Kevin Swint
Late last year, Wal-Mart unveiled an online music store that brought the retail Goliath's slash-and-burn pricing to the digital world. Rather than the standard 99 cents per track, Wal-Mart charges 88 cents. It's a direct attack on Apple's iTunes, the darling of legal downloads. But does the country's biggest music retailer, famous for stripping waste from the supply chain, have any leverage in a digital world? Walmart.com exec Kevin Swint doesn't seem worried.
WIRED: Wal-Mart's brand is based on customer value. Yet your restrictions on the use of music files are more stringent than Apple's. How do you justify that?
SWINT: Our goal all along has been to offer our customers a legal way to download music at the best possible value. In terms of rights to burn, transfer to portable players, and back up on multiple machines, we feel our rights are better and more consistent across the entire catalog than any of the other PC-based services.
But still more restrictive than iTunes.
There are some differences between a service that's based within a software player installed on a client's machine and our Web-based service. The burn limitation for a player-based service is more flexible, but we feel our burn limit of 10 per track is enough for the vast majority of users.
If anyone can demand favorable terms from the labels, it should be Wal-Mart. Does that mean this is the best we can hope for?
I think that it will be an evolving scenario. As the download portion of the music market grows and becomes more established, I think the major labels will become comfortable with more flexible and consumer-friendly rights.
Will we see a Wal-Mart-branded music player - an iPod killer?
We're always looking at opportunities to offer our customers products and services that they have a use for, so that's one possibility.
If your strategy works and digital music sales begin to dominate, there's no supply chain to squeeze. At that point, what stops others from beating the 88-cent track?
I can't speak for competitors' abilities to offer terms and pricing similar to ours. Wal-Mart's strategy is to hold costs down across the board and pass those savings on to customers.
VIEW
As car safety improves, are we driving more recklessly?
America's Flimsy Fortress
Walmart.com Faces the Music
R.I.P., Texas Oil - Here Comes the Sun
