Hi All,

If you're in the UK and like to get your tunes from beatport (www.beatport.com), beware that they've hiked their prices by 38% !!

Beatport has a new front-end (V3.0, as opposed to the previous V2.0) and now shows prices in GBP. The V2.0 front-end showed prices in USD.
For example, tracks that used to be USD 1.99 are now shown as GBP 1.49, which does not reflect the current exchange rate (about 1.85 USD to 1 GBP).

I sent the following email to the support guys at beatport:

I see that beatport.com has a new "3.0" front-end and I notice that prices are now shown in GBP (I am in the UK) and not in USD as with "2.0".
I have a question I hope you can help with.

Are the prices really in GBP, because there seems to be a 38% price increase?
For example, if I look at an order I placed on 2nd August for 4 tracks at USD1.99 each that makes USD7.96. My actual credit card bill was GBP4.33, equating to an exchange rate of 1.84 USD to 1 GBP (about the right rate at present). However, if I bought the same tracks now at GBP1.49 each as shown on the "3.0" front-end that makes GBP5.96 - 38% more than the GBP4.33 I paid on 3rd August!

Please can you tell me if I have got this wrong, or is there really an effective 38% overnight price increase for customers in the UK, such as myself?

Thanks for your assistance".

I got the following response:

Beatport appreciates your continued support and value each and every one of you who have helped make us the leading premium format download store in the electronic music industry. We wanted to take the time to inform you about the price changes effective with the launch of Beatport 3.0. Beatport has steadily extended our reach beyond the US market and we have established a remarkably broad global footprint. With this expansion, we have recognized a need to accommodate international currencies. We must make every effort to strike a balance between the needs of our international label partners, particularly those in the UK and Europe where the majority of our content comes from, and the interests of our customers.Â

Beatport prices have been adjusted to reflect competitive industry pricing in two of our major territories, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Beatport has neither the highest nor the lowest priced downloads in these territories. We continue to offer the highest quality formats of our industry and we have invested a significant amount of our resources in creating a download store that makes finding the music you love as easy as possible – we have added key features like artist landing pages and My Beatport so you can quickly find your favorite artists, labels and genres.

Countries within the United Kingdom now have pricing in Pound Sterling:
1. £1.29 - General Content / Back Catalogue
2. £1.49 - New Releases
3. £1.99 - Exclusive/Pre-Release & Classics

Countries within the European Union now have pricing presented in Euros:
1. 1.49 - General Content / Back Catalogue
2. 1.99 - New Releases
3. 2.49 - Exclusive/Pre-Release & Classics

In addition to these pricing updates, Beatport has also made a major step forward in terms of payment options for our international customers by now accepting Switch, Solo & Maestro cards. We will establish additional localization efforts over the coming quarters that will include language formats as well as additional payment methods that are not credit card based.

In closing, we sincerely hope to maintain each and every one of you as a valued customer. We are committed to maintaining Beatport as the best digital electronic music buying experience in the world.

Thanks,

The Beatport Team



Is this disappointing, or what?
I (used to) love beatport - great website for reviewing/buying tracks, and it still is. But a 38% price hike does leave a bitter taste and will make me look elsewhere

Beatport have always sucked ... their Flash implementation degrades their site usability, their geographic restrictions on tracks are problematic, their relationship with NI works to the detriment of both organisations.

Look to better options:

www.perfectbeat.com
www.junodownloads.com

also look into www.audiojelly.com

quote:

Originally posted by Nebulus:
Countries within the European Union now have pricing presented in Euros:
1. 1.49 - General Content / Back Catalogue
2. 1.99 - New Releases
3. 2.49 - Exclusive/Pre-Release & Classics

Don't you just hate profiteering?!

At £1 = 1.4E it's cheaper to buy in Euro than £.

I wouldn't be surprised if beatport has/will be bought out by one of the Entertainment oligopies any time soon now.

It's blatantly a move to quickly increase their books by fleecing the UK. Rumour has it that Gordon Brown has shares in Beatport (bit of politics eh eh!)...

I only started using beatport recently but seeing as their new pricing makes buying 8 or 9 tracks from them considerably more expensive than the price of a CD from the likes of Psyshop or Chaos Unlimited I know where my money is going to go.

Ok, while looking for a specific tune in google I stumbled across http://www.trustthedj.com/ which is part of the trackitdown network.

£1.75 for a WAV!!!!1111!!

Bargain.

Fantastic catalog too, the tune I was after was a limited vinyl only white label release so finding a digital copy was a bonus.

We just launched a new one two weeks ago.

hrfq.com

US$1.49 and 1.19euros for catalogue releases.

You can choose whichever currency you want, we don't care which country you live in.

This sucks. . I've been a user of Beatport for about 2 years now and the price hike is going to force me to find a good alternative.

I like a few other sites, but beatport's layout and organization was very intuitive to me. Oh, and I prefer a preview flash player - it works at my office.

quote:

Originally posted by Rodney:
This sucks. . I've been a user of Beatport for about 2 years now and the price hike is going to force me to find a good alternative.

I like a few other sites, but beatport's layout and organization was very intuitive to me. Oh, and I prefer a preview flash player - it works at my office.

same here

I'm in London and this is S**t. For purchasing a Wav it is upto £3.50 that's 7 dollars roughly. They are greedy. I refuse to pay that kind of money for a digital download. At least Junodownload offers roughly the same catalogue. Can anyone suggest another site that offers a good catalogue in Wav format?

One site that continues to gain in popularity licenses its tracks under the Creative Commons license, and includes some great artists like DJ Spooky, Andrea Barone, etc., as well as a whole variety of up and coming independents from Italy, France, Chicago, NY, etc:

http://www.jamendo.com/

You won't pay a dime for these here, and it's completely above board-legal.

Many of these tracks are also sold on sites like Beatport and Juno for their full price, but often you can get them at places like this for free. So, search around, read the licensing conditions, and tune in to the exploding world of new music.