Jazz Odyssey

Wal-Mart has announced that it will begin selling customized CDs. Customer’s can go to the Wal-Mart website and put together a custom CD compilation, with pricing set at $4.62 for the first three songs and then 88 cents per song for each additional track. Shipping costs $1.97. This makes the price for an 11 song custom CD $13.63 plus any applicable taxes.

It will be interesting to see how this develops….folks without broadband access and/or CD burners may find this a compelling offer, though I believe that this service offered at instore kiosks will probably be more attractive to that consumer. Especially if they can put their CD together online and then pick it up during a trip to their local Wal-Mart and save the shipping cost. This would bring the price for an 11 song CD down to $11.66 plus tax, which when you consider that the price includes the disk, packaging and artwork it isn’t much more than buying the same 11 tracks from iTunes and burning it yourself.

Those who’ve been around for awhile will remember companies like Personics who offered similar services–and all of the previous custom compilation ventures have been failures. Well, the Wal-Mart guys are *SMART* and know their customers well….if anyone has a shot at making this venture a success, it’s Wal-Mart.