Long gone are the days where Supermarkets were just for your groceries and food essentials, UK supermarket Sainsbury's are introducing a music download store. The idea behind this is that shoppers can take advantage of purchasing the latest music releases whilst making their regular shop.

Competing directly with iTunes, Sainsbury's aim to provide tracks at 89p each, with albums costing £6.99. In addition, the retail giant will offer special promotions similar to their grocery lines named 'Deal of the Week'.

The download store is said to have access to over 2.3 million tracks. Its likely that shoppers maybe tempted to purchase music even if they did not plan to initially. There are also other incentives, customers can get their first download free, nector points can be collected against downloads and playlists can be built.

Although there's tough competition in the music download market, its likely that the Supermarket will reap the benefits from their latest music store.

The death of small music shops

Its not really surprising that high street CD and music stores have in many places become extinct. In many areas small independent shops which have been around for years have become the victims to music download stores. There is still some demand for 'hard copy' albums though.