Merch…ideas/Help/Experience

[AndyTravis]

Well, we’re busy from next month - 4 festivals and a really decent “arena” gig - ok, it’s called an arena but it’s a 750 seat venue…

 

We’re talking about T-Shirts as “merch” 

 

Has anyone done this - is it a big headed nonsense idea?

 

Does anyone have experience with this?

 

positive and negative tales welcome.

 

i was thinking basic logo tees at £10 a pop.

 

 

[Happy Jack]

You'll need to have them available in five or six sizes, and then all your potential buyers will ask ,"Do you have it in blue?" ...

[Lozz196]

In my old band we sold loads of tees, had many different designs as well. The main thing I’d say about merch is make it clear that it’s available, just announcing you have some isn’t enough, have it hanging up somewhere with the prices clear. We found that most sales take place at the end of the evening if regular gigs, or immediately after a set if a festival so have someone available to look after the sales whilst the band sort out the gear. 

Edited June 30 by Lozz196

[Bolo]

Look at stickers, sew-on patches, logo sunglasses, socks, keychains, i.e. cheap-ish, easy to pick up 80-90 styled wearables.

[gafbass02]

In my ‘big gig’ days, we broke even on tours thanks to the merch, it really did make all the difference, albeit due to some agreement with the record company who funded it if I recall correctly.

[Doctor J]

We did t-shirts in the past, they sold well, what Lozz says is bang on. Get more M, L and XL made than S and XXL. While branded tat is great and all, don't lose sight of the fact that you're a band and your music is what will draw people to your t-shirts. Make sure people can listen to you, first, and wear your branding, second.

 

I was in Germany a few weeks ago, I went to a couple of gigs while there. At one of them, I got talking to the guitarist of one of the support bands as we were leaving, it went like this:

 

Hi, really enjoyed your set, you lads are from England?

"Thanks, yeah, we're from London"

Great. I had a look at the t-shirt stall, no CDs, you're not selling any music? Are you on Bandcamp or anything like that?

"No, we have merch"

Yeah, that's nice. I'm 50, though, I'm not really interested in merch, I want to listen to music.

"You could take one of these?" 

 

...and proceeded to hand me a sticker with a poxy QR code on it

 

Super, thanks, yeah. See ya.

 

The QR code just lead to a facebook page where, again, there was no music. Lots of updates and photos but a band whose music you cannot listen to. Consider my interest lost.

 

They have merch though 🤦🏻‍♂️

[Mykesbass]

What's the logo? Does it work well (really well) as white on black? If not, you may want to push it up to £15 and go less basic.

 

Do you know the type of audience you attract? Is it nearly old XXL blokes or do you need a women's fit style? 

 

As with @Doctor J please have a CD available.

 

Finally, get a contactless payment gizmo. So few people carry spare cash these days.

 

Extra finally - whole band on merch stand to chat and sign, yes sign, stuff. I couldn't believe it when I was asked to sign our CD, and even a set list!

Edited July 1 by Mykesbass

[BigRedX]

Loads of experience with band T-shirts for many different bands. This is what I have discovered.

 

1. Unless you have a strong visual image that always features a particular 2-3 colour palette stick to black T-Shirts with a white or light coloured print. Everyone likes a black T-Shirt. When I've done white or coloured T-shirts (I was once in a band that had a very strong visual identity based around yellow with red and black, so we had yellow shirts with red and black print) they have never sold as well as black ones.

 

2. No matter how many young skinny hipsters there are in your audience, IME the people who buy band T-Shirts are mostly L and bigger. The number of unsold Terrortones T-Shirts in S, M and ladies fit sizes will attest to that. By all means have a range of sizes but make at least 2/3 of them L and XL or bigger.

 

3. If you want to make money out of selling T-shirts, screen printing is the way to go. 100 T-shirts with a single colour print on one side should still work out at under £5 per shirt which means you should be able to make at least 100% profit on every shirt you sell for £10. IMO 100 T-shirts is a minimum order to make it worth while. The more you can get printed in an order the cheaper the unit price becomes.

 

4. It might sound boring, but T-shirts that obviously feature the band logo always sell well, and have the advantage of turning your audience into walking advertisements for your band. If you want to do something clever, think about printing back and front with the band logo on one side and the clever bit on the other. IME clever T-shirts look great but don't sell as well as ones that are obviously for the band.

 

5. Store them neatly with the size (and the design if you have multiple designs) clearly labeled. No-one will buy a T-shirt that looks like it's been used to clean the floor of the band van.

 

6. As others have said have someone working your merch table who isn't involved in having to pack the gear away. Your peak sales will be immediately after you have played and again just before kicking out time, so don't pack your merch away until the last punter has left the venue.

 

7. Get a card reader. Very few people carry cash to gigs these days. One of my bands has a Sumup machine and the other is still cash only and consequently doesn't sell much merch anymore. If you are taking cash make sure you have plenty of the right kind of change, because you can guarantee that first round of sales of a £10 T-Shirt will all be made with £20 notes.

[Len_derby]

In addition to @BigRedX’s excellent summary I’ll add; think about how you’ll store and keep the stuff between gigs and who has responsibility for transporting it back and forth. When I was in a band that shifted a lot of t-shirts we kept them in an old-style suitcase bought at a charity shop. It kept them clean and neat and when opened up on table looked good, and a little “spivvy”.  A bit Private Walker from Dad’s Army. 

[casapete]

Also probably worth checking if the venues you are planning to sell your merch at want

a cut of your takings. Theatres nearly always do this, as do arenas! The cut can range

from 10 to 25% from my experience, so allow for this in your costings & check with 

venues before jumping in. 

[BigRedX]

57 minutes ago, casapete said:

Also probably worth checking if the venues you are planning to sell your merch at want

a cut of your takings. Theatres nearly always do this, as do arenas! The cut can range

from 10 to 25% from my experience, so allow for this in your costings & check with 

venues before jumping in. 

 

I've only come across this twice in the last 15 years (both times at O2 Arenas).

[Lozz196]

Happened to us a couple of times. Very strangely in all of the comms that had been sent - lengthy comms mind - this wasn`t mentioned. So we said fine, you want a percentage get behind the desk and start selling.

[Elfrasho]

My band put ona 250 capacity show in May. We sold 4 tees at the event.

 

I know design,  colour, size availability etc could factor into how many you sell, but for me it was more hassle than it was worth! 

[BigRedX]

54 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Happened to us a couple of times. Very strangely in all of the comms that had been sent - lengthy comms mind - this wasn`t mentioned. So we said fine, you want a percentage get behind the desk and start selling.

 

At the two O2 Arena gigs I have done they had a single PoS location for festival and band merchandise with someone employed by the festival to sell all the merch, so IMO it was worth the 10 or 15% that they took.

Edited July 1 by BigRedX

[BigRedX]

37 minutes ago, Elfrasho said:

My band put ona 250 capacity show in May. We sold 4 tees at the event.

 

I know design,  colour, size availability etc could factor into how many you sell, but for me it was more hassle than it was worth! 

 

IME there is little point doing merch for a one-off gig unless you are a very well known band. Merch is a long term-investment. Even if you are only playing once a month 4 T-shirts sold at each gig should cover your costs in less than a year. Anything after that is profit.

[Lozz196]

11 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

At the two O2 Arena gigs I have done they had a single PoS location for festival and band merchandise with someone employed by the festival to sell all the merch, so IMO it was worth the 10 or 15% that they took.

That sounds very well organised, wouldn`t have had any issues with that as am sure the sales would have more than made up for the percentage. I think the places that tried it with us were just doing that, trying it on and when we gave them a Paddington stare decided not to pursue it. 

[casapete]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

I've only come across this twice in the last 15 years (both times at O2 Arenas).

As I said it’s been mainly theatres that we’ve experienced this with, and some ‘arenas’ too.

You wouldn’t believe what theatres try and get away with charging now ( not just for merch

but a myriad of other stuff) - it’s as if they’re trying to make up for losses incurred during

Covid shutdown.

I’m sure the more grass roots type of gigs are far more reasonable with bands wanting to

sell merch, realising for some it’s a vital source of income. 

 

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

Happened to us a couple of times. Very strangely in all of the comms that had been sent - lengthy comms mind - this wasn`t mentioned. So we said fine, you want a percentage get behind the desk and start selling.

More than once we declined selling merch when crazy charges suddenly appeared with no previous

mention in the terms agreed. Wouldn’t have been worth bothering with TBH. 

[TheRev]

I've been looking after the merch in my band for ten years and it's a significant part of our income, so it's worth doing if you do it properly and if you approach it as a long term thing, rather than just for 5 gigs.

 

In addition to all the excellent advice so far, I'd also suggest having a way of selling online - either a 'shop' as part of your Facebook page or a website like Big Cartel, so you can sell between gigs.

 

For long term sales it's also a good idea to bring out a new design every now and again.

[mike257]

On 30/06/2024 at 22:06, AndyTravis said:

Well, we’re busy from next month - 4 festivals and a really decent “arena” gig - ok, it’s called an arena but it’s a 750 seat venue…

 

We’re talking about T-Shirts as “merch” 

 

Has anyone done this - is it a big headed nonsense idea?

 

Does anyone have experience with this?

 

positive and negative tales welcome.

 

i was thinking basic logo tees at £10 a pop.

 

 

 

For festivals, you need to find out how they're managing merch sales. It varies depending on the size of the festival, but bigger, better organised ones will have a centralised merch setup where they'll sell for all bands and charge a commission. Also, with a festival - your schedule might have you in and out again in a few hours. If you want to make the most of sales you need to think about if you want your merch there for the duration of the weekend and not just the few hours you're on site, so you'd have to ship it in and out. You should be able to get this information from whoever you're advancing the festival show with. 

 

For the "arena" show - are you the headline artist or part of a bigger bill? Do you know if the venue charges a concession? If you're the main draw and selling enough tickets to fill a 750 cap room then it's absolutely worth your while to be selling merch. If you're the opener, your return on investment is going to be much smaller as people aren't there to see you specifically so you're a harder sell at the merch desk, by and large. 

 

As others have mentioned, many larger venues do levy a charge and it's not usually negotiable. What you get for your money varies wildly here. Some venues charge you for the privilege of selling under their roof and do nothing else to help. Others will provide sellers at one or more locations in the building, load your products on to their POS systems, count your stock in and out etc. Theatre venues usually charge 15-25% plus VAT commission on your sales. O2 Academy concession charges apply in most of their venues, where they contract a third party company (who are usually very good) to manage it, and have recently been reduced from 20% to 15% (again, plus VAT). If you negotiate not to use their in-house concession (or if you're in a venue in their chain that doesn't have one) you'll usually be charged 12p/head +VAT instead. 

 

Sometimes there's leeway for some of the above for support bands on a show but this is very much case-by-case and depends on who you deal with on the day and how well you sweet talk them. I've been spared commission altogether on support gigs, or had a threshold of sales put in place before it kicks in. 

 

If you're providing your own seller(s), you also need to factor in wages, and get your hands on a card terminal. Zettle and SumUp are both affordable to buy and have reasonable fees (around 2%). 

 

Keep accurate records - count out your inventory in good time at the show, and count it back in at the end of the night. Make sure your sales figures match your stock, and if you've had a venue concession sell for you, make sure their count matches yours. 

 

The figure used to track merch sales is the Sales Per Head - so divide your total revenue by the number of attendees at the show. Keeping tabs on this helps you make better projections in future for how much stock you need and how much you can expect to make. Some bands might average £2p/h, some sell by the bucketload and can hit £20p/h and beyond! All depends on your demographic, the quality of your merch, and how efficiently you're selling it, but having some history on what that number looks like for your band is really useful when deciding what to order next time out. 

 

If I can shamelessly plug a friend too, my go-to supplier is Ozzi at Oz Merch & Touring (https://www.ozmerchco.co.uk/). They deal with every flavour of band merch from small bands to huge ones and it's always good quality and reasonably priced. 

 

Edit to add:

 

Another important thing is how you present it. Think about display boards/grids to hang garments on, hangers if needed, making sure the display is presentable and well lit, and printing out signage for prices etc. a scruffy shirt gaffered to a wall in a dark corner isn't a great sales pitch.

Edited July 1 by mike257