NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, recently held its big trade show at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Kissimmee, FL near Orlando. Todd Beals had excellent coverage - NARM Show DAY 1, NARM Show DAY 2, NARM - Day 3.

The most interesting part of his coverage was the music research provided by the NPD Group.

- There are just over 150 million music shoppers in the U.S. and the average revenue per person over age 13 is $8.85. (19% of music buyers walk in into the store and only buy 1 item, but the existence of bundles do help purchasing decisions.)

- Music consumption is up 12% as physical sales slide 8%. (Apple held 76% of the market in June 2006 for downoads)

- Consumers are not becoming less loyal - the problem is that there's too many choices and they're being overstimlated. The result is that there's a lot of competition for their time and money and the channels for music buying are becoming blurry.

- For the lighter browsing segments new demand has to be created while they sit on the couch and awareness levels have to be built before they even get into the car.

- Consumers spend nearly a day per week listening to music (89% of music buyers are on the web and spend 21 hours a week online)

- People are actually consuming more music than ever. Physical sales are off but music consumption is up 12% - mostly through unpaid means of acquisition. Some good news from the research indicates that consumers believe that music is every bit as good a value as DVD's.

- One new trend is that people are getting conditioned to do one-stop-shopping (i.e., Super Walmart, Super Target) and tend to get all their errands done at less stores.

- Nearly 9 out of 10 physical music buyers are unaware of kiosks, which could be better utilized to offer deeper and out-of-print catalogue choices.

- Consumers are willing to pay for more actual content (i.e. DVD) but the expectation is more value for same price. The avg. DVD price is $15.98.