Bargain Center: discussion, gossip, etc.

[pekbro]

Hopefully PB is doing ok, since I just spent a fair amount there (again)... drum computer and primavera, curse these dang sales... it's not done yet even... sigh.

[elassi]

Since the whole industry seems to do sales like there's no tomorrow, PB's business model (=earning provisions from turnover) of course faces a corresponding decline.

[Uncle E]

Costs to operate are up 30-40%. Meanwhile, plugins are still $29.

[pekbro]

It's tough, I try buy direct to support the devs, but more often than not, vendors have better deals. Even if it's a small difference, these days I am forced to save where ever I can. I also want to support the vendors on top of that.

[Kurdish Mayfield]

Ridgid Audio Sale is tempting...57GB of their instruments for $25, as they close forever

https://rigid-audio.com/index.html

[Uncle E]

Are any of them vocal-based?

[solit]

Ridgid Audio Sale is tempting...57GB of their instruments for $25, as they close forever

https://rigid-audio.com/index.html

Veery mediocre stuff. I accidentally got some of them before they have fixed their prices to 5 bucks forever, nothing exciting at all but unnamed dull sounding presets. Wiped out from the disk after some given chances, no surprise they’re vanishing.

[chrisstiles]

PB file their accounts in the UK, so you can visit the companies house site and see their accounts:

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Perhaps smaller than you might expect, but they seemed healthy through to the end of 2023.

[Gamma-UT]

PB file their accounts in the UK, so you can visit the companies house site and see their accounts:

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Perhaps smaller than you might expect, but they seemed healthy through to the end of 2023.

There are some warning signs in the cash movements. Turnover increased a bit from 2022 to 2023 but they've been burning through more cash. (EDITED: I got my debtors and creditors mixed up) Debtors has gone up, which is interesting in a business like this as it means future money – I wonder if this is Klarna payments. I'm not sure how Klarna works but they might be vulnerable to people skipping payments if they don't get the wonga up-front because Klarna doesn't absorb the risk.

If they're now struggling to grow revenue further and they're not getting money they're owed, that tends to lead to companies delaying payments to their suppliers even more, which is the problem Chris R identified in his Discord post.

Unless they've had a terrible 2024, I don't think they're going under but it does look as though they're pushing suppliers as far as they will go and I expect that will lead to some pulling their products from the PB store in favour of other resellers.

EDIT 2: OTOH, looking at Zero-G (which isn't a straightforward comparison because they take full advantage of the Companies House exemption to only post a balance sheet), which has an expectedly low amount, the debtors number of £14m for PB looks really funky. It spiralled up after 2019 and I can't work out why. As far as I can tell, Klarna pays the full amount more or less the same month, if not the same week.

One possibility is they've been recognising RtO revenue well ahead of time and not taking into account people just dropping off, but they only started doing RtO a year ago as far as I can tell.

So, the number is a bit fishy as I can't see a good reason why a retailer selling to consumers is extending such huge amounts of long-term credit. The debtors amount may have been used to inflate their revenue numbers so they show topline growth but have in fact been going sideways.

[HM]

Ridgid Audio Sale is tempting...57GB of their instruments for $25, as they close forever

https://rigid-audio.com/index.html

Veery mediocre stuff. I accidentally got some of them before they have fixed their prices to 5 bucks forever, nothing exciting at all but unnamed dull sounding presets. Wiped out from the disk after some given chances, no surprise they’re vanishing.

Aggre ,... all fillers ,.. no killers ,.. "soundscapes" and fillers

Maybe for someone who cant realy play, but need fast and non-critcal sounds for video ???

However I wonder about this instrument-builder:

https://www.rigid-audio.com/products_ko ... maker.html

Could be fun maybe at least ???

Or what is the better for alternatives for easy Kontakt instrument building ???

[Double Tap]

PB file their accounts in the UK, so you can visit the companies house site and see their accounts:

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Perhaps smaller than you might expect, but they seemed healthy through to the end of 2023.

There are some warning signs in the cash movements. Turnover increased a bit from 2022 to 2023 but they've been burning through more cash. (EDITED: I got my debtors and creditors mixed up) Debtors has gone up, which is interesting in a business like this as it means future money – I wonder if this is Klarna payments. I'm not sure how Klarna works but they might be vulnerable to people skipping payments if they don't get the wonga up-front because Klarna doesn't absorb the risk.

If they're now struggling to grow revenue further and they're not getting money they're owed, that tends to lead to companies delaying payments to their suppliers even more, which is the problem Chris R identified in his Discord post.

Unless they've had a terrible 2024, I don't think they're going under but it does look as though they're pushing suppliers as far as they will go and I expect that will lead to some pulling their products from the PB store in favour of other resellers.

EDIT 2: OTOH, looking at Zero-G (which isn't a straightforward comparison because they take full advantage of the Companies House exemption to only post a balance sheet), which has an expectedly low amount, the debtors number of £14m for PB looks really funky. It spiralled up after 2019 and I can't work out why. As far as I can tell, Klarna pays the full amount more or less the same month, if not the same week.

One possibility is they've been recognising RtO revenue well ahead of time and not taking into account people just dropping off, but they only started doing RtO a year ago as far as I can tell.

So, the number is a bit fishy as I can't see a good reason why a retailer selling to consumers is extending such huge amounts of long-term credit. The debtors amount may have been used to inflate their revenue numbers so they show topline growth but have in fact been going sideways.

I think there's an alternative analysis (which is a bit less fun). Debts on a companies house balance sheet also include pre-paid expenses which in this case would, I think, include software licences bought in advance, or an advance on anticipated sales to developers. It means that they can fulfil orders from customers immediately if they have licences available. The fact they're making a 28% profit and increased turnover seems very healthy to me.

What seems more likely, as an explanation of this suggestion they are having problems paying suppliers, is that they recently changed their website and it's quite possible that has introduced some e-commerce issues that would delay payments.

[Gamma-UT]

That's a fair point. But if you look back through the accounts over the past five years, debtors has risen from well under a million quid in 2019 to £14m in 2023 (from £10m in 2022). And the number has been going up continually over that period.

Now, it's possible they cut a sweet deal with NI and some of the other big guns for a significant discount, which would help profitability, but the debtors number at the end of last year was equivalent to half their annual revenue. I'm not sure NI/Soundwide needs the cashflow so badly they would cut such a deal in the first place as it's a crap-ton of advance licences in anybody's language. At the same time, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent move in cashflow that would back up the advance purchase theory, or at least not to that scale. Overall, it smells a bit like the kind of premature revenue recognition that toppled Avid a decade or so ago.

[chrisstiles]

What seems more likely, as an explanation of this suggestion they are having problems paying suppliers, is that they recently changed their website and it's quite possible that has introduced some e-commerce issues that would delay payments.

It's also possible their accounts department is struggling to cope with the significant increase in suppliers they've brought on board over the last year or so.

[Double Tap]

What seems more likely, as an explanation of this suggestion they are having problems paying suppliers, is that they recently changed their website and it's quite possible that has introduced some e-commerce issues that would delay payments.

It's also possible their accounts department is struggling to cope with the significant increase in suppliers they've brought on board over the last year or so.

Yes I was thinking that the increase in debtor amounts might be because they're selling from more suppliers.

But yes @Gamma-UT there certainly could be premature revenue recognition. The other thing that could be happening is that Beatport is taking money out of the company in the form of loans, a sort of different kind of premature revenue recognition. Curious also that Andrew Axelrod is no longer a person with significant control as of two weeks ago, if I'm reading the filings right.

[Gamma-UT]

But yes @Gamma-UT there certainly could be premature revenue recognition. The other thing that could be happening is that Beatport is taking money out of the company in the form of loans, a sort of different kind of premature revenue recognition. Curious also that Andrew Axelrod is no longer a person with significant control as of two weeks ago, if I'm reading the filings right.

You might be on the money with that one. I didn't read the notes earlier (which is a bit daft, because all the good stuff is usually in the notes).

Most of the increase comes from "amounts owed by group undertakings": £10.5m up from £7.2 a year earlier.

Prepayments did increase a lot but it's a small proportion overall: just north of £0.5m, up from £0.17 in 2022. The rest is "other debtors", which remained static more or less and around £0.3m for regular trade debtors (presumably outstanding payments).