When worldwide sales are reported are they actual sales or shipments?
Worldwide sales figures are compiled with shipment figures and certifications (which are shipments not actual sales) from around the world. All the figures on this site barring the Soundscan figures on the US album page are estimated shipments. Labels do know much an album has actually sold, because there are sales tracking systems (like Soundscan) in every big market and there are record labels for every big market to keep track of that information. Record labels opt to use shipment figures, because they don’t change constantly (like actual sales figures) and label’s/artist’s actually make money for the amount of albums shipped and accepted by retailers. Really, actual sales are only used as an inclination of how many albums need to be shipped to supply the demand. Even Soundscan figures aren’t completely comprehensive, record club sales consistently accounted for about/over 20% of music sales prior to this decade, but were and still not reported by Soundscan. 3. Why is there such a d
