1 of 1- mroldies
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Billboard - Rack singles and LPs
Can you please explain to me what these terms mean ?
"Rack Singles Best Sellers" and "Rack LP Best Sellers".
What does "rack" mean ? Is this a specialty of the Billboard?
(see for example Billboard Sept 6, 1975, page 23, Billboard Apr 30, 1977, page 48)
Thank you
- Lorne
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Re: Billboard - Rack singles and LPs
This reminded me of the term "rack jobbers", which I learned from taking marketing courses. I did a search and found that Billboard's charts used to include the explanation "Compiled from selected rackjobbers by the Record Market Research Dept. of Billboard." So here's some info about that term that may be helpful in understanding this better.
- mroldies
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Re: Billboard - Rack singles and LPs
Lorne, thank you very much.
In other words, "rack" charts were merchandise charts from stores that were not specialized in record sales. Is it so ?
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Thread Starter- Lorne
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Re: Billboard - Rack singles and LPs
It would seem that way, although since I have no experience in this area I hesitate to go beyond what I said ... I've never worked in retail, let alone in records. But the second footnote in the Wikipedia article links to a publication with relevant info at ... probably you'll have already looked at this info, but I just thought I'd make sure.
- gopher
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Re: Billboard - Rack singles and LPs
it's pretty simple. rack jobbers were independent record distributors who would go to a store, usually a mom and pop sort, and work out a deal, like renting a space, to set up their rack of records and have the store sell them for him.
since such sales could not be verified, rack jobbers often inflated reports of units sold, and reflective charts tended to be seen more as indicative rather than accurate accounts.
Last edited by gopher (September 26, 2019 11:01 pm)