A Huge Online Music Store (Musicroom.com)

Member Name: Kukana

Product:	Musicroom.com
Date:	10/10/06 (530 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wide range of stock, reasonable prices, free postage if you order enough

Disadvantages: Search engine could be more efficient, lack of consumer reviews on site

This site is the equivalent of Amazon for musicians. It contains a vast selection of sheet music, instrument teaching books, CDs and DVDs about music, and even some instruments and accessories. I've been using it for a couple of years now, to order books and other items for my sons: one is a pianist and guitarist, the other a clarinetist and drummer. Living abroad, we don't have the wide selection of music shops that can be found in the UK, so we were very pleased to discover this site. Although it's a British site, the address is http://www.musicroom.com

Entering the site, the look is a little like that of Amazon UK. Smart and professional, without being flashy: a white background, and simple layout with clear links. There's typical 'browse' menus down one side, lists of bestsellers down the other, and new items linked in the centre, with a search box near the top. Above that are tabs to the main divisions of the site: sheet music, tuition books, school music, and so on.

The search box can lead to further ways of browsing, much like on Amazon. For instance, if I enter the word 'clarinet', I'm taken to a page which has all the possible categories down the side for more specific browsing: sheet music for bands, strings, woodwind, tuition books, instructional DVDs, or accessories. But whereas Amazon UK has about 450 books of music related to the clarinet, Musicroom.com has over 4,000. For the more popular ones, Amazon is sometimes cheaper but for advanced musicians searching for rare products, I haven't found anywhere as good as Musicroom.

When you click a product to find out more, there's usually a general publisher description, a list of songs or music included (if relevant), and - for sheet music - a 'skill level' indicator, which gives a rough idea of whether the music is adapted for beginners, slightly adjusted for intermediate students, or is advanced. This is an excellent idea, although unfortunately a significant amount of the music hasn't been given a skill level. Similarly, each product has a section for user reviews, but very few of them seem actually to have been reviewed. Perhaps as the site gains in popularity, more people will take the time to leave a paragraph or two about the items they have ordered.

To order a product, the process is familiar for anyone who's ordered books online: you register with your email address and a password (or log in if you have previously registered) then simply click to add an item to your basket. There's even a wishlist system, like that on Amazon, to store links to products you might be interested in but don't want to buy at once. Assuming you have ordered what you want, there's a standard checkout with secure entry for your address, credit card details, and so on. Then there's a chance to change the order, and a final confirmation page which can be printed, although they also send an email.

About a year ago I had a new credit card, and there were problems with several online sites since it's a British card, with registered address is in Cyprus. The rules on money laundering and security have been tightened, and several companies wouldn't accept the card without further evidence that it was valid. For Play.com we had to fax a copy of the latest statement. Musicroom.com, however, was happy simply to accept my word that this situation is indeed valid. They sent an email asking the question and apologising for the inconvenience, and then processed the order shortly after I replied.

For those in the UK, postage and packing is £1.99 for orders up to £15, free for orders over £15. It's also possible to choose UPS, with next day delivery; delivery prices are higher, but for orders over £99 that goes free too.

In the rest of the European Union, orders over £25 have free postage; those under that amount cost £3.99. This is a huge saving for us when compared to Amazon UK, who still consider Cyprus as 'rest of the world' rather than EU. But even for non-EU buyers, Musicroom.com's postage prices are not unreasonable: £4.99 for the first item, £1.50 for each subsequent item, and orders over £99 are postage free.

Since I like to take advantage of free postage, we've ensured that all our orders are over £25, combining tuition and sheet music books two or three times per year. We've never yet had a parcel go astray, and they've always arrived within about ten days of dispatch. A couple of times items went out of stock, but then they sent the items they had at once rather than waiting until they had everything we wanted.

For those outside the UK ordering expensive items, or wanting something more secure than airmail, there's an option to use DHL. Even this is free if your order is high-priced enough (over £99 in Europe, or £299 in the rest of the world), otherwise it starts at £16.50. Since we've only ever ordered books, we've never bothered with this option.

However, we recently discovered that the site is selling didgeridoos at under £20. We would not normally buy instruments unseen, but didgeridoos don't have fine tuning, and one of our sons - who is currently abroad - has wanted one for years. I don't know how they managed to offer such excellent value, particularly since they are, according to the site, made under fair trading and ethical principles. But it seemed too good a bargain to miss. So we ordered one, along with a couple of books to take the amount over the free postage barrier.

I was startled to find, two days later, a DHL man at the door. One didgeridoo, wrapped in oceans of bubble-wrap, and two books. We had not asked for DHL delivery, and I wasn't charged anything for postage, so I'm sure they must have made a loss on this sale. Perhaps it's because we're regular customers, or perhaps they take this much care for everyone. Whatever the reason, we were very impressed.

Are there any drawbacks? The only minor one I've found, other than the lack of reviews and skill levels in some products, is that the search engine doesn't always give me what I'm looking for unless I'm very specific - or I have to trawl through dozens of pages to find something. There doesn't seem to be any way of refining a search, other than clicking the category list at the side. Still, this is a minor disadvantage. If I know exactly what I'm looking for, it's not usually too hard to find.

Of course, it's a fairly specialist site. If you and your family and friends are not interested in music, you won't want to go there. If you have a good local music shop that sells all you want at reasonable prices, there's no reason to visit an online music supplier either. But if, like us, you have a frequent need for sheet music or other supplies, and no useful local providers, I would highly recommend musicroom.com.

Summary: online shop for all books, sheet music and other necessities for musicians