M+E Daily
Amazon Digital Services Buckle On Success of Lady Gaga Promotion
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Amazon.com continues to make a name for itself as a destination for deeply-discounted digital music, with Lady Gaga fans flocking to the site to purchase Lady Gaga’s new “Born This Way” album for 99 cents.
The online retailer seems to be a victim of its own success, however: while the album sits atop Amazon’s chart of MP3 bestsellers, the company is struggling to fulfill its digital orders.
Purchasers of the Gaga MP3 album complain that few, if any, of its songs have been transferred to their Cloud Drive accounts. (As of 2 p.m. ET, our own order of “Born This Way” from this morning is still “being processed.”) Other customers comment that their attempts to download purchased copies of the album have failed.
Amazon confirms that downloads are delayed “due to the overwhelming response to this deal” on the .
The 99-cent “Born This Way” offer is the highest-profile promotion yet for Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services. Processing delays notwithstanding, the purchase includes a free upgrade to 20 GB of storage on the cloud-based music service, which Amazon launched in March.
The promotion also represents Amazon’s most aggressive undercutting of competitors on the price of an anticipated album. Apple’s iTunes, for example, sells the same version of “Born This Way” for $11.99, while a bonus track version fetches $15.99. Brick-and-mortar campaigns also pale in comparison. Among physical retailers, Best Buy is the most active, giving away the Gaga CD to customers and activate a new two-year contract at the store. (The CD sells separately at Best Buy for $7.99.)
