Online Buying Directory – Music CD’s

This is just a little something I want to share with you; and that’s my knowledge of places to buy music CD’s.

Below is a list of ‘shops’ or ‘marketplaces’ in which one can buy CD’s…. this post focuses mainly just on CD’s – not Vinyl, Cassette, MP3 or whatever other form you’re looking for 🙂 .

I buy a lot of CD’s, its actually one thing I collect, and is the biggest ‘collection’ I have of any one ‘thing’. I don’t buy much in the physical form, as I find my high street retailer overpriced and charity shops can be hit-and-miss. So here’s a list, built over the years, of places to buy music CD’s from.

Please note this list may be updated at anytime… and also some links may become dead… also all links for international sites are predominately .co.uk domains.

1. Amazon.com/.co.uk/.fr/.de/.jp etc etc
   So this isn’t a surprise at all. If you don’t know who Amazon are, or what it is – then you must surely have been asleep for the last 10 years. Amazon is one of my favourite online marketplaces – supplying a huge range of products from inflatable palm trees to large-screen televisions to groceries. And because of this, there are stupid amounts of music CD’s available on here, usually you can find anything you’re wanting – except I’ve found it difficult to track down independent releases and rare versions. And on versions it’s not always easy to find ‘special versions’ of a release, i.e. Deftones – White Pony with the white cover. But for most releases it will churn out some results; prices vary. Some new, mainstream stuff will be available from Amazon ‘directly’ – but sometimes these prices can be rather high and so you’ll be almost ‘forced’ to buy from an Amazon Marketplace Seller. But! Do not worry, I – personally – have had no problems with this, and the majority of by purchasing business with Amazon on the private seller side has been fine. UK buyer’s should look out for Zoverstocks who usually give away CD’s at stupid prices of 1p (+ the £1.26 packaging) – but do take care in reading descriptions… that 1p bargain may be great but the cover has a tea-stain, or the CD is heavily scratched, or there isn’t a case. I’ve also used Amazon France (.fr) and US (.com) without any hiccups – as when the exchange rate used to be pretty good I was able to buy some releases cheap!
   Catalogue… pretty much every release in existence
   Pricing… Reasonable, but varies between direct and private
   Shipping… direct purchases usually have free delivery available, private is a flat-rate of £1.26 for the UK.
   URL…. Amazon.co.uk – Music 
2. eBay.com/.co.uk/.fr/.de/.jp etc etc
   This list at the moment isn’t holding many surprises – but yes, as we all know eBay would crop up on here at some point. eBay like Amazon, is a gigantic marketplace of stuff really – but with a catalog even broader than Amazon as anyone can sell anything. What I like about eBay is the ability to buy something that is maybe a bit harder to find – i.e. a promo or sampler of a release. For me, the prices are a bit more than what can be found on Amazon’s marketplace; I can’t (yet) beat £1.27 for a CD album – seeing as the lowest, real, person on ebay will sell a CD for is £1.99 (inc. P&P). Sometimes I’ve gotten lucky and brought a card-sleeve (no plastic case) release for around £1 – but most of the time, bidding wars can push prices in crazy directions. Then again, on a rare occasion someone will be having a clear-out and put that album you want that’s normally £8 everywhere else, on for 99p with a finish time of 1AM. It’s not always as trusting as the Amazon marketplace; as these are you’re average Joe’s and Joanna’s you’re dealing with – you can recieve releases that are usually in worse condition than expected – and for the 99p you paid for it, it’s pointless getting into a feedback war. But as I said, great place for those really odd, bizzare and rare releases. Then again don’t be put off by the mass amounts of newspaper CD’s and god-awful pop CD’s that are worthless that are there for sale.
   Catalogue… pretty much every release in existence – and more.
   Pricing… Reasonable, but varies from seller to seller (and at times item to item)
   Shipping… see above.
   URL…. eBay.co.uk – Music
3. Play.com
   At time of writing this Play have gone under a radical website change – which I’m not sure I like. Anyway, the music – well Play is another favourite, and another expected entry on this list. Although not as massive as eBay or Amazon – it’s catalogue is rather large; and like those two ever-growing. Again this is a site that sells near enough everything – but for me I always see it more as either an online grouping of supermarket music selections. What I mean by that is I feel it’s catalogue consists more of ‘mainstream’ releases than some of the harder to find ones. That’s not strictly ture, a bit of searching and you’ll find the odd obscure release come up – but there’s been the few releases it doesn’t stock – whereas Amazon or eBay do. It also features a used marketplace; similar to that of Amazon – in which merchants can sell second-hand CD’s – alot of the big merchants on Amazon like Zoverstocks can be found on Play. Why I use Play, and why alot of other people do is the free postage on everything (including private sellers) – and the massive sales they regulary have – and by regulary I mean every day, every week, every month – all year round; a bit like the DFS sale. At times I’ve timed it just right with the sales and bagged myself releases such as a remastered/collectors editon of Dio’s Holy Diver and the 2-Disc edition of R by Queens of the Stone Age for £2.99 each – and these are, NEW! Service is pretty standard, and compares well with other large-scale retailers; items will arrive in about 3 working days, although some titles for me have taken up to a week to deliver. There was the slight securityy issue a few months back when their mailing lists were leaked – but honestly, I’ve had no more than the average amount of ‘advertising’ e-mails – and most importantly no fraud.
   Catalogue… mainly mainstream releases; although a thorough search will bring the hard-to-find ones to light
   Pricing… Reasonable, but varies between direct and private
   Shipping… FREE! Free delivery across the website.
   URL…. Play.com – Music
   
4. HMV
   HMV, His Master’s Voice, have been music retailers for just under a century now – but sadly are falling on hard times – at time of writing. With high-street outlets being their main premise; their online website usually is a bit more rewarding than browsing the shop. I say this because if anyone’s been into a small high-street branch of HMV, they’ll know that you will find it near impossible to find that 4*, small label release reviewed in this months Q magazine. And even if you do find it instore you’ll faint at the high-price tag. The outlets don’t seem to understand competition; pricing some mainstream releases that were once £7 in a sale – £15 (I’m referring to a standard version of Goldfrapp’s Seventh Tree, which was the price quoted). Anyway, we’re not here to talk about phsyical outlets – the webstore, is well reasonable. The pricing can mimck that of the outlets in the way that they are not always the cheapest around, although online prices are usually lower than those instore. The catalogue comprises mainly of more mainstream releases; more so than Play – and has a limited amount of international releases (i.e. American bands for example) – and even if they do supply them; you’ll have to pay the price, not only with your wallet – but also with time. It’s been a while since I’ve brought from HMV online; I only usually buy in-store during sales or if there is a must have new release.
   Catalogue… mainly mainstream releases
   Pricing… Cheaper prices are around for most titles
   Shipping… FREE! Free delivery across the website.
   URL…. HMV.com

5. MusicStack
   Ok moving towards more unheard retailers, we have MusicStack. I personally have never brought anything from music stack, I’ll explain why soon. MusicStack is very much like eBay when it comes to buying music; but without the whole ‘auction’ aspect. By that I mean MusicStack offers alot of rare, and hard-to-find titles. These include samplers, promos, test pressings, special editions, japanese editions and deleted singles. You can’t exactly browse on MusicStack; not like most merchants – and so you have to know what you want, or roughly what you are looking for. There are no category browsing links; just a search bar in which you enter usually an artist or album title. I’ve found MusicStack to be a great tool for finding promo’ singles, definetly for international bands. BUT you can sometimes be faced with rather high sale prices; and at times even higher shipping costs. This is because MusicStack is a marketplace built up of many different merchants and sellers; some who are very serious about what they are selling – unlike the average Joe/Joanna on eBay.
   Catalogue… All most anything, ever pressed
   Pricing… Varies from merchant to merchant
   Shipping… See above – overseas shipping can be ghastly
   URL…. MusicStack