US supermarket giant Wal-Mart has added a new service to its music download platform which will spare their customers from the hassle of, erm, downloading anything.
With the new service Wal-Mart will let customers pick up to 20 tracks from their 500,000 track catalogue and then burn them onto a
CD for them. The CD, complete with the customer's chosen title and artwork, is then mailed out to them. An initial three track
CD will cost $4.62, with each additional track costing 88 cents, the same price Wal-Mart charge for downloads.
Wal-Mart's download platform hasn't made a big impact, despite their cost cutting approach, but some reckon the new service might make a difference - introducing Wal-Mart's generally IT-phobic customer base to the idea of buying music online, albeit with a mail-order
CD in the first instance. WalMart's Kevin Swint told reporters:
"The service is readily accessible to customers without a CD burner or who prefer not to download music".