Recordstore.co.uk one of the UK's most successful music 'e-tailers' has signed Internet contracts with Sony, Universal and Sanctuary which demonstrate a clear strategy to boost sales from fan web sites particularly as Recordstore is one of only six e-tailers whose sales count towards The Official UK Chart and the only one which build online shops for artists and labels. This should be a good move for the ailing majors, as this will hopefully turn those web sites into the shop windows that they should have been some years ago. It will accelerate music sales online and should be a positive move for the singles market.

Andrew Wilkinson, founder and Chief Executive of Kingstreet Group plc, tour producers for Robbie Williams, Phil Collins, Sting and the Spice Girls, founder of Music3w and former partner at Rolling Stones' management, Rupert Loewenstein Ltd, has joined Bob Geldof on the board of Recordstore.co.uk. Wilkinson brings a wealth of experience to Recordstore.co.uk, gained not least as founder of award-winning Music3w, arguably the biggest music portal of the dotcom era.

The company, which operates online shops for over 200 UK bands and labels including Robbie Williams, Craig David, Moby, The Darkness and Ministry of Sound, has now been appointed official e-commerce partner to Universal and Sanctuary, and contracted to launch a string of online shops for Sony Music. The companies will benefit from sales from their artists' web sites directly counting towards chart position, which has never before been possible. Recordstore.co.uk recently launched online shops for: Sony's Manic Street Preachers and Cradle of Filth, Universal's David Sneddon, Lisa Scott-Lee (ex-Steps) and UMTV, plus genre-based Warner sites warnerjazz.co.uk and warnerdance.com and BMG label NuLife

The directors will meet Universal executives in the coming week to discuss the roll out of some 20 online shops expected to include Clubland, Universal's dance compilation series, and UK artists such as Miss Dynamite and Busted. Other plans include online shop launches for Sanctuary's Alison Moyet as well as the Prodigy, Suede, Sugarbabes and Primal Scream over coming weeks.

The shop-building spree is a product of the Recordstore.co.uk 's chart eligible status and unique business model. Taken together this means that sales from artist web sites can now count towards chart position for the first time. With internet sales of music increasing tenfold over the last four years to 5.5% of the UK market, and single sales falling by 42% year on year for the first quarter '03, this has become an opportunity the record industry cannot afford to miss.

Wilkinson said, "It's clear that Recordstore.co.uk has found a winning formula. I only invest companies in I become actively involved with and I'm looking forward to helping develop the business across the board. This includes exploring a range of potential synergies between Recordstore.co.uk and Kingstreet Group's concert productions." It will be interesting to see if this will involve downloads of live concert recordings for ticket holders as being developed by Clear Channel Entertainments.

Recordstore.co.uk started life as part of established dance music record label, Transient Records. Transient built their own online shop in December 1997, and began to offer the service to other record labels, enabling them to sell products from their own web sites. They then created one main store to allow customers to buy product from all of the labels in one place, and in September '98, the www.recordstore.co.uk site was launched. The company now carries over 160,000 individual product lines, covering music and music-related merchandise for over 200 UK labels and artists/bands via both individual online shops and the main recordstore.co.uk site. The company received a three stage investment of equity and convertible debt in Nov 2000, June and Oct 2001 from a group of private investors, including city broker and fund manager Seymour Pierce Ltd. Bob Geldof joined the board in May 2002 as a non-executive director.

Future plans include expanding capacity to 300,000 product lines, opening up a US office and developing www.dancemusic.com into a stand-alone dance music brand.