Ecommerce Blog

Amazon (AMZN) has just announced that the beta version of its MP3 download store is live. The company claims it has 2 million DRM free songs, and are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents. More than 1 million of the 2 million songs are priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. Okay time to try this out and see if Amazon can make me switch from Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store. Hypebot has a great post about what the store is, and what it isn’t. 

So far I can’t find the damn store on the Amazon website. Okay here it is - took a while to find this site. Amazon MP3 vs Apple iTunes comparison below the fold.

First find Om some obscure music test:

Given that Amazon has most of the popular albums, I decided to run a test on obscure music and do a head-to-head using albums/tracks that are sitting in my shopping cart on the iTunes store, just to see if I can actually get a better DRM deal on Amazon MP3 store.

Hotel Costes X: Not available on Amazon MP3 store
Dimitri From Paris’ Cocktail Disco: Not available on Amazon MP3 store
Breathing Under Water by Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale: Yes, for $8.99
Federico Aubele, Panamericana: Yes, for $8.99
Keren Ann, La Biographie De Luka Philipse: Yes, for $8.99, $11.99 on iTunes
Dorfmeister & Madrid De Los Austrias, Grand Slam: Yes for $6.23, vs $7.99 on iTunes.
Dust Galaxy, Singles: Yes, $0.99 each, same as iTunes.
Night Over Rio, Various Artists: Not available on Amazon MP3 store.
Bitter:Sweet: The Remix Game: Yes, $8.99.

I bought four albums, and saved $8 dollars, which works out to about $45 dollars in lost revenues for Apple. In short, I will be checking in on Amazon MP3 store before spending the dollars with Apple. I give Amazon a 7-on-10 for this part of the test.
Discovery & Search:

Amazon beats Apple hands down on Search, but discovery of music is still work in progress. I bet as we buy more from them, the recommendation system will make discovery of “like music easier.” This is Apple’s Achilles heel. I give Amazon 4-on-10 here.

User Interface:

The Amazon MP3 store is a mess. There I said it! Sure there are navigation options and ways of finding music, but compared to iTunes store, it takes forever to find music you really want. There are way too many options to click and sometimes can be distracting. However if you get past that, then the click and download part is fairly simple, and as easy to use as the iTunes store. I give Amazon 4-on-10 here.

Download Process:

You need a special downloader (both Mac and PC are supported) in order to download files. You click and a file with extension .amz is downloaded to your computer. Double click and the album/single starts to download using the Amazon downloader. It is a process eMusic fans are quite used to, though for iTunes people, it is an unnecessary extra step. Amazon gets 3-on-10 here. iTunes is brain dead simple.

Music Quality:

256 kbps and DRM free. Need we say more. 8-on-10 for Amazon.

Bottomline: 26 on 50. I am not ready to write Amazon off just yet. We might have a worthy competitor, willing to lose a lot of money to attract customers. The Mp3 format files are awesome, and I think it makes sense for everyone to browse the Amazon store before hitting the “buy” button on iTunes.