Sainsbury's rivals Apple with music download service
Published May 4 2012, 15:30 BST | By Andrew Laughlin
Sainsbury's has announced a new music download service, enabling customers to earn Nectar points by downloading tracks and albums.The new service, available from Sainsbury's Entertainment, offers consumers 2.3m songs to download, including singles and entire albums.
Tracks start at 89p, while chart albums will cost £6.99 each and 'Deal of the Week' albums will be available at £4.99. Customers are being offered their first individual track download for free until May 6.
To differentiate the service from Apple iTunes and other music download stores, Sainsbury's said that each download will earn customers Nectar Card loyalty points.
The supermarket chain said that it will also guarantee the lowest price possible on pre-orders, so if someone purchases an MP3 and the price drops ahead of the release, Sainsbury's will refund the difference.
Users visiting the "easy-to-use" music download website can preview music tracks before deciding whether to proceed to purchase, said Sainsbury's.
"This launch of our new MP3 music service enables our customers across the UK to get digital music at great value," said Mark Bennett, the head of Entertainment (Online) at Sainsbury's.
"This is the first step in our expansion to offer digital entertainment alongside our existing range of CDs, games, film and books catalogue."
Sainsbury's music manager Peter Selby added: "'Downloading Made Easy' is central to our music offering and we have ensured that the process is as simple as possible for all our customers, who can be safe in the knowledge that all their favourite music will be will be available at the touch of a button."
The launch of Sainsbury's music download store comes after a court ordered UK internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay, after a music industry trade body accused the site of mass copyright infringement.
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The only thing I want to know - Can I re-download lost downloads? With Amazon you cant. With Play you can. With iTunes you can now. I wont buy from stores that don't allow this. Yes - I do backup online with about 5 different online storage providers (yes 5) 1 paid 4 free. But I like to know my music is safe!
May 6th 2012 at 11:34am
I'm sure they will be at 80% marketshare very shortly, massive rival ;).
May 6th 2012 at 12:38am
More choice of store can only be a good thing. I don't buy songs from iTunes anymore because of the cost compared to Amazon. I hope this is a success because iTunes is ridiculous.
May 5th 2012 at 1:12pm
Christopher Walker sorry mate. I use to like reading the articles on Digital Spy but since half the team left last year the story quality is very poor and they just rip stories from The Sun and make up really stupid and misleading headlines.
May 5th 2012 at 12:10pm
mr conway you keep beating me to comments, however ur spot on, i laughed too, yeah right 'rival' apple. I give it a few years til its pulled.
May 5th 2012 at 11:58am