#87 - 7th July 2024 - Merch

This is where the music ends and the business starts.

I heard somewhere and may have quoted it here already that in order get your own music heard and perhaps even live from it, you‘ve got to run a content creation firm with a merchandise business attached to it.

The content creation part is probably true for most B2C businesses these days. The merchandise bit is a direct result from the fact that the „music industry“ currently has no way to reimburse its creatives other than by selling tickets to shows (and even that only works for the bigger names playing the bigger venues).

But that sounds a little like I would not like merchandise. Good merchandise is great. It‘s just that very often the quality of clothes and prints isn‘t great and/or the art work as such isn‘t made for me. I think the last band shirt I had bought was from Russian Circles at a show in Munich 2019.

It didn‘t fit.

I was too fat for the skinny fit.

So this time around, I gotta make merch. Time to stop moaning but making it better instead.

First of all, I want underwear. Second of all, the band name should not be the focus but rather the artwork. Good artwork works also for people who don’t know or even like the band.

The obvious starting point is our bunny or rather various different cursed bunnies. I got a bunch created by mid journey that will go through some manual enhancements before ending up as a shirt design. I like them all, but I‘d prefer to involve the community and let the people choose what they would wear.

Also important: Printing and logistics. I have no interest in building up inventory, storing and sending parcels on weekends. So it must be a print on demand solution. First research suggests printify. Printify allows for something very important: International supply chains. I once wanted to buy a Christina Aguilera T Shirt that was promoted on Spotify. During checkout I found out they would ship from the US only.

I will never pay 60USD for delivery + taxes and other duties to get a 35USD T Shirt.

In Printify, you can put designs in your catalogue that are being processed by stores in different countries.

So that‘s the next thing I‘ll do.