We basically vote with our money so buying something is saying “Hey, I like what you do and I want more of it.” Support – You can look at it as a symbolic, economic and social gesture of support for the artist. If you want to make stuff people will buy, you should know why they would buy them. I will be working on helping the artists I work with on merch so I will be incorporating any new insights as I go along.įirst, we need to establish why people buy merch from artists in the first place. I want to shed light on this topic, not as someone who has designed tons of merch for musicians, but as a fan who has bought a lot of merch and looks at it from a sociological perspective. Since the money to fund merch will most likely come out of your own pocket, you can’t afford to make items that people won’t buy.īefore you go and print a bunch of shirts with your face on it, it’s important to take a step back to evaluate your brand, what you represent and what characteristics define you as an artist. Often times, the problem with merch is you need money to make money. It’s safe to say now that selling merch is basically a necessity now to make it as an artist on top of doing shows and tours. For emerging artists, it’s a challenge just to get 1,000 streams. To put into context how important it was, consider how much you make from music streaming.īased on the latest numbers, to make the profit of selling one $15 CD, you would have to get roughly 3,200 streams on Spotify or 2,000 streams on Apple Music. Selling CDs was a large income stream that has basically vanished. In our music streaming world, it has become much harder for independent artists to sustain a career in the music industry.

Immortal technique merch