Last year, Tyler the Creator and DJ Khaled exchanged words over a misunderstanding about record sales and bundles, and Nicki Minaj went to Twitter to air out her thoughts about the bundle tactic that allowed Travis Scott and his ‘Astroworld’ project to beat her out for the number 1 spot on Billboard. Now, Billboard has changed up their policy entirely in terms of the march bundle situation that counts towards record sales.
Billboard made an announcement today and said “Moving forward, for an album sale to be counted as part of a merchandise/album bundle, all the items in the bundle must also be available for purchase concurrently and individually on the same website. In addition, the merchandise item sold on its own will have to be priced lower than the bundle which includes both the merchandise and the album. Further, merchandise bundles can only be sold in an artist's official direct-to-consumer web store and not via third-party sites.”
They continued on saying “Under current rules and moving forward, any approved piece of merchandise that is clearly artist- or album-branded can be bundled with a copy of the album, with those sales counting for the charts when the physical album is shipped to the customer or when the digital album is fulfilled to the customer. However, the merchandise/album bundle must be priced at least $3.49 more than the merchandise item alone ($3.49 is the minimum price of an album to qualify for the charts).”
source: Billboard
