A Profile - Chaosmusic.com
Formed around 1995 or so, Chaos Music, launched itself onto the Internet, following in the footsteps of a couple of small online-only CD retailers in Australia. The difference between these smaller retailers & Chaos was immediately apparent, with online purchases just hinting at becoming a fast growing segment of the music retail industry, perhaps the earlier online retailers were just a little too far ahead of their time or Chaos Music had picked the right time, obviously sensing the break that large US online retailers such as CD Now had made.
Early Chaos projects aside from the retailing aspect, included the first version of the ABC TV Recovery program website, which proved extremely popular. I spoke to Chaosmusic.com Marketing Manager Victoria Doidge (pictured), who was involved in that project & asked her about how the Recovery site had helped them in growing the company. "Well, there's both advantages & disadvantages in working for the ABC. From their perspective, because the ABC charter basically is so non-commercial, they're almost committed to making sure they don't help you out through promotion, but from our side, it was, for want of a better word, a feather in our cap so to speak, being able to say we did the Recovery site, which was very popular, so we got our exposure through that & some other sites we've done, but we've moved right away from that side of things now."
The
company has also affiliated itself with some large International
companies & some of the largest online companies in Australia,
most notably OzEmail Internet, Australia's largest ISP, who were
probably the first . Victoria says of these collaborations "They
definitely help us with traffic through the site & I think
Chaosmusic is also helping these companies through our own profile as
the largest online retailer in Australia." Chaosmusic is also
associated with Microsoft, giving it access to that company's
streaming & digital rights management technology.
Chaos was also one of the first major online retailers to embrace downloadable music for sale, especially within Australia & they were also one of the pioneering companies in the world to offer this service. I guess this is partly helped by Chaos Music's own online artist network, which the company have been promoting more recently. One of the things I was interested in was which format was the most popular for download from the Chaos network. Victoria responded in a slightly different way than I'd thought, but the answer was quite interesting. "We're not so much interested in what formats are downloaded, though our free downloads, including MP3, are very popular. What we're equally interested in here, is which applications people are using to play their downloads. There's significant use of Quicktime, though the majority of downloads are using Windows Media Player, which apart from the fact that it's a Microsoft product, it also plays many of the formats without needing an external application, much in the same way as Mac users have the Quicktime Player."
Some online visitors have been interested in looking for independent artists & the aforementioned Chaos Artist Network is a commitment by the company to helping out indie artists. I've already noticed some of the material from Chaos' Artist Network creeping into the review sections of major daily newspapers, so perhaps this is an area that the company is moving further into. From what I've seen & heard while researching this profile on Chaos, they are certainly more interested than many record labels.
In events last year, Chaos Music announced the acquisition of the Gaslight Music retail store, which gives the company not only a 'physical' presence or 'bricks & mortar', but access to a much larger selection of titles which are available through both the Chaosmusic.com site & the Gaslight store. This is almost a complete reverse image of what many of the larger retail chains such as Sanity & HMV are doing, as they expand online, but is one of the first examples I'm aware of where an online retailer has moved offline, indicating that the online retailers are doing very well indeed. Chaos Music also floated successfully on the Australian Stock Exchange, though only time will tell how the company performs in that area - if other Internet related companies are any indication, then they will be very successful.
Another area which Chaos have pushed forward with over the past 12 months is their marketing, which many readers will already have noticed ads appearing in various Internet related magazines as well as other media. Victoria outlined the Chaos Music marketing direction for the coming year. "We'll be spending around $4 million this year on advertising, which sounds a lot, but it's not for a company like ours when you consider that overseas online retailers such as CD Now & Amazon looking to launch in Australia, will bring in more than $20 million. We think that Australians will already be familiar enough with the Australian owned Chaosmusic.com brand that they'll stay with us & indeed for newcomers, they'll move over to us."
Of course, no online company, or any company for that matter, will
be static for very long & Victoria briefly
outlined some of the things the company will be looking into over the
coming 12 to 18 months. "Well, the most important thing to the growth
of Chaos is our commitment to serving the customer & giving them
a safe online purchase, as well as offering them a much larger choice
of product. When we were looking at our association with Gaslight
Music, the extra catalogue this would give us access to was certainly
one of the factors we took into consideration. A couple of the things
we want to do are a little down the track, but we're looking at
expanding further into the classical & jazz genres, while
continuing to expand our range of contemporary, pop, rock, indie,
alternative & the rest."
As mentioned a little earlier, Chaos will be competing with the large online retailers such as CD Now & Amazon, but closer to home, they will also be competing with newer entrants to the online market, such as Sanity & HMV. Victoria outlines "We think we have an advantage, having been the established name online in Australia for quite a few years. There are certainly challenges, but we think that we have the advantage of not catering to just a particular age group like some of the others or to specialise to a particular genre. We cater for anyone who is interested in music & we think the recognition of Chaos as a brand has gotten to the point where we are a trusted online name." That trust has certainly moved quickly too, with the company's members increasing markedly from it's early days & sales also jumping correspondingly.
So, that's the story of Chaosmusic.com up to date. Through smart marketing, working to provide the best service possible to their customers as well as realistically assessing their competitors, the Australian retailer Chaos can certainly stand proud of their achievements. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the company's projects get underway & also their continuing encouragement of indie labels & artists. To find out more about the company or to try the Chaosmusic.com buying experience for your self, visit their website.
