Sales on Bandcamp will soon be reported to Nielsen SoundScan, the company behind the Billboard charts. Before we can start submitting weekly stats, however, we need you to please add your UPC codes to your albums, and ISRC codes to your tracks. Just go to each album or track’s page, click Edit, and towards the bottom you’ll see new fields for this data. They look like this:
If you don’t know what UPC or ISRC codes are, but would like to learn, this is a good article on the topic. Please note that Bandcamp does not supply those codes, but plenty of others do, such as CDBaby. More info can be found here and here.
We’ll update this post as soon as we have enough data from all of you to begin weekly reporting. Here’s to you, Snuggles:
Update August 24th: We now submit US, Canadian and international sales reports to SoundScan each and every Monday morning. Thanks to everyone for getting your ISRC and UPC codes added!
thanks guys! just added all the ISRC codes for our new album.
A thought for future development: allow the uploading/updating of an artist’s entire catalog via some open-format database file (CSV or the like).
Of course, I think of this now, because of the thought of sitting there plugging through 30 songs worth of ISRC codes…
Nonetheless, I love Bandcamp.
Nice one guys. One question, will free downloads count as “sales” ?
No, a track must sell for at least $0.50 USD, and an album for at least $5 USD, in order for SoundScan to count it.
Dear Bandcamp,
I hope you are wildly successful and all your dreams come true cause any company that puts the legendary Casey cussin’ session at the bottom of a blog post is goddam fuckin ok in my book.
This is like goin` back to school,we love the things that happen @ Bandcamp.
Sugar Bear Trio.
Hi guys,
Is this mandatory?
We don’t have UPC codes for our albums yet, but we also sell them for $5 and less, so they wouldn’t be counted anyway.
Thx
Joe
No Joe, this is completely optional. You only need to add the codes if you want your sales (above the aforementioned minimums) reported to SoundScan.
Thanks for the new feature! Bandcamp gets better and better!!
f11music.com
If an album is for sale for $5..but they download it for free with a download code..does it still count as a sale?
Or do only direct direct purchases count as sales?
No, SoundScan only counts paid downloads.
If we want to add these codes later, can this be done also? Thanks.
You can add the codes whenever you like.
lol, lol!! that audio track about the dog snuggles is hilarious!! 🙂
Can you actually receive the Soundscan reports without paying their annual fee, though?
I’ve still gotta give Nielsen $500 to actually see my reports, right?
If you mean can you see the sales that Bandcamp reports to SoundScan, then sure, just go to your stats page. All the sales are listed there. I didn’t know that SoundScan also offers a service to see your sales across all the stores reporting to them. Doesn’t surprise me that they charge for that though.
very nice updates !
would be nice to att RRS feeds from my website somehow … so all updates there shows here too
cheers
Thank you so much for those links it has been incredibly helpful in helping me understand more about this industry.
I’m still new at this highfalutin online sales stuff. I have ISRC codes for my individual songs but I’m not aware of what the UPC/EAN code is for my whole recording. Can ya help a brother out?
If you don’t already have a UPC (from say, your manufacturer), CDBaby can help you out: https://members.cdbaby.com/ArtistServices/SalesReportingTools.aspx
awesome!! uploaded my ISRC’s ^_^
Love the audio clip… that was hilarious! This site rocks… we’ve been needing something like this for years, good job!
that is the funniest audio clip ever. RIP snuggles.
bandcamp rocks, snuggles pwns!
I am thrilled to have uploaded all tracks and CD in just about three hours today! I love this site!!!!
If we start the pre-sale process now and have orders place before the upc code is added, do we still get soundscan credit for the albums purchased before the upc code is uploaded?
Yes, but at most for one week’s worth of sales. To be (very) specific: if your codes are added by 00:00 Thursday UTC, your sales from the previous Monday through the following Monday will be reported to SoundScan. Earlier sales will not be reported.
Let me just say that the audio track had me rolling on the floor.
Cheers!
So, is there any other benefit to UPC codes besides the billboard charts? As a underground punk band we really don’t have any desire for billboard charts. Beyond a complete lack of desire, it seems downright unmusical.
I love bandcamp and appreciate the awesome update nontheless.
Obviously if your album’s going into WalMart you’ll need a UPC for that, too. But yeah, no. We only use the UPC codes for chart reporting.