Trinity Mirror has said that the free CD giveaway of Prince’s new album, 20TEN, boosted sales of the Daily Mirror and Daily Record by 334,000 and 45,000 respectively, compared to the previous Saturday.

The papers flew off the shelves and the CDs have now flooded eBay, as those people who didn’t pick up their free copy scramble to obtain the album.

The concerning thing is quite a few retailers I’ve spoken to failed to sell any more copies than normal, because they didn’t have any more than their usual supply. They said this was because their wholesaler hadn’t boxed out more to them.

While it would’ve made sense for the publisher to order wholesalers to send more copies to all retailers, with readers of Retail Newsagent being made aware of the promotion more than a week before it happened and the publisher running advertising around it, I do wonder why many retailers didn’t take it upon themselves to increase their order.