[2009] What actually causes ayu's sales to drop?
 

Feel free to leave ur opinion here, this is summary of what i think that made her sales to drop:
1. A ballad ( not reaching 1 million, pp think the ayu popularity had declined so some pp just stop supporting her)
2. Forgiveness ( bad cover, song was not bad, but once again it shouldnt b released as a single)
3. Bold and delicious (i think its a bad idea to release this single,not her style, and the release date was too close to heaven)

I happen to love forgiveness' cover...hence my set :P
I really don't know what causes Ayu's sales to drop. I would like to know. But maybe she doesn't have as many fans that want to buy her things in this day and age, seeing as you can download EVERYTHING from the internet. :shrug

I think it's simply because she's been around so long. I mean, a few "bad" songs here and there won't make your future songs not sell as well. (Well, sometimes, but not a consistent drop like what we're talking about with Ayumi.) Simply, that album/single won't sell as well. But then you promote your next album, with your "good" songs, and sales will rise. Unless, of course, your popularity is simply (I've used that word three times already D: ) dwindling, as is Ayu's case.
Also, I think only really big fans are still buying. As mentioned above, so many download for free, I'm sure, probably because they assume that, 'hey, she's Ayumi Hamasaki! She doesn't need my support--she'll still sell hundreds of thousand for this thing......' Nope. Not when large amounts of her fans start thinking like that. :\ And then of course there are non-fans, who will download albums here and there that they like, not caring to support... It seems Ayu has a lot of those, in my opinion, from what I've seen. -_-'

I don't get it why you talk about these releases.
I mean even huge artists has flop in their past releases but them didn't ruin their present career.
I don't get it srsly :shrug

Ayu's sales drop for illegal downloads, for less fans (some people aren't hard fans like us :D they following Ayu during the peak in the 2002-2003 and then forgot about her lol) and 'cause she hasn't release a hit since.. I don't know maybe STEP you?

But I trust in Ayu :yes
She will come back and break the million again (è_é)9 lol

back up singers , her dancers ..... specialy shuya ... in every ballad live you have that guy doing the same crazy moves that over time just turns the song off. the sad thing that this wont stop anytime soon XDDD she also turns off songs like boys & girls,unite ect in concerts.

Same reasons everybody's sales are dropping or will drop at some point.

(1) Fickle media, fickle audience.
(2) Internet/downloading.
(3) If an artist does really well, it's hard to "match" that peak again--but that doesn't mean the artist isn't still doing well.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Just look at that one poll in the poll section of this forum, so many people have lost their interest in her and don't really care about her and her music anymore.
I'm sure it's the same in Japan.

sure, many people just download her stuff but that's a problem all artists have. but some still manage to sell alot more than Ayu, not only boybands but female solo artists as well.

so yeah let's face it, the reason why she's selling "bad" is because she's losing popularity.

^And this happens to every artist with a long career...
Buyt that doesn't mean she will never sell good again, I mean... this week Barbra Straisand outsold Madonna AND Mariah new releases xD

It's easy, it's because the technology called Internet and yeah, kind of development era maybe? When information can be get easily, like talkin' 2 myself said :

Ayu said that herself :D

If we remember back to 1998-2000 when internet hasn't famous as today,
And at the same time, remember LOVEppears sales count compare to NEXT LEVEL sales count, even though both of them got Platinum :laugh

There are so many reasons for this. :) Way more than the 3 listed.

The most basic answer is that generally speaking, people in Japan just don't really care much about her anymore and/or her personality gets on their nerves.

I don't think there is really any question that it is the hardcore fans that are primarily driving her sales these days. But this topic has been done to death basically. :)

^This^^
But in the end, this is all a long career singer can count on... Strong fanbase + some hit singles here and there...

^ Yeah, honestly I think Ayumi is between a rock and a hard place right now. I'm really not sure just how the trend could be turned around at this point.

1. Ayu's image changed from creative to recycling (I don't mean tour costumes), sometimes I think ppl look at her more and more pitifully.
2. Too much unnecessary stuff (when your favourite artist produces too much you start being selctive, by being selective sales drop and other ppl buy less too, instead of concentrating on new things she releases too much BEST of)
3. Too much illegal downloads, but in fact all the artists have lower sales than before.

If I have to chose between buying Ayu concert which can be easily found in the net and Kinki Kids concert which is almost impossible to download, I chose KK, unfortunately, and I'm not proud of it. Japanese concerts cost 1/3 - 1/4 of my month salary, it's impossible to support artists each time they release sth :(

I wish I could buy Ayu stuff the moment they are released, I only bought My Story Tour this way and it cost me 6,050 yen + tax (my salary at that time was 25.000yen / month), all the rest I have from Book Off, so second hand.

that thread was funny to me because most of the people saying they lost interest in her/don't care still comment on her diary entries and new releases etc, so a lot of them were exaggerating.

anyway, so many things cause her sales to drop, like sunshineslayer said. :yes

I don't get why people are saying that people in japan don't care about her. FYI if they didn't care about her ayu woulddn't still have number one singles and albums. Oh,and ayu's sales aren't the only ones dropping, just about every female artist are going through this stage.

Lol perhaps.
I'm probably one of those people, I still care about her.. I just don't really care about her music anymore.
but i do get excited when she releases something new, because i always hope it's something i will like. because i really want to like her music (again) lol.
so yeah, i'm just waiting for her to release something that i will love, and i'm sure alot of people feel the same way. :yes


ofcourse people still care about her, most of her singles still sell very well.
but alot of people just don't care like they used to or/and have moved on. and that's normal.
but let's be honest, it's not that hard to get a #1 single.. it's all about strategy these days. just look at koda kumi's alive/pt :P

Me and several other people around here have said a bunch of times that you can actually be hard pressed to find someone in Japan that actually likes Ayu and has something good to say about her. (Unless you are at an Ayumi concert of course ^_^) Or more often than not, you will find people that say they liked her early stuff, but don't really care for her now. In general, she is just not someone that is universally well liked over there anymore.

What's been saving her with the number 1s is very selective release dates (I don't think anyone can argue with that) and her having a large enough core fanbase to still give her decent enough sales.

I don't think if you download her music your not a fan. Yes, I understand a lot of fans cannot afford to buy everything. I am one of them. ;) And even though Ayu's sales seem to be dropping, I bet this crazy good song she's coming up with will be a #1 single. :P

^Well, I don't really think that she was universally loved any day... Even if her peak was at the peak of japanese music sales, she couldn't affort to have the sales of... Mai Kuraki (that has almost totally faded out by now) for example... Hikki who people over here tends to overlook has 3 albums among the 10 best selling ever in Japan, the best selling american album and one of the best selling digital singles... What she always had and still has is a cultural huge impact that doesn't really has anything to do with her music... if you take a look at japanese 20 best selling albums ever, she appears at the top 10 once, and after that, only below top20 and she has like... 4 or 5 million seller singles...

So... yeah... Japan in general don't really care about her, but is not like she was the most loved jpop idol ever anyday. What makes Ayu so strong is not being the best of Japan, but being one of the best (her fanbase still is big enough to keep her like that) for a long time, longer than most of jpop divas that sold better than her over the years (like... she was outsold by Mika Nakashima, Ayaka, Koda Kumi over these years since her debut but her career is A LOT more stable)