ARTICLES

Selling Your Band's Merchandise

By: Gian Erguiza - February, 2008

Selling your band merchandise seems like a breeze right? Wrong. Some people don’t sell a single thing to anyone not unless the person is family or friend. Why? It is because you are not utilizing what you can do to sell the merchandise. There are various tips and tricks you can learn by doing this but selling merchandise can be pretty helpful, especially when you’re out on the road. Selling your merchandise can mean your lunch, dinner or gas for the next stop, next city.

The first tip we can offer in helping you sell your merchandise is: Location. It is fairly important that you have a merch booth or you can borrow one of the tables from the club and set it up. Make sure that you have your bands banner on the booth so people can see where they can purchase your merch. Make sure also that you set up your merch booth close to where people always go in and out, where there is the most traffic. In this case, stay close to the entrance or the bathroom since these two locations will always have the traffic at high speed.

Now at your merch booth should have a variety of items that people can gawk at while you give them your sales pitch. T-shirts always look best when you have a board or fence displaying your shirts with the prices and available sizes. Make sure that your CD is on display at your table and always have some free stuff since people always love free stuff. You can always offer an incentive to people that when they buy your CD or T-shirts, they will receive a free sticker or buttons, whichever one you have. Remember also to always bring light. Most venues are dark and murky but if you have a light shining down on your merch, it makes people want to see what it is you’re selling. Like light to the flies. If they can’t see the merch, they won’t buy the merch, simple as that.

If sales are a bit slow or people are kind of eager to buy the merch cause of price or whatever the reason may be, offer a deal. Offer them a deal that instead of paying $20 for the CD and shirt, drop it down to $15 bucks for the both. Anything lesser than the original price should have people biting on the bait. Just make sure though that you are covering your costs so that you’re not losing in anyway. This tactic will also have people saying how nice you guys were that you actually made them a deal. Right. Put it this way, you’re not backing down on your stance of merch prices, you are merely selling more and gaining more attention rather than the guy next to you not selling diddley squat.

Selling your merch at shows is not enough. People usually bring no more than $15-$30 dollars and that’s to get in plus their water leaving them empty handed to buy your merch. This is when you’re online presence is going to count. Have a sign at your merch booth that indicates that “Merchandise available for purchase online,” this will get their curiosity going so make sure they know where to go online by adding on the sign in big letters, your website where they can purchase the merch. Having a merch distributor also helps. Having a merch distributor helps as far as when someone wants to buy your merch from another country or state, they calculate the cost of the shipping and handling.There are numerous merch distributors online that will handle all of the issues concerning shipping, handling and more getting that all out of your hair. You can do it yourself but what for? Let the pros deal with it.

Once you get a merch distributor set up, make sure there is a link on your website to your “storefront” and start promoting the hell out of it. Mention it onstage that you guys have a “storefront” online at this “address” a coulpe of times to embed it in their heads while promoting you merch booth at the same time. Make sure before you leave the stage that they will know where to buy your merch. Last but not least, make a flyer that tells people that you have an online “storefront” and give them the exact website address so they know where to buy your merchandise no questions asked. If there is a process that they have to go through online to buy your merch, make sure you tell them exactly how to do it. The flyers are good for after the show so you can pass them out religiously inside, outside and all around. This should help boost your sales. Now go out there and make some money.

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