Sanity Fights Chaos in Australian Music E-tailing

Brazin, the proprietor of the Australian bricks-and-mortar music retailing stores called Sanity, has launched an online version to combat the increasing number of e-tailers in the music business.

Chaos Music Market has lead the charge in an Australian industry which now includes Spike Radio and CDStar, which launched last week, but the Sanity.com site will be the first venture by a traditional music seller into e-commerce.

Brazin will combine the site with music and entertainment content delivered to 200 kiosks within Sanity’s stores around Australia.

“The kiosks will provide artist chat, concert and event streaming facilities for both consumers and artists, online concert and event booking facilities as well as refund and exchange facilities for purchases made online,” said Brazin MD Brett Blundy.

Web surfers and kiosk users will be able to select collections of songs to be sold as digital downloads or burnt to CDs which would then be distributed from the physical stores, according to the company.
The site will use technology and content from US-based Global Fulfillment.com, using its Global E-store application, which acts as back-end software infrastructure for Internet retailers.

Ironically, Chaos itself invested in bricks and mortar recently when it bought Gaslight Records, an independent retailer based in inner-city Melbourne.

Sanity.com will be spun off from Brazin for an initial public offering on the Australian Stock Exchange in November, raising AUS$8.9 million (US$5.7 million).