Physical music sales skyrocket amid pandemic, Discogs report says

Sales in physical music have skyrocketed amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to online music marketplace Discogs.

In their 2020 mid-year report, the website – which also operates as a database – revealed that physical sales on its marketplace rose by 26.69% – a total of 4,228,270 orders – between January and June 2020. These figures are measured against sales in the same period last year.

Making up the lion’s share of the rise was vinyl sales, which increased by 33.72%. More than 7.6 million pieces of physical music were sold by independent sellers during the first half of the year.

Summarised the sharp rise, the report said: “We witnessed a tidal wave of sellers doubling down on submissions to the Database and items for sale on the Marketplace, with many record stores listing their entire stock online. The result was a thriving market throughout the first half of 2020.”

“From where we’re sitting right now, the future of the record industry looks different, but it certainly looks quite bright.”

Read the full report here.

Last year, it was revealed that Daft Punk’s 2013 album, ‘Random Access Memories’, had topped Discogs’ 200 best-selling albums from the last decade.

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