Wal-Mart Offers Custom Music CDs

Wal-Mart on Tuesday launched a new service exclusively through its Web site that will allow users to create their own custom CDs from the company's 500,000 song library. Customers will also be able to select their own packaging options to personalize the purchase.

The base price is $4.62 and includes the CD, packaging and three free songs. Each additional song will cost 88 cents, which is what Wal-Mart currently charges its music downloads. A maximum of 20 songs is allowed on one CD, meaning the most a custom CD from the service would cost is $19.58.

"We recognize music is not only important, but incredibly personal to our customers," Kevin Swint of Walmart.com said in a statement. "Our new online custom CD service delivers a convenient entertainment solution for customers to easily experience and enjoy music in a personalized format."

Finished CDs will be shipped to the customer's home. Wal-Mart's standard online shipping rates will apply.

While custom music CD services have been around for years, Wal-Mart is the first to do it on a wide scale and with popular commercial music. With the advent of peer-to-peer file sharing, users have become more apt to download or buy individual tracks rather than entire albums.

A service like Wal-Mart's gives a user the opportunity to create their own albums with only music they already know they like, a common complaint about buying music CDs.