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Business News Retail
Tesco to install CD burning machines
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 10 August 2012
Tesco is planning to install CD burning machines that will let customers pick an album from a digital library, and have the music from that album burned to CD while they wait, for as little as £2.97. The special machine will also print out some artwork.
It’s interesting mainly because such devices were discussed a lot in the late 1990s when the cost of CD burning technology first started to plummet, and indeed was piloted in some quarters, but never really took off.
You might think that in the download age such machines are already redundant, but perhaps for the mainstream consumers they are aimed at they could help keep CD sales going a few more years. Certainly it requires less floor space for Tesco, and less financial risk for labels.
The CD burning machines have been set up in two Tesco stores so far, one in Essex and one in the West Midlands, and it remains to be seen if they catch on. Says Tesco’s entertainment geezer Rob Salter: “We can offer an incredibly wide range of albums and movies without taking up space in stores”.
