The DIY musician’s guide to testing merchandise: Instagram vs. Dropshipping
The #1 Mistake Artists make with Merch
Musicians are some of the most impatient people on the planet. We’re extremely excitable and want our artistic visions realized immediately. That’s why, when it comes to merch, many of us neglect proper research and development, much to our detriment. It makes sense because we’re creatives; we rush in with a million ideas for cool t-shirt designs while ignoring boring things like market demand. The solution to this all-too-common rushed approach is to test your merch before you sell it! Today we’re going to evaluate two means of testing merchandise: social media and dropshipping.
Social Media Does NOT Equate to Sales
Being an artist, you’re an especially lucrative asset for the rapidly burgeoning creator economy. You have more leverage than you think; the Squarespace’s, Shopify’s and Bandzoogle’s of the world depend on your patronage. That’s why they spend so much time and money enticing you, and countless other aspiring musicians, into their stables. They’re selling you the promise of success in your dream job. However, these organizations don’t discriminate based on merit; the more paying customers (i.e. artists) they have the better! To them a musician with 100 monthly listeners is as valuable as one with 1,000 or 10,000. So long as you’re paying them, these companies will welcome you with open arms.
Unfortunately, this leads many DIY musicians to prematurely and inefficiently merchandise their brand.
Does this sound familiar?
If you get blinded by the hype these companies sell you, you might be enticed to post pics of your newly built merch to Instagram. Your fans and friends may like, comment, or even share their favorite designs. You see this as a green light to go ahead and order the merch. You launch your store and after a whole month, you’ve made no sales.
Testing products on social media like this is highly ineffective. Likes and comments on a pic of your band’s logo stamped onto a hoodie don’t necessarily equate to sales.
Sales Equate To Sales
Before Amazon was the ubiquitous “everything store” we know today, Jeff Bezos launched it as a simple landing page listing books for sale. He did this because books are relatively cheap and easy to ship. This meant books were an ideal way to test online retail viability. Only after this book-business began to take off did Amazon begin pursuing its broader commercial ambitions.
Bezos had a hypothesis about online shopping and he proved it by spending as little money as possible.
This is the approach all entrepreneurs, including musicians, should take. Too often, we get swept up in the hype. We bulk order ten different shirt designs and… sell few if any. This pouring of money into a product with no proof of sales is a recipe for disaster. Instead of bulk ordering merch, artists should invest in dropshipping (i.e. print on demand).
This allows fans to give direct feedback which artists can use to refine their sales offerings. The musician is able to document the preferences of their fans, leading to answers to some of these questions;
Which designs sell best?
Which sell the worst?
What payment methods do your fans prefer?
Which products are ordered together?
This all allows you to better understand your market and better serve them (all while not having to drop a few grand on t-shirts that will inevitably end up unsold).
Takeaway
Selling merchandise is imperative to achieving a sustainable income as a musician. Testing merchandise is imperative to achieving these sales. Without proper research, you will not effectively turn your fans into customers.