Beatport’s newsletter today informs me that at long last they have reduced their, frankly extortionate, prices for tracks for UK customers.  I don’t know if this reflected across all their international markets but I for one am happy to see them do it.

Beatport have regularly come under heavy fire from the UK’s digital DJ community for their higher-than-reasonable prices compared to the cost of the same track in other countries.  No doubt the current economic crisis is a factor and Beatport want to make sure that if people are going to buy music they don’t think of Beatport as the “expensive” option, especially in the run up to every retailer’s bumper season.

I hope this marks are continued effort from Beatport to stop sitting on their laurels – which were well earned initially but they have clearly lagged behind in customer service and innovation (djdownload.com being a great example of how to do it right).

Who knows, maybe 2009 will be the year they introduce a Beatport 4.0 with desperately needed new features that everyone, including me, have been suggesting for them to do since September 2007!

Update:

I’ve checked the US$ prices (which seem to be unchanged) against the new lower UK£ prices and they look like this:

So the new UK prices seem to finally level the playing field but really only because of the appalling exchange rate between the UK and the US in these troublesome economic times (roughly £1 = $1.45 instead of the giddy heights of £1 = $2 just 6 or so months ago).

Interestingly the Back Catalogue price hasn’t fallen as much.  I wonder why that is?