After Whitney Houston's death, we expected that album sales would go up as fans were mourning her loss and wanting to revisit her contributions to music. What we didn't expect is that the price of her albums would go up, but they did. It seemed like a classic case of supply and demand in play, but it also came across as highly inappropriate considering the circumstances.
The price hikes only went down on the UK iTunes store, and it affected two Whitney albums. The Ultimate Collection went from £4.99 to £7.99 and the Greatest Hits rose from £7.99 to £9.99. The increased price tag caused outrage among fans who noticed, and Sony kept quiet for a couple of days before releasing a statement.
"Whitney Houston product was mistakenly mispriced on the UK iTunes store on Sunday," a rep from Sony explained. "When discovered, the mistake was immediately corrected. We apologize for any offense caused." An insider at Sony added that the price hike was an internal mistake due to an employee error, and that Sony does not raise the prices of albums because of the death of a musician.
[via Billboard]
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