Say what you will about shlock-rock band Kiss, but they understood one thing: There’s lots of money to be made by selling nonmusical merchandise to music fans.
Now that music fans aren’t spending as much on music itself, several commentators, including Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, have suggested that “merch,” as they call it in the biz, is key to bands’ survival in the new millennium.
In decades past, only artists’ of Simmons’ stature were able to create T-shirts, lunchboxes, figurines, posters, mugs and other tchotchkes, but the democratization of manufacturing means anyone can design and sell physical products. Once designs are added to CafePress, Zazzle, or other sites, all that’s left to do is find an audience for them — often through Facebook and other social networks.
This process just got a little easier for bands looking for a way to design and sell merch on Facebook, MySpace and elsewhere. ReverbNation — a music marketing tool used by about a half-a-million artists, managers, record labels and venues to chart tours, manage fan e-mail lists and the like — plans to announce a deal Wednesday with Audiolife to let bands create and start selling custom merchandise in minutes, as the video below demonstrates.
There are no upfront costs or inventory risks associated with this type of manufacturing, because bands need only pay if something sells, and nothing gets made unless it has a buyer. Bands can sell T-shirts, sweatshirts or hats, as well as music merch (CDs, downloads and ringtones) through an embeddable widget, at whatever prices they wish (above the cost of production) on a variety of sites — Facebook, MySpace, blogs, their band website, or wherever else HTML is used.
In the video example below, the band only makes $3.60 from a $20 T-shirt.
Soup cans, T-shirts and 1,200 plastic Uzis.
ReverbNation COO Jed Carlson said that represents 100 percent of the profit from the shirt after manufacturing costs, but it still might seem like a relative pittance. According to some estimates, however, the typical band only makes about $1 from each $17 CD sold through normal retail channels, so this represents an upgrade from that deal. And in order to increase their profit margins, bands can gamble by prepaying for bulk orders.
Some bands and labels have taken this concept to the next level, by selling soup cans, T-shirts and even plastic Uzis containing music or download codes. Earlier this month, Topspin boss and Get Busy Committee manager Ian Rogers said the 1,200 plastic Uzis were nearly sold out, and that he was ordering another batch.
Not only is physical merchandise impossible to download through a file sharing network, but it has the ancillary promotional function of turning the buyer into a walking advertisement, as Kiss knew all too well. Every time a kid brought one of the band-themed lunchboxes to school, he or she marketed the band to the rest of the class.
As urban (hip hop / r&b) artists and djs we need to take advantage or MERCH to make money! Rock groups do it everday...how come we dont???
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