang ) for the sample of 65 mainstream "pop/rock" DVD-A titles was consistently better than the rank on the UK and US sites.

• The DVD-A selection was the largest on Amazon.de, and only one mainstream title was not found (REM Reveal). The DVD-A edition was also more apparent on the website (the reference to the DVD-A edition was apparent on the page of the CD edition)

  
  

• BTW... DVD-A listing is a mess on the other websites. On the UK and the US website, you can only access some DVD-A titles by their ASIN number, they don't show up in the DVD-A search... nor on the Artist listing! (e.g. try to find the Philip Glass DVD-A on Amazon.com... it shows if you enter the ASIN: B00005M979 under the name "score" :)

• When compared with the UK website, the sales rank on Amazon.de was consistently better. The sales rank was better on the Amazon UK site for only 17 DVD-A titles, out of 65. The sales rank on Amazon.de was also consistently better than on Amazon.com

• Interestingly, Emylou Harris / Producer's Cut, which doesn't have a CD counterpart edition, had similar ASR on Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk (4,252 and 4,218 respectively). The sales rank for that title was 33,767 on the US website. Perhaps this is an indication of the "scale" of the respective rankings?

• For the total sample, the ASR for all DVD-A titles on Amazon.de was not great overall (19,149), but it was much better than on the Amazon UK (28,559) and much better than on the Amazon.com site (99,638).

• The ASR for the top 25 titles, however, was much better (4,559) and consistently higher than on Amazon.co.uk (19,409) and on Amazon.com (51,817) for the same titles. This figure of 4,599 is actually very good. Just as a point of comparison, the sales rank of the CD edition of the Doors LA Woman is 5,443 and the sales rank of the CD edition of the Corrs In Blue is 22,930 on the Amazon.de website. (see table)

• When looking into individual titles, Queen NATO is the top seller, with a very high sales rank (554), followed by Eagles Hotel California (771). A total of 8 DVD-A titles is below 3,000, and all top 20 titles were below 10,000.

• More interesting is the average position of the DVD-A edition compared with the CD edition: on the Amazon.de website, the average selling rank was better than the respective CD edition of those titles. While there are many exceptions to this, this proved true on the whole sample (average DVD-A rank 19,149 compared to 21,093 for the CD editions). One has to be careful with the CD sales rank, because there may have been several editions of those titles, and the figure probably refers to the latest edition only, which is considered a separate reference.

• On the sample of 20 top titles, however, the difference is telling. For several titles, the DVD-A editions outsell their respective counterpart CD editions. When excluding the two titles which had no CD counterpart edition (Jazz at the Movies and Harris Producer's Cut), the average position of the top 18 DVD-A titles was 3,669, compared with 15,617 for the respective CD edition. When excluding the Steely Dan / 2 Against Nature from the sample (the CD edition ASR is very low), the ASR of the top DVD-A titles (3,500) is still better than the CD counterpart (9 845).
  

(Sorry for the sloppy table, if someone could tell me how to make those, it would be useful)

Top Sales Rank of DVD-A titles on Amazon.de
(collected 30 april to May 3)

Rank---Title--------------------------- DVD-A ------------ CD
1. --- Queen / NIght at the Opera ----- 554 -------------- 2 583
2. --- Eagles / Hotel California --------- 771 --------------- 410
3. --- REM Automatic ---------------- 1 315 ------------- 1 048
4. --- Faith Hill: / Cry ----------------- 2 386 ------------ 659
5. --- Jazz at the Movies -------------- 2 403 -------------(na)
6. --- Linkin Park / Reanimation -------- 2 594 ------------- 477
7. --- Fleetwood Mac / Rumours ------- 2 666 ------------ 255
8. --- The Nightfly --------------------- 2 849 ------------- 6 468
9. --- Foreigner / 4 ---------------------3 167 ------------ 57 433
10. --- Philip Glass / Koyaanisqatsi ---- 3 689 ------------- 24 738
11. --- Young Neil / Harvest ----------- 3 750 ------------- 139
12. --- Elvis / #1 Greatest Hits ---------- 4 011 ------------ 290
13. --- Metallica / Metallica ------------- 4 224 ----------- 780
14. --- Harris / Producer's Cut ----------- 4 252 ------------ (na)
15. --- Mana / MTV Unplugged --------- 4 653 ------------ 514
16. --- Clapton / Riding w/ King --------- 5 241 ------------ 6 364
17. --- Carly Simon / No Secret ---------- 5 250 ---------- 30 205
18. --- Band / The Last Waltz ------------ 5 651 ---------- 12 069
19. --- Steely Dan / 2 Against Nature ---- 6 549 ----------- 113 739
20. --- Corrs / In Blue ------------------- 6 722 -----------22 930

Source: Amazon.de Website

Comment

Some of this analysis is simply common sense (DVD-A titles sell better than the CD edition of fairly old catalog titles), but it shows that top DVD-A titles are close to the level of key mainstream pop/rock figures on Amazon.de. While this is not entirely a surprise, it may be useful to remember that these products reach significant volumes when they are marketed correctly. It may also be useful to note that DVD-A may outsell the CD edition of some titles.

The differences in the sales rank between Amazon.de and Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk is very important, and there may be several explanations:

- there is a better selection of DVD-As on Amazon.de
- the DVD-A search is more easily accessible from the CD edition
- prices may be lower (I didn't check that :)
- the German Amazon site serves as a platform for other European countries, including Switzerland, Austria, and all of Central Europe, and is labelled in Euros, as opposed to the UK, which is in £.
- the German market is more receptive to DVD-A.

Overall, I find it slightly disappointing that the more recent quality titles such as Bjork / Vespertine or Buena Vista Social Club are not (yet) in the top 20. The Emilou Harris Producer's Cut release is probably a good indication of the potential for a DVD-A only release.

And, finally, I think that if I was in charge of a DVD-A record label, I know exactly where I would try to get my products referenced in Europe :)

Best

Eric

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