Shopping Around: Making Online Stores Add Up
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 superseded by partnerships with online retail and D2C experts.
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