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Distributor Spins Out Online Vinyl Store

Itasca, Ill. – There’s a not-so-new kid in town selling vinyl LPs.

Collectors’ Choice Vinyl (CCVinyl.com) is a recently-launched resource for record albums, turntables and accessories that was spun out by a much larger and older parent company, DirectToU LLC.

DirectToU runs a host of off-price websites including DeepDiscount.com and BlowItOuttaHere.com. It is a subsidiary of Alliance Entertainment, a Florida-based distributer of music, movies, CE accessories and promotional items.

Alliance also provides third-party e-commerce fulfillment- and payment- processing services, and it operates the music distributor Amped.

Its latest endeavor, CCVinyl.com, leverages Alliance’s claimed status as the largest single source for vinyl records, representing 40 percent of total industry sales. Indeed, CCVinyl offers more than 70,000 LPs, Eps, 7-inch singles, imports, special editions, colored vinyl and hard-to-find items, all protected by a “no bent corners” guarantee of pristine delivery.

The site also sells a selection of traditional and USB turntables, cartridges and styli by such brands as Audio Technica, Gemini, Jensen and Ion, as well as vinyl cleaning kits, protective sleeves and other accessories.

CCVinyl is merchandised by Joe Van Horn and Jen Larson, the team behind sister site Collectors Choice Music (CCMusic.com). The two are based at DirectToU’s offices here and pull from Alliance’s Shepardsville, Ky., fulfillment center, which stocks more than $12 million in vinyl inventory, the company said.

 “It is important that CCVinyl be as comprehensive as possible, with product selection, shipping methods, and site navigation all geared specifically toward the vinyl record buyer,” said DirectToU retail sales VP Tim Hinsley.

The launch dovetails with a new report from Nielsen indicating that vinyl-album sales continued to surge in the first quarter, rising 53 percent in units year-over-year. The surge was driven by a 66 percent increase in catalog album sales on vinyl, but sales of current releases on vinyl were also up 37 percent during the period.

Vinyl album sales in the U.S. have grown 260 percent since 2009, and vinyl recorded its ninth consecutive year of sales growth in 2014. Some 9.2 million units sold last year, up 52 percent, to account for 6 percent of physical album sales, Nielsen said.

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