kpop album sales and gimmicks: when will it crash and burn?

Quote from aclassyteaparty

i agree that its not rlly a big deal from that aspect, but the amount of waste and potential environmental impact... its literally buying something to throw it away unless you're a re-seller. and many kpop companies are making albums bigger or bulkier. its just a little sad to me

I agree with this, and eventually clutter at home.

But, hey, to each his/her own.

I don't understand why they donate it to orphans tho? Some kids may not even know these groups. It would make more sense to re-sell it and then donate the money. I am sure a lot of folks would buy second hand albums for $5.

Quote from dummi

I feel like its kind of hilarious that people bulk buy and thats about all I can contribute to this discussion

Agreed, I want one version and that's all. Too much money and space wasted on more than 1.

Quote from Lulu_Key

I blame the companies for putting fan signs based on number of albums purchased.

Thats the number 1 motivation for bulk buyers. Since fan signs became online, ifans also joined the race to compete with kfans over fan sign slots. Thats the main reasom for the increase in physical album sales.

no, #1 motivation is bragging rights

Quote from 0ppar

no, #1 motivation is bragging rights

it isnt

people who seem to brag alot of time arent the buyers

buyers are always those who think Oppa will remember them if they see them every week on those fan signs

Quote from dummi

Tbf I do get the collector hype, but buying a thousand copies of the same album? Idk

I have 11 albums, and I'm debating buying anymore until I can figure out where to keep more.

Like im giving my hard earned TWICE albums to orphans

Quote from TheBotter

They don't, an article came out a couple of times in the past, they dress it up like they are donating to orphans and cafes and whatever, but in reality we are talking about sometimes 300-500 thousand non shipped albums.

They basically said that these fan bases use them to pay for the waste disposal....I mean the mental gymnastics fans need to go through to pretend they think sending hundreds of thousands of albums they themselves don't even want will go anywhere else but to landfill.

So the albums don't even get shipped because it would cost another lung? These sellers can't even sell it again without making it count towards charts?

Quote from Spsnowflakes

The one thats fairly popular internationally tbh, whats first come to my mind is Taeyeon and IU, both can crack 200k mark multiple times since 2017-now, Taeyeon's most popular album "I" was at 100k+ sales mark by the end of 2015, so from 100k to 200k for her, thats almost double the sales, she manages to double her sales eventho her previous album was much more popular imo. Also back then during 2nd gen era only 4/5 acts (all idol group) managed to reach 200k sales mark (with all their gimmicks and fansign events), but now even a soloist can easily reach that mark without as much gimmick as Idol group did. And yeah I never said the amount of gimmicks didn't affected album sales AT ALL, it's just not as big as a lot of ppl think, in my opinion.

Yep. I did a massive doubletake after i saw IU's recent album numbers.

393k for Lilac.

Shit is INSANE. Her sales almost quadrupled since she came out with Palette which did 107k.

It's the popularity of all things Korean in the past 10 years. I think Gangnam Style was the shot across the bow, a warning of what was about to happen in Kpop. Then came EXO and BTS and BAM, everything just exploded. Including K dramas and cinema, even Korean food and mukbangs.

And as for OP, people have been predicting the collapse of Kpop since it first started 25 years ago lol. I remember my parents calling it a fad, they are die hard trottists. There will always be ups and downs in any market, but i highly doubt Kpop will just collapse lol. It would take a worldwide depression/catastrophe to do that. More realistically, i think things will plateau at some point. Which would be just as well, i doubt any of the big boys in Kpop will be complaining about 1M album sales per comeback lol.

Quote from Wench

Like im giving my hard earned TWICE albums to orphans

Quote from BlackpinkHouse

Yep. I did a massive doubletake after i saw IU's recent album numbers.

393k for Lilac.

Shit is INSANE. Her sales almost quadrupled since she came out with Palette which did 107k.

It's the popularity of all things Korean in the past 10 years. I think Gangnam Style was the shot across the bow, a warning of what was about to happen in Kpop. Then came EXO and BTS and BAM, everything just exploded. Including K dramas and cinema, even Korean food and mukbangs.

And as for OP, people have been predicting the collapse of Kpop since it first started 25 years ago lol. I remember my parents calling it a fad, they are die hard trottists. There will always be ups and downs in any market, but i highly doubt Kpop will just collapse lol. It would take a worldwide depression/catastrophe to do that. More realistically, i think things will plateau at some point. Which would be just as well, i doubt any of the big boys in Kpop will be complaining about 1M album sales per comeback lol.

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Yeah, back then Top BoyGroup with all its gimmicks and fandom bulk buy had a hard time reaching 300k mark, but now a freaking female soloist can do it.

Quote from TheBotter

Pretty much. This is one of the main points of the Chinese 'fan circle' clamp down. They were concerned with the excess, competition fueled spending. They weren't wrong. China fans pioneered the idea of non shipped back albums since fans discovered the shipping cost almost as much as the albums, so don't ship em out? Nearly double the albums...where do the tons upon tons of waste plastic, paper and cardboard go?

https://www.korea*boo.com/news/korean-non-profits-idol-album-donations-useless-beg-kpop-fans-stop/

If you don't want to read the article this quote sums it up pretty much...

"I’m furious at K-Pop fans who give away the extra copies of albums that they bought so they can go to fan meetings or so their groups can break records… What you’re doing is not donating. You’re dumping your garbage at us."

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Thank you, I read all that stuff

I am only surprised that physical albums are still in vogue in E. Asia.

I would have expected the sales to keep coming down, but it is actually increasing.

Should check the sales of DVD players?

But seriously who is still playing physical discs in the digital age. Either specialist hobbyists or the older generations, neither of whom could be large in numbers.

So fandoms are buying simply for the swag, boasting rights and because awards, music shows still use physicals as a criteria.

Anachronistic.

But it is a kpop cultural thing.

Quote from bbgc

I am only surprised that physical albums are still in vogue in E. Asia.

I would have expected the sales to keep coming down, but it is actually increasing.

Should check the sales of DVD players?

But seriously who is still playing physical discs in the digital age. Either specialist hobbyists or the older generations, neither of whom could be large in numbers.

So fandoms are buying simply for the swag, boasting rights and because awards, music shows still use physicals as a criteria.

Anachronistic.

But it is a kpop cultural thing.

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Physical sales are decreasing everywhere, even in Japan. But in South Korea they're increasing at an abnormal rate. But we don't have numbers without exports, so we can't know if they're also increasing domestically or not.

Japan

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South Korea (half-2021)

an interesting question would be if albums didn't have things like photocards would they still sell as much???

Fans buy albums to increase the status of the artist. And to collect. Who listens to physical discs anymore?