Shopping Around: Making Online Stores Add Up
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05–06 Tools Trash 07–08 Campaigns Chainsmokers, Ian Isiah, Warner Classics, Queen 09–13 Behind The Campaign Charly Bliss JULY 24 2019 sandboxMUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA ISSUE 233 Shopping around: making online stores add up "Cash Register” image by tamale, via Creative Commons. COVERFEATURE Global music merchandise sales were worth $3.48bn in 2018, up from $3.33bn in 2017 according to the 2019 Global Licensing Survey, meaning that one of the music industry’s most reliable sources of income continued its seemingly unstoppable rise. While the popularity of music merchandise Shopping around: hasn’t changed, the shape of the market certainly has. In the early 2000s, the trend was for web making online stores that would slot seamlessly into the artist’s own website; in 2019, the tendency is towards selling on social media, with stores add up platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat making moves that allow artists and brands to shift merchandise as part of their social experience. “We can already see that platforms like Facebook and Instagram are becoming like digital shops,” says Music Ally marketing executive Marlen Hüllbrock. “Young audiences are already on these platforms and they spend lots of time there. If your merchandise is there, you can enable this seamless experience to put this merchandise in front of their eyes and then they can easily buy it. I think it’s a great driver for selling merchandise. It’s good to In the early 2000s, artists started to add online have a website as well, of course; but not stores to their websites, but this was eventually every fan will actively go on to your website and search for your merchandise.” superseded by partnerships with online retail and D2C experts. Now as artist websites give way to The soft sell their social media channels so a new retail Artists – and the music industry as opportunity emerges. We look at where social a whole – have started to embrace this platforms are being best used to sell merchandise, development because it means selling to fans where they are rather than trying to how casual fans (and not just superfans) can be coax them onto your own platform. (This is catered to and where exclusives can fit in here. why selling on Spotify – see box – has also become important.) “Why are we trying to drive people to our web stores and sell to them?” asks Music Ally SVP of digital strategy Patrick Ross. 1 | sandbox | ISSUE 233 | 24.07.2019 COVERFEATURE “Integrated check-outs [which allow important to make any commercial offerings Instagram,” she says. “You can post pictures will be able to read consumers to buy within social media sites] available in these places as well – when the of artists wearing merchandise items, you the description or are becoming more of a thing. You have tools available provide a straightforward can tag products within posts and you can choose between direct platform check-out on Instagram purchase flow.” also make it into an ad. That makes it a different options, and Facebook in the US. This idea – that Ross, meanwhile, points out the far more appealing ad to your fans as they sizes and colours. you can have a shop on Facebook and advantages of artists being able to control will be able to directly browse the products They can share your products are set out there with an their storefronts on social media. “We talk on the platform instead of being sent to a products with their integrated check-out – it just makes sense. a lot about conversion marketing, different website. This lowers the likelihood Messenger contacts We pay a lot of money for social which is pretty impossible within of them dropping off as they can already and, if they want to media advertising. We try to drive streaming services as it is a walled start interacting with your products.” buy, they can do so people to their destination and garden,” he explains. “But you Facebook and Instagram also allow inside Messenger social platforms don’t like people can do it on social media: if you you to tag products in videos, a feature and check out within leaving because they lose the ability send them to your store, they put that Billie Eilish, whose name comes up the platform as well to advertise to them.” something in their cart and don’t often when talking about social media – if they are in the Jessie Scoullar, founding director of buy it, then you can still serve retail, has used to her advantage. “She US.” adverts to them.” simply uploaded her video, tagged all of YouTube offers a her merchandise products as well as her more limited retail Tag teams and why social physical releases within the video and option. Users on its shops are not all built the then turned that into an ad,” Hüllbrock Partner Programme explains. “We know that video is one in the US can sell same. of the most engaging formats on tickets on YouTube It would be wrong, of course, to think Facebook and Instagram, so this is a via integrations of social media retail as one generic mass. nice way to make your merchandise with Ticketmaster, Each of the main sites has adverts stand Eventbrite and e-commerce specialist Wicksteed Works, its own subtly different out and gain AXS, while creators explains that selling on social media will offer, as well as its own the attention of in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, appeal to an artist’s less-engaged fans, userbase. Facebook, for your fans.” Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, who may be unlikely to visit their website. example, allows users to Messenger, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the US can “For a fan to be visiting an artist’s site, they create their own shops another Facebook sell merchandise thanks to YouTube’s are already a qualified lead; they’ve either where they can sell physical property, allows agreement with Teespring, displaying up searched the site out, or they’ve taken a goods and can also synch artists with a to 12 items beneath their videos. positive action to click on a link in an email products from Shopify, Shopify store to or on a social post to take them there,” she Big Commerce and sell in-app. “Users says. WooCommerce. can start shopping “These are within a cohort of top-level In addition, Hüllbrock via tapping on the fans; and below them is an iceberg of more explains that Facebook and menu button,” casual fans who follow the artist on social Instagram offer shopping Hüllbrock explains. media and may or may not engage actively. tags. “One of the main “If the user chooses Social network commerce is likely to be advantages we see is the the option ‘shop the key touchpoint for these fans when ability to tag products now’, you can it comes to sales of music, merchandise, within your posts – not only send them various ticketing and so on. This all means that it’s on Facebook, but also within products and they 2 | sandbox | ISSUE 233 | 24.07.2019 COVERFEATURE In addition, the both for creators latest technological features to sell via their company announced – so that they can socials. at its recent VidCon earn money on the keynote that it platform – as well as Exclusive platforms and was adding five users, by enabling exclusive products new partners – these experiences including Rooster and launching new Hüllbrock says that Billie Eilish, for Teeth, Fanjoy and features,” says example, has a separate Instagram account Represent – to Hüllbrock. just for her merchandise. “She has her its merchandise merchandise brand [blohsh], they have programme. “The Shopping their own Instagram account and it features idea is to have as c-AR-ts: photos of herself wearing her merchandise,” diverse of a pool of retail gets she explains. “She also features her fans on products in a way AR is one of the most interesting there, giving them a platform so that other that is as easy to augmented developments in social media retail, with fans will see this and think, ‘I want to wear use for creators These new Facebook also experimenting with the this merchandise as well. I want to be on as possible,” chief features include technology. In 2018, L’Oréal partnered with this platform as well. I want to product officer Neal in-app Facebook on AR experiences that allow be recognised by her.’ She creates this Mohan told The stores for a small users to try on make-up from the cosmetics whole world around it so it’s not just a Hollywood Reporter. number of Snapchat company’s brands. In announcing the shirt with her name on it; it is something Snapchat might users (including move, L’Oréal, chief digital officer Lubomira really desirable.” be the one name Bhad Bhabie/ Rochet said that AR “is becoming key for Crucially, Hüllbrock says here that raises BHADgoods), and product and brand discovery and purchase”. that the blohsh account eyebrows among this list. The platform Shoppable AR Lenses, which allow users Hüllbrock predicts that Facebook will roll is “not like a typical brand may have had 186m daily active users in to virtually try on items of merchandise. this AR feature out more widely in the near account, where you have Q3 2018 but it seems to have disappeared Ariana Grande was one of the first artists future. “It is another layer of interactivity,” these polished photos”. from music industry thinking, overtaken by to trial this feature when she released a she says.