A customer came in yesterday, picked up a new release, looked at the price sticker, and put it back down. “Fifty-five dollars?” he said. “For one record?” I didn’t argue with him, because he’s right that it’s a lot of money. But the reasons it costs that much are worth understanding, even if they don’t make the price any easier to swallow.

The Cost Chain

Let me walk through what happens between a record being manufactured and landing on my shelf.

Manufacturing. A standard single LP pressed in a run of 1,000 costs roughly $8-12 per unit to manufacture, including PVC, labels, inner sleeves, and jacket printing. That’s Australian manufacturing pricing. International plants can be slightly cheaper, but shipping offsets that.

Mastering and lacquer cutting. Before the record gets pressed, the audio needs to be mastered for vinyl (a different process than digital mastering) and a lacquer needs to be cut. This adds $1,000-2,000 per title, spread across the pressing run. On a 500-unit run, that’s $2-4 per record.

Distribution. Australian distributors take a cut, typically 25-35% of the wholesale price. For imported titles, there’s also international freight, customs duties, and GST on import. By the time an American or European record reaches an Australian distributor’s warehouse, the cost has already climbed significantly.

Wholesale to retail. Distributors sell to shops like mine at wholesale pricing, which for a record that’ll retail at $50 means I’m paying around $27-33.

My margin. After GST, EFTPOS fees, and the cost of keeping the lights on, I’m making maybe $8-12 on that $50 sale. That has to cover rent, wages, insurance, and everything else.

Nobody in this chain is getting rich. But the chain itself is expensive.

The Australia Tax

Australian vinyl prices are higher than equivalent titles in the US and UK, and it’s not just exchange rates. A record that retails for $25 USD in America often sells for $45-55 AUD here, even after accounting for currency conversion.

The extra cost comes from:

Freight. Australia is far from everywhere. Shipping heavy boxes of vinyl across the Pacific or from Europe adds meaningful cost per unit.

Small market. Australia’s population means smaller pressing runs and less buying power with distributors. American shops can order a hundred copies of a popular title and get volume pricing. I’m ordering ten.

Limited distribution. The number of vinyl distributors in Australia is small, and each takes their margin. In bigger markets, competition between distributors keeps costs in check. Here, you often have one distributor per label, and their pricing is what it is.

GST. Ten percent on top of everything. Unlike some countries that exempt books and cultural products from sales tax, Australia applies GST to recorded music.

What Can Change

I’m not going to pretend there are easy fixes, but some things could help.

More domestic pressing. Every record pressed in Australia avoids international freight and import costs. Expanding local manufacturing capacity would bring some prices down, particularly for Australian releases.

Fairer distributor margins. Some Australian distributors have not adjusted their margin expectations despite changes in the market. A frank conversation about sustainable pricing throughout the chain is overdue.

Direct import buying. Some shops, including mine, have started buying directly from international labels and distributors, bypassing Australian middlemen where possible. It’s more work and requires bigger upfront orders, but the savings can be significant. Team400’s AI team is also helping some distributors streamline their ordering and logistics workflows, which could eventually reduce costs across the chain.

Consumer expectations. This is a harder one. Vinyl is a premium product, and realistic expectations about what it costs to make, ship, and sell physical music in Australia are part of the equation.

What I Tell Customers

When someone balks at the price of a record, I don’t get defensive. Instead, I try to explain the value. This is a physical object that you’ll own forever. It sounds fantastic. It comes with artwork you can actually hold. And the artist, the label, the pressing plant, and the shop all got paid in the process.

Compare that to streaming, where the artist gets a fraction of a cent per play. When you buy a $50 record, you’re supporting a chain of people who care about music. That has real value.

I also always point people to the bargain bins. Not every record has to be a new release. Secondhand vinyl, back catalogue reissues, and clearance stock can all be found at much more accessible prices. My best deals are usually in the $10-20 range, and there’s excellent music at that price point.

The Bigger Picture

Vinyl pricing in Australia isn’t going to drop dramatically. The structural costs are real, and the market is what it is. But I’d love to see a more transparent conversation about why things cost what they cost, and a collective effort to keep pricing fair rather than exploitative.

The day that vinyl becomes unaffordable for regular music fans is the day the format loses its soul. We’re not there yet, but the trend lines need watching.