Published
Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 19:53
- The world's largest retailer will focus on household goods and other essential supplies in the meantime.
Update, April 14th: Amazon will resume shipping "non-essential" items (like vinyl) from third-party sellers this week, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Amazon is halting all new orders of CDs, vinyl and other music merchandise for the time being.
Update, March 19th: UK distributor Proper Music says that Amazon is including media as a high-demand category, at least in that country.
Orders for inventory that already stocked in Amazon warehouses will still go through, but the retail giant will not restock or take any shipments of music product for the time being, Variety reports.
The move comes as part of a larger order to "temporarily disable shipment creation" for items deemed non-essential, as Amazon focuses on replenishing its stock of household and medical supplies that are badly needed during the coronavirus crisis.
"We are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products coming into our fulfilment centers," Amazon said, "so that we can more quickly receive, restock and deliver these products to customers."
Though physical sales are only a small part of music industry revenue in 2020, Amazon remains the world's largest retail for music media, and the move is expected to have a profound impact on smaller labels that rely on vinyl and CD sales.
"I have to imagine that all record labels will take a hit," Cheryl Pawelski of Omnivore Records told Variety. "Brick and mortar retail [is] under duress at this time as well, I can't say that the outlook is good."
Record Store Day, arguably the biggest day of the year when it comes to vinyl sales, was also postponed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For more about the pandemic's ongoing impact on the music industry, check out our rolling coverage here. You can also learn about different ways you can help the struggling music scene here.
This piece was last updated on March 19th at 20:40 GMT.