Some Jobs Can Be Very Interesting, Even More So If They Happen To Relate To Your Interests
As a music lover, one of the greatest jobs I’ve done in past years was working for an online business who specialised in selling sought after and collectable music related items, like CDs, vinyl records and an amazing range of memorabilia. The company has been around for approximately thirty years and started life as a mail132013201320 order company based in the spare room in one of the director’s properties. Over time the business grew and discovered a big market of music fans who wanted a little more than just the standard CD when their favourite artist released a new album, and when I worked for them the business occupied a huge warehouse and an additional storage building.
It looks like the real collector’s market was initially prompted by albums from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Some of the early copies of their albums had limited runs in production, and it was quite usual for the label image to change regularly, which meant that if you had purchased the album soon after it was released, there was an excellent chance that you would be in possession of something worth a few pounds. For example, albums like the original first issue of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with the cut-out insert, or the early copies of Sticky Fingers with the real zip as part of the cover are much coveted – if you can find someone willing to sell. A lot of people would never sell their amazing collections, and much of the older records that the company purchased came from families who had inherited them from a family member and had little interest in music themselves, even though we did know of some people who ended up selling their collections to pay for cosmetic surgery, Laser eye surgery and university studies.
Another part of the market developed with fans who had started to listen to an artist after several albums had been released who then decided to go back and buy all of the previous releases so that they had a complete collection of the artist’s work. A great example of this is the first single release by Manic Street Preachers, which was limited to very few copies, but which at the height of their career several years later was fetching up to £750 – for a seven inch vinyl single with two tracks on it, in an uninteresting picture sleeve. I certainly didn’t pay out that amount for my copy, but look at what you could get with that amount of cash – a nice holiday abroad, a trendy designer outfit, Laser eye treatment or even a cheap second hand car!
So, with fans looking for excellent condition second-hand products, there was a big market to get involved in and that is precisely what the company did, buying unwanted collections and advertising the availability of individual items to people who had gaps in their collections.
After a while, the music marketing people realised that serious collectors would stop at nothing to keep their collection up-to-date and some record labels decided on what were actually quite cynical marketing ploys, although I doubt they would have admitted this publically. For example, the David Bowie ‘Best Of’ compilation released across the planet in 2002 had a different tracklisting for every country in which it was issued, leading many fans to try and collect every single version available. We can only wonder what Bowie himself may have spent his percentage of the profits on, but I’m sure he realises that no amount of money invested in Laser eye treatment will ever alter his eyes until they are the same colour!
The other concept which became popular a little while ago was giving away additional items with CDs, ranging from badges, bonus recordings of live or previously unheard songs, scarves, posters – in fact anything that the obsessive fan would be desperate to add to their collection. There has now been a clampdown on this kind of marketing, since it was illegally bumping up the sales of those artists whose products were being abused in this fashion, so fortunately we never sank to the depths of being promised free flights, vouchers for Laser eye surgery or teeth whitening or any other silly rewards just for purchasing a CD. But it didn’t stop fans from purchasing the things back then.
The business I worked for also had some great connections within the music industry in quite a few countries and consequently, we also received many promotional items which had been issued to pluggers and DJs ahead of a release date and which they then usually passed on to others. Some of the buyers also got hold of items like tour itineraries and exclusive crew shirts from people who had contributed to the tour, but didn’t want to hang on to the stuff once the tour was done. Some of the itineraries make highly entertaining reading!
I regretted having to leave the job, as there was nothing better than sorting through a mountain of music items, researching them if needed and then enhancing their descriptions on the website for people to browse. But sometimes you just have to move on.