The Four Threats…..and tariffs
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For many years now, there have been FOUR main threats to my soundtrack CD purchasing. Technically SIX, but the first two have to do with my personal situation (lack of money and lack of space), and not the world situation at large, which are:
1. Steep prices on CDs
2. Insane shipping costs
3. New, expensive customs and taxes
4. Terrible exchange rate (for the Norwegian krone)….and now, on top of all this, there are the braindead Trump tarrifs. For a while, I thought it would only affect cars, steel and industries that don’t personally affect me, but I suppose it will also affect the price of CDs, and their import both from the US and Europe.
How do you relate to all this?
I’m actually not too worried about tariffs. Not because I don’t think they are harmful, but precisely because I believe they are harmful. I can repeat what I said already some time ago on the Film Score Monthly Message Board. Tariffs are of course a political instrument, which can be sensible or beneficial or not, depending on why and how they are implemented, but they should be implemented with caution and for a specific time and for specific things. The current situation, smacking tariffs on everything across the board, is foolish, it’s stupid, and therefore is likely more of a short burning fire. I don’t think — at this point — that we’ll have long lasting super tariffs across the globe… as that would benefit no one, really. Not the EU, not the US, not China, really nobody. That’s why they won’t last. It’s just economic “saber-rattling” right now, it’ll pass. In fact, since I wrote these last words on FSM, ALREADY the US has done a sudden U-term and stopped the proposed tariffs for 90 days. Possibly because it’s already become clear how much economic damage this would do. The key to prosperity is global international free trade, with clear and specific rules, not isolationism. It’s okay to restrict certain things for certain reasons, but nobody, really no country at all, benefits from a trade war tariffs.
First of all, thanks for joining, Nick!
And yes, I also cling on to the hope that it’s just “saber rattling” at this point, like Trump likes to do.
Amazon is part of VOEC and allows you to check an estimate for the customs fee, but I haven’t checked if there’s been any change. USA has a 15% tariff on Norway, but I don’t know if that is added to that existing Amazon estimate.
By the way, the Norwegian prime minister and finance minister (the latter being Jens Stoltenberg, previous NATO boss) met with Trump yesterday, and when the tariffs came up, he said “we could afford it” or something like that, because of our oil fund. I want to punch that red-haired cretin in the face every day.
I want to punch that red-haired cretin in the face every day.
For many more reasons than this – so do I. And I’m pretty much a pacifist.
Been browsing some online stores today, and realized there’s a FIFTH threat on the rise — many stores don’t even ship to Norway in the first place! Some speak about “restrictions”, but I don’t know what they are. It’s like we’re some third world country. Denmark and Sweden, for example, are absolutely fine.
So if the nail in the coffin wasn’t all the way in, it definitely is so now.
I was against EU 30+ years ago, but I’m very much pro Norway getting into the union now. Not only for issues like these (us being part of EEA simply doesn’t help), but for security reasons as well, in this unstable time of ours.
Yes, that’s really the most significant issue as my want list goes down. For half of the items I want, the seller wouldn’t even bother shipping to my country.
Even Music Box wouldn’t ship to the UK for 2 years. I’m not sure why they were so inclined to punish us since I was not one to vote for Brexit.
In all fairness, I am sure it wasn’t Music Box who did the punishing. After Brexit, sending something commercially the UK from Europe became a costly bureaucratic undertaking, that many companies simply (and understandably) said “f$%! that”.
The other way around, too, which is why I don’t order anything from the UK anymore. Ironically, it’s cheaper for me to order Varèse Sarabande CDs from their US store than it is from the “international” (but in reality only “UK”) store.I don’t think it has anything to do with being inside or outside the EU (many non-EU countries in Europe are part of the EEA), at least that can’t be the primary reason. So it would be great to know why Norway is suddenly on several stores’ “black lists” (like DeepDiscounts or CDWOW). The Record Hub, based in Ireland, says we’re omitted because of some “restrictions”, but I have no idea what they are, and I haven’t found any info online.
I have no idea why and how Norway would be effected by all of this, I’m just pretty sure the culprit in most cases is not the actual store. I’m sure they don’t mind selling CDs or anything else to Norwegians or Norway just out of spite. But I understand that it’s annoying if you don’t even know what these “restrictions” are.
I just wanted to order Intrada’s new FIRST BLOOD, I added Music Box Record’s new L’ÉTÉ MEURTRIER by Georges Delerue, so I had at least two CDs to order.
This would have cost me $71.98 at Intrada… because the shipping is so darn high. Add to that, there’s a good chance I’d have to pay additional fees then the package arrives. The exact same order at Music Box Records cost me €55.25, so considerably less, even though the actual FIRST BLOOD CD costs considerably more there. It’s crazy how much shipping from the US has become.I’m just pretty sure the culprit in most cases is not the actual store.
Most of the time the culprit is the seller. On Discogs or Ebay sellers have to make a choice, and many refuse to ship to UK.
This may be, but the question is why they refuse to ship to the UK. I know at least from one seller (but not CDs, clothes) who stopped selling to the UK completely. Why? Because she didn’t feel like it? No, but because the hassle wasn’t worth it. Apart from the considerable additional paperwork that was allegedly necessary (I didn’t dig into that, so I don’t know), what happened a lot with UK shipments was this: Items shipped, entered UK, stuck in customs. Customer did not pick up package to pay additional fees. Customer demanded refund because he never received the item. (Easy to do with Paypal.) Seller maybe (or even maybe not sometimes) received back the package. Stuck with a lot of hassle, a lot of expenses, and maybe even with lost merchandise. Once that happens to a seller a couple of times, he is likely cross the UK from the list of countries he’s selling to. Stuff like that seems to have happened a lot after Brexit.
It might be VAT taxes. If you do business with private persons on other countries you cannot use reverse charge applicable for businesses but sometimes have to register for VAT in that country. For EU countries there is a way to register in your local tax authorities but it is really bureaucratic overhead already. Might be more complicated in other countries. For that reason I as a freelancer I refuse to work for private persons outside Germany.
This may be, but the question is why they refuse to ship to the UK.
If the custom forms are correctly filled, it shouldn’t be stopped by customs. It may need a bit more work, but if 50% of the EU sellers can do it, it is a bit surprising the other 50% of EU sellers can’t do it. I don’t really know how their situation would be different.
To be honest, I am mostly annoyed because about 9 of the 10 times I asked the seller if any arrangement could be made to ship to my address, making it clear it was a rare item I couldn’t simply buy elsewhere, the seller did not respond at all.
I don’t know the exact reasons, so I’m just guessing, but if 50%(!) of the sellers do not do it, there are obviously very good reasons for not doing it. I mean, 50% is a lot. That is really a lot. So there are obviously hurdles. I mean, if you are a small scale seller who sells his inventory anyway, and the UK or any other country is more bureaucratic or has problems, you might just cross this off your list. I’m sure it is not because sellers specifically want to annoy UK citizens.
My best guess is that it’s due to the extra work when setting shipping rates, without good prospects of increasing sales. Since the UK (like Norway) is not part of the EU, most carriers charge higher rates. So the seller would need to go through the hassle of defining one additional shipping area, with a higher shipping rate which could make the total item price too high.
Yes, my best guess is extra work when setting shipping rates. Which is why I am a bit disappointed since if that is the case, it shouldn’t be that difficult for a large neighbour (the UK).
I don’t see much correlation with the volume of items on sale, but there is a correlation with the type of items on sale: those selling French or Italian language DVDs or LPs will have much less chances of offering international shipping, while those selling rock music will most likely offer international shipping.
But is it more expensive with the new tarrifs, or have they been like that for a couple of years?
It’s been like that as far as I can tell. US releases are more expensive at Music Box Records, European ones are cheaper. But shipping is much cheaper for me from Music Box Records… in fact, it’s even gone down a bit.
An irritating thing I’ve discovered is that while one could make use of Amazon’s “free shipping for minimum orders at $49” to cross off ONE of the four threats, titles on sale are NOT eligible for this offer. So you’re left with only full-price CDs, and a full price that is off the charts these days.
And they strike again, Intrada has to raise prices due to increase CD pressing material costs: https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/community/general-discussion/intrada-price-hike/
Ugh. As if prices and shipping weren’t prohibitive enough as it is. Getting CDs has become science fiction to me.
I’m guessing the material in question is the aluminium or whatever CDs are made of.
Here is an article from HiRes Audio Online that gives nice overview of the rise and fall of the compact disc. Now I have “followed” the rise and fall of the compact disc both as someone who is very interested in developing audio technology as well as a collector and buyer of compact discs for most of my life, and this here aligns with my experience.
The sales and use of compact discs peaked at the turn of the millennium. That’s when they were totally mainstream, and by far the best and easiest way to listen to whatever music you wanted.
Then came a sharp decline. The Internet, MP3, Napster… these all had considerable impact. However, there were still so many CDs pressend and in circulation, which means in the years of the decline of CDs, CDs reached their lowest price in history… they were a mass product that was still manufactured and widely distributed, but people were also starting to dump their collections right and left and throw them on the market. So lots and lots of CDs were either “redistributed” on the secondary market, or ended up as garden tree deco or whatever. Now the situation is different. Very few CDs are still manufactured, they have become a niche product like vinyl. The secondary market is no longer a “deals and steals” market anymore, but one that looks and caters more to collectors and afficionados who look for certain editions or want to complete something.
CDs on the whole — new or used — will never be as cheaply available anymore the way they were maybe 10 years ago.Indeed. I just wish I were aware of the ‘golden era’ I lived in at the time, and had taken more advantage of the low prices and wider availability. I mean, even more than I did (I obviously did take advantage of it and bought CDs left and right, on both primary and secondary markets, but as Oskar Schindler said, “I could have done more…”).
Interesting stats, thanks for sharing!
Here are some stats about the German music market:
https://www.musikindustrie.de/wie-musik-zur-karriere-werden-kann/markt-bestseller/musikindustrie-in-zahlen-2024That doesn’t mean you can’t still make some great deals now and then. Last years, I found on Amazon (it was a reseller in the USA) used but in very good condition, a copy of Intrada’s release of DAMNATION ALLEY for $0.01. Now that’s something you don’t see every day, a sold out highly collectible album offered for a cent. But what did I have to loose… so I ordered it. And what can I say? What arrived about two weeks later was a copy of Intrada’s DAMNATION ALLEY in excellent condition. For a cent. Probably the best deal I have ever made on a CD. 🙂
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