How to sell merch as an independent musician without breaking the bank
It’s weird to try to act like an influencer, but I found something that’s worth influencing and they gave me an affiliate link so here goes nothing. I’ve made a decent amount of money through merch sales online by using print on demand and it’s been huge for me.
As an independent musician with very little budget I always avoided getting merch printed. I got about 100 t-shirts printed for a band I was in a few years ago and it was a huge hassle. We had to pay someone to design the t-shirt graphic and then pay a company to print and ship the shirts. We probably spent $500-$750, which was a lot of money for us at the time. I’m guessing we sold 7 shirts at $15 a pop, so a total of $105 in revenue. I would lug these shirts to all of our shows and nobody would buy them. We gave more of them away. Eventually I got so tired of having the box sitting in my basement that I donated the rest to Goodwill.
But wasn’t awareness worth giving them out for free? Awareness doesn’t pay rent or studio time. Plus, the band broke up.
After I started Matt Derda & the High Watts we started to get a little online fan base. People started asking me all of the time for merch. There was a couple of problems 1. We don’t really play outside of Chicago so most of our fans couldn’t come to a show and buy merch 2. I didn’t want to pay to have a ton of shirts printed, worry about shipping them out myself, and storing them in my house. That’s when I discovered Printful, which can print merch on demand.
Before I continue on, I’ll give you my Printful Affiliate link to create your own account and start selling merch. Below I’ll give you some more tips and boil it down the details for you.
What’s Great About Printful?
They print merch ondemand. You don’t have to pay anything upfront, they only take money when you make a sale. It’s like Bandcamp for merch. You can pick the merch, add your own design, and set your price points so you can make a decent profit. You can also order samples for free or at a discount. You can also offer merch to anyone around the world, not just limited to people at your shows. They handle everything, the printing, shipping and payment. I’m also not limited to how many items I can list. Plus they have a lot of options outside of just t-shirts that you can slap a design on and sell.
From just casually offering fans t-shirts through social media, I’ve sold over 50 shirts and made over $500. That’s a pretty big deal for a small independent band. We put all of the money we make from t-shirts towards studio time and making our next record.
Where to sell merch?
Another great thing about Printful is they integrate into pretty much any website or ecommerce platform. I use Squarespace for this site. I can easily integrate Printful into my site. When I create a new item in Printful, I just click ‘add to store’ and it automatically lists the item on my website. I can set up PayPal or Stripe to collect payment. Printful takes a cut, prints the shirt, and ships it directly to the person. You can do the same with Etsy, shopify, and other eCommerce platforms. You can create a single item and list it on multiple stores.
Printful’s Product Templates Page
After you design a product template click Add to store and it will be listed on your website or eCommerce store.
Ok, but how do I design my merch?
I like to use Canva. I’ve gotten pretty good at it too. It’s really easy and fun. They have a lot of templates to use, but I recommend using the templates for inspiration. Pull pieces from different templates to create your own custom design. Otherwise, it feels like cheating. In my opinion, the Canva Pro membership is worth it. I also use it for my business though too.
Canva Example
The template is to the left. See how I used it as inspiration to create my own design? I might tweak this even further and actually add it to my store.
I’ve actually had so much fun designing and creating merch, that I’m going to expand and offer items outside of our band. I might start a separate Etsy shop.
If you are an independent musician, artists or just someone looking for a side hustle, I cannot recommend Printful enough. Use my affiliate link to get started.