Digital distribution options for small labels

It's much easier for IODA to aquire new retailers than for a smaller digital distributor for the simple reason that the digital retailers are willing to do all the technical work (converting files, especially metadata, into the format required by their shop) in order to be able to sell from the vast IODA catalogue, whereas for a smaller digital distributor like ourselves, we end up doing the work ourselves because the retailers are usually unwilling to put in the work required to import a smaller catalogue.

Of course you have to ask yourself whether having your catalogue available in every little digital retailer is important to you. As of 2005, Apple was said to have 70% of the digital retail market share. This is probably lower now, with all the competition from other retailers that have entered the market, e.g. Amazon MP3, but you can probably cover 90% of the market with just a few retailers, especially if your label's genre is well-represented by a certain site, e.g. Juno for dance music.

At one point, Apple was actively looking for labels to submit their music to iTunes via iTunes Producer, an application that looks and acts much like iTunes. iTunes Producer is supposed to make it easy to send Apple your content and controls the ripping, metadata entry and upload phases of content delivery to iTunes.

Another business model is that used by Consolidated Independent (CI) in London. If you negotiate a contract with a digital retailer, they can do delivery for you. The main advantage to this is that once your catalogue is submitted, you still retain control over it. This contrasts with digital distributors who still retain control over your catalogue because the retailer has no direct agreement with you. If you change your digital distributor, your catalogue has to be taken down and re-submitted.

As far as I know, none of the other retailers is really interested in dealing with smaller catalogues because it is simply too much trouble for too little gain.