Snap has announced the launch of ‘Band Tees’ within Snapchat: virtual t-shirts based on artists, starting with six Republic Records acts. The post Snapchat gets virtual artist merch with Bitmoji ‘band tees’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Music merchandise startup Hawkr has raised a seed funding round of £260k to continue building its business. The post Music Ally SI:X winner Hawkr raises £260k of seed funding appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Web3 imprint Probably A Label is exploring the intersection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and near field communications (NFC) technology. The post Probably A Label’s latest NFT project is a $60 NFC t-shirt appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

More than 100,000 creators, artists and brands have connected their own stores to their YouTube channels, according to the video service. The post More than 100k YouTube channels are now linked to online shops appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The UK’s Musicians’ Union is throwing its weight behind the Featured Artists Coalition’s ‘100% Venues’ campaign. The post Musicians’ Union backs FAC’s ‘100% Venues’ merch-fees campaign appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The dust has settled from the Spotify Wrapped 2022 promotion (and the inevitable memes riffing off it). The post Spotify says Wrapped 2022 broke its weekly merch-sales record appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Merchandise has been part of Spotify for a while now, and the company is increasing its efforts to help artists use that feature. The post Spotify wants to help artists sell more merch on its service appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Amazon Music has been making a significant push recently around merchandise, encouraging artists to explore the ways they can sell merch. The post Amazon Music for Artists adds two more merchandise features appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It’s a relatively recent trend for artists and music companies to actively encourage fans creating their own merchandise – and build commercial models around it. The post Softside wants to help more artists sell fan-designed merch appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Spotify’s ‘Blend’ started as a feature to automatically create shared playlists with certain friends, before expanding to include famous artists as the blendees. The post Spotify expands its ‘Blend’ feature with merch sales appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

E-commerce firm Shopify is steadily signing up the biggest music streaming and social services as partners. The post Shopify adds YouTube to its roster of music DSP partners appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Amazon Music’s app is steadily adding more features beyond basic audio streaming. Having integrated livestreams last year, now the app is getting merchandise features. As of this week, artists who are taking part will have their merch shown on their profile pages, with Billboard reporting that most of it will be available with Prime shipping for Amazon […]

2020 has been a really interesting year for Universal Music Group’s various arms in China. From local signings like Linong Chen and Sunnee to a joint label with Tencent Music, via gaming songwriting camps and the small matter of $1.2m of Taylor Swift album sales in a few days on NetEase Cloud Music. Weaving these strands into the overall story of UMG’s China strategy […]

We reported earlier this month on plans for Billie Eilish’s first livestream, the $30 ‘Where Do We Go? The Livestream’ concert on 24 October. Startup Maestro is the technical partner, and it’s been talking about a new partnership with ecommerce firm Shopify that will see merch sold during the event. Open to all artists using the platform, it […]

Korean music company SM Entertainment has announced a partnership with Marvel Entertainment, with K-Pop group SuperM first to benefit – just in time for the release last Friday of their debut album ‘Super One’. There’s a range of dual-branded merchandise available from the SuperM online store: t-shirts, hats, luggage stickers, and special packages with the album and various […]

In March, BTS launched a new video series online called ‘Learn Korean with BTS’ – 30 three-minute lessons teaching their global fanbase how to speak the band’s native language. Now this has evolved into a physical package developed by the educational arm of Big Hit Entertainment, the band’s management company. The new product includes four textbooks and a […]

We’ve mentioned the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons several times in this bulletin recently, mainly because it’s one of the chosen stress-busters for several members of the Music Ally team. But it’s also a fascinating cultural thing, including the ability for players to design their own clothing and share it for free with the wider community. That […]

We’re fairly sure Travis Scott made a killing from virtual items around his recent Fortnite concert, although a figure hasn’t yet been announced. One artist that is announcing some numbers from an online performance, though, is veteran British act OMD. Last Saturday (9 May) they streamed a recording of a November 2019 concert on YouTube […]

The UK’s Music Venue Trust (MVT) is launching a campaign called #saveourvenues, which aims to drum up support for 556 ‘grassroots music venues’ that it says are in danger of permanent closure in the UK. “The situation is dire, government support has been exhausted, and it now falls to artists, music fans, local communities and the […]

Lead: Triller is not a TikTok killer – but it is certainly proving to be a hearty contender. At the moment, it is strongest in the US and it skews heavily towards hip-hop as its in-built soundtrack. Its ambitions are, however, more global and the genres it covers will naturally expand as it grows internationally. […]

Zoë Keating is an artist who’s taken a leading role in talking about new technologies (blockchain, for example) as well as streaming royalties transparency. Her latest interview is with Emily White, author of the new book ‘How To Build A Sustainable Music Career & Collect All Revenue Streams’, with a foreword in the form of a […]

Rapper T-Pain posted a curious tweet earlier in the week. He claimed that someone had launched the f—ktpain.com website (we can’t put the full title in here as some spam filters don’t like profanities), perhaps to mock or troll him. So he decided to do something else. “I simply purchased it from them and now all the profit comes […]

A T-shirt or a flimsy tour programme was the bulk of merchandise in the “old days” – mass-produced items to shift quickly when an act was on tour. Fortunately, things have changed dramatically in recent years – with a clear drive to be as environmentally aware as possible. Print-on-demand technology is also allowing acts to […]

As part of a chart battle last year in the US between Travis Scott and Nicki Minaj, all hell broke loose. The latter used her Queen Radio show on Beats 1 to attack the former for using merchandise bundles to drive his album to number one ahead of hers. “Travis Scott is out here selling f***ing […]

Lyrics-licensing company LyricFind announced its LyricMerch product back in November 2017: a site where people could order physical merchandise emblazoned with lyrics from its catalogue – with publishers (and thus songwriters) earning royalties. Now LyricMerch is getting an interesting distribution partner: eBay, which will be a new shop-window for LyricMerch, as well as a place for “targeted […]

YouTube is rolling out another feature for musicians with ‘Official Artist Channels’ on its platform. The company has signed a deal with Merchbar which will see artists able to “surface their official merchandise and vinyl alongside their videos… Fans watching videos from their favorite artists on their YouTube Official Artist Channels can now see a shelf with […]

Major labels buying merchandise companies is an established trend now, from Universal Music’s Bravado division acquiring rival Epic Rights in January, and Warner Music paying $180m for German merch firm EMP in October 2018. The latest example was announced this morning: Sony Music UK is acquiring merchandise firm Kontraband for an undisclosed amount. The deal […]

On the first day of the All About Music conference in Mumbai, IMI boss Blaise Fernandes cited an “underexploited” public performance market as one of the drivers of growth that will help steer India in its quest to become one of the world’s top ten biggest music markets by 2022. On the second day, at […]

British rock band While She Sleeps aren’t just a dab hand at this metalcore business: they also have a new sideline as open-source merchandise activists. The band have created a new t-shirt design displaying this message: “One t-shirt is the equivalent to 5000 streams on Spotify. 76% of all music in 2019 is streamed and […]

Lead: Working with D2C experts is one part of the business, but changes in how social media sites are structuring themselves can offer acts new ways to sell products to fans of all stripes. We look at where social platforms are being best used to sell merchandise, how casual fans (and not just superfans) can […]

Spotify is launching a line of merchandise around its Black History is Happening Now initiative. “Rooted in modern music merch culture, the line is made up of a hoodie, jogger, pin, messenger bag, and several t-shirts,” explained the announcement of the limited-edition collection. It’ll be shown off this weekend at a pop-up exhibition in New York, with […]

Universal Music Group’s Bravado division has been bolstered this week by the acquisition of merchandise and branding firm Epic Rights, for an undisclosed amount. Epic Rights works with the likes of Kiss, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, AC/DC and Britney Spears among other artists. CEO Dell Furano will be staying on as part of the acquisition. “I’m very proud […]