Merchandise is a great way to connect with your fans, as well as develop your personal brand as an artist. It can also be a valuable alternative income to streaming revenue, which, let’s be honest, sometimes isn’t quite enough to make ends meet!
Over the past year it has been more challenging than ever to sell merch, with live gigs cancelled due to the pandemic, many artists have seen sales slow! But Spotify’s recent collaboration with e-commerce platform Shopify (confusing names, ikr!) might just solve the issue, and just in time for the festive season 🎁
Here’s everything you need to know about the colab and how it can help you sell your merch
Spotify x Shopify
Spotify is on a mission to help artists turn listeners into fans, so joining forces with an e-commerce platform like Shopify was an obvious move. The integration between the two services allows you to list up to three pieces of your merch directly on your Spotify for Artists profile, making it easy for fans to find and buy your branded products.
How to sell merchandise on Spotify
Before you start you will need these three things:
• Admin access to your Spotify for Artists account
• A Shopify store (Shopify is currently offering a 90 day free trial to all Spotify artists signing up for the first time)
• Some banging merch (check out the bottom of this article for some inspo)
Got that? Great…onto the next step!
STEP 1: CONNECT YOUR SHOPIFY AND SPOTIFY ACCOUNTS
• Login to your Spotify for Artists account
• In the ‘Merchandise’ section section click, ‘Login to Shopify‘
• Enter your Shopify store URL and click ‘Link Shop’
• Login to Shopify and follow the steps to set up your accounts.
STEP 2: PUBLISH YOUR MERCH ON SPOTIFY FOR ARTISTS
Once you’ve got your accounts connected you can publish up to 250 merchandise items from your Shopify to Spotify for Artists. You can choose up to three of these items to show on your artists profile. To publish your merch….
• Login to Shopify, go to settings & click all products
• Choose a product
• Click ‘Manage’ and make sure Spotify is selected
• Repeat for all the items you want to publish on your Spotify account
• Click done and save!
STEP 3: ADD YOUR MERCH TO YOUR ARTIST PROFILE
• Login to your Spotify for Artists account
• Click ‘Merchandise’ & select add to shop on the three pieces of merch you want to list on your profile
• Thats it, you’re all done! Now it will be east for your listeners to buy your merchandise on Spotify
And here’s how it will appear on your Spotify profile courtesy of Spinnup artist Derik Fein:
Need some inspiration for merch ideas? We got you!
At Spinnup don’t just want to support our independent artists, we also want you guys to support each other. So we thought we’d share some of our favourite merch stores, so you can check them out, get inspired and perhaps even make a purchase!
IKILL ORION
AVG
Andrew Star
KOOLKID
Quiet Man
Quinn Oulton
Jimothy Lacoste
Dropping new lines of merch should always coincide with a new release as part of your promo and marketing plan! Create a release with Spinnup today and get ready to watch those streams pour in and those t-shirts fly off the shelves 🤟
