Statistics reveal collecting accounts for over a quarter of sales among youth in the UK in the past three months.
A report released by research firm ICM prior to Record Store Day includes statistics that seem to confirm the long-held belief that collecting has been partly responsible for increases in the purchase of physical formats.
The report’s statistics show that in the UK in the past three months 15% of people (or one in six) who bought music in a physical format did so with no intention to listen to it using that format. Among these 53% bought vinyl, 48% CDs and 23% cassettes. However the most revealing bit of data is that this particular behaviour seems highest among 18 to 24 year old, with 26% buying music in a format that they won’t be using to listen to it.
While the report doesn’t dig very deep into the reasons as to why people might do this, ICM’s Maurice Fyles has opined the following:
There’s definitely a novelty value with cassettes at the moment – particularly as we suspect a high proportion of them are collectibles sitting on a shelf and never played.
Although we can store our music on a PC or in the Cloud, a large proportion of music buyers continue to purchase physical formats with MP3 files as an add-on. Perhaps it’s a reaction to the digital world, but physical formats that we might have thought were relegated to history are being revived as fans and collectors opt for limited editions and promotional copies of their favourite music across a range of formats.
While ICM’s own speculations are still just that, the data definitely reinforces the idea that the desire to collect and own, rather than listen, has been driving part of the rise in physical sales in recent years. All of which makes a lot of sense in light of efforts by the likes of Record Store Day and similar events to bring new generations to stores and produce limited edition physical products.
And if you fancy delving into the world of cassettes, to own or even bump in that boombox you’ve not touched in decades, be sure to check our regular new column Caught On Tape which highlights some of the best new releases on the format. [via Hypebot]
