The merch table basics you need to know...

So what goes on a merch table?

1. Make all your signage for your merch big and clear. Don’t try and make cool looking signs with crazy writing and write big. Lets be honest people at your shows may be a little intoxicated and won’t have the best vision when they want to purchase something from your table. So make it easy on them and write big and clear.

2. Hang out at your booth a little before you play and for a while after you play. You don’t have to hang out there all night if you have someone working it for you, but being at your table before and after you play will give your fans a chance to connect with you. They feel like you are just as normal as them and will feel inclined to buy some merch. Unless you are on rockstar stadium level there should be no reason why you can’t hang at your booth for hour or two talking with fans. At the smaller club level you can’t afford to be known as the band who sound good but are a bunch of jerks no one likes.

3. Set up your booth where everyone can see it. Have you ever been to a show and can’t find the band's merch table cause it’s hidden in the back or in a corner noone goes to. I once went to a venue to see a fairly popular band and couldn’t find their merch table so I really thought they didn’t have one which sucked cause I wanted a shirt. At the end of the night when they were finishing their set they told everyone to stop by their merch table and pick up merch, then said it’s under the stairs. I went to the back of venue and sure enough under the stairs there was the table. Very bad location. So pick somewhere everyone will see it.

4. Always have change. Just like any business out there make sure you have change ready to give yours fans. Nothing is more irritating than going to show wanting a shirt that's $15 and handing the dude a 20 and him saying “I don’t have change you will have to buy something else for $5” No, no I don’t have to buy something else, I do anyways cause I want the shirt and to support music I like, but I along with your fans shouldn’t have to buy more cause you won’t carry change.

5. Get an e-card reader. We are in a new day and age of music, most artist will deal in cash only cause it’s easier and quick, but in todays world you can actually accept cards now at your shows through apps and e-card readers on your phone. I myself love seeing this, I never have cash on me and if I do it’s usually just enough to get in the show and have a few drinks, so if an artist says they accept cards I’m like “Hell Yeah!” and probably buy more than usual. Check out Square, Paypal, and Inuit to get started.

6. Give fans more options. When you first start out having a shirt, some buttons, and your demo for sales is good, but when you start gaining a real following and are playing more places around town and touring you need more. Start offering more shirt designs on different color shirts (see our post on saving money on merch), start offering hoodies, stickers  with different logos, buttons with different logos, hats, vinyls, and posters, really the possibilities are endless. I have beer mugs with band logos, air fresheners with bands logos, and other random things just cause.

7. Always keep track of what you are selling. You may think “dude I don’t want to keep track that’s pointless, we are just a band.” While true also not helpful. Say you play a city on your tour and you sold out of some shirts, you don’t know how many cause you didn’t keep track, then this time next year you play there again, how many shirts should you bring? Yea Math I hate it but it’s important to know how much of your merch items you should bring to shows and on tour.

8. Keep your merch booth portable. Make sure you can bring all that goes with your merch booth anywhere you go with your music. If you leave for show and say “Man we don’t have room for our merch table.” Then it’s time to rethink things. You want it to be portable for several reason, 1 so you can bring it on tour and to shows, 2 for quick sets up and teardowns, and 3 you have to carry your other heavy equipment around why would you want to carry a heavy merch booth too.

9. Always take their cash. Listen you are a musician whether you are small time or playing big clubs, the most important thing to you is your fans and getting them the merch they want when they don’t have enough will make them happy, and next time they may buy more and tell their friends how cool you were about it. We have all been there you are at a show you want to buy the bands CD and all you have is $7 and the CD is $10. The guy at the table says “Sorry bro it’s $10.” and you walk away or buy something that is $7 or less. Don’t be that guy, if you have someone wanting to buy your merch and they are a little short TAKE THE MONEY! You need it and they want the merch. They are a fan and you can’t afford to lose any fans. I’m not saying sell them your $10 CD for $2, but if they are just a few bucks short, so them your cool about it and you care about every fan.

10. Pay your merch table person! Who ever you get to run your merch table whether it’s a friend, your girlfriend, or your mom pay them some how. You may think it doesn’t matter but that person is taking time out of their life to support your music and they deserve to know that what they are doing matters. Buy them food, beer, clean the house, vacuum their car, something. Don’t just be the artist who expects something for nothing.

Good luck, have fun with it and if you have any Qustions - contact us at www.printon-demand.com or tweet us @printon_demand for an answer.

Maximise Your Merch Sales…

Anyone in a band will know the CD sales are falling and it's now imperative to maximise merch sales MP3 and now vinyls are they way to go. The Big record labels now do what is called a 360 deal where they now make artist share merch sale profits with them. It's kind of like you can't have your cake and eat it too, expect they are. Taking the time to really get and create good merch is important, it reflects on artist if they don't have good merch, Especially if you are selling a white Gildan t-shirt with a simple black logo for $25, come on man, they shirt cost you about $6 to buy and print it. When bands release a new albums and a t-shirt that matches the album you want to buy it and support your favorite band, but now they have to share that hard earned money with the record label, which sucks! Hopefully this post will help you better understand how your band can make more money for your merch and make better decision on merch.





• Limited-edition merch I mean who out there doesn't love limited edition merch when it comes to your favorite band. Number some of your albums , print up some exclusive posters or even a short run of t-shirts specific for a tour/release will go a long way for your band.

• Sticking with limited edition merch, making limited edition merch bundle packages is another great deal to offer. Say you have a new album coming out, you make a bundle pack that includes the album, a shirt, and some stickers for X amount of dollars, but make those stickers and shirts an exclusive bundle pack only.

• Innovative and strange merch. Make yourself stand out from the pack! There's loads of extreme examples in this Buzzfeed article. From action figures to snuggies to cycling jerseys - maybe your band can't go that extreme just yet but even the influx of Christmas jumpers (EG: Slayer, Descendents, Blink 182) could easily be mimicked by a band of any size. The Green Day brain-shaped CD is the first CD that I remember as standing out as a unique piece of merch.

• Know who you are selling to! Make a connection with your fans and make sure people know you have merch for sale online as well as at shows. Promote yourself! So many artist don't even promote themselves for their online store, they forget to mention it at their show or don't even think about mentioning it on their social media pages. So do yourself a favor and promote your online store!

• Hang out at your merch booth, so many artist don't do this. If you hang out there fans see you as a real person and you make connections with them and they feel more inclined to buy merch from you there.

• Trade your merch with other bands and artist, give shirts to more famous people (if you meet some) because when people see their favorite band wearing your shirt, they want to know who you are and then they to become a fan of your music cause it's awesome!

• Have someone who is good with meeting and talking to people they don't know work your merch table, don't put your bass player who hates people work your merch table, cause that dude is dick and no one wants to deal with a dick.

• Artwork! I think this is one of the most important things. Please make sure your artwork is good! The better it is, the more likely it is that you're gonna sell things. If you've got some money, pay an artist to create you something or think of a good idea and get drawing! But really you should pay a good artist to do it, you don't want pixelated art work on anything. Ask for Vector artwork.

• Similar to the one above but if you get a good artist to design you a gig poster, why not sell the poster on as merch? Maybe even screen print some posters... we all know how big the poster scene is at the moment.

• Don't just go for the cheapest merch about. If your merch falls apart after a few washs or a few weeks you have a problem. Don't be cheap you can find quality merch from quality places for good prices. You want your fans rockin your stuff 5-6 years from now saying "Yeah I got this when they were first starting out, I'm a old school fan."

• Build fan loyalty! Offer loyalty programs and promo codes to fans. You have a fan that has bought $100 worth of merch then that fan deserves some kind of discount on their next order or maybe some special little things like a signed poster by the band or something. You have to think for a band that isn't as well known $100 is lot for a fan to spend.

• Maximise your online merch sales. Make sure you spread the word via your social platforms. How do your fans know about your new badass shirt or hoodie if you haven't sent a picture of it out on twitter or Instagram, they won't that's how! So send it out, offer up free stuff to the first X amount of people to get it to spread quickly.

So what are you doing still sitting there, get out there and get some merch!

The essential merch items you need...

So at The Yacht Club Co. where I work we pride ourselves on making hundreds of different print and merch items. We also pride ourselves on customer service, great turnaround times and giving all our great customers the experience they deserve. Here's what I believe to be the top ten most popular items for ever artist.

1) STICKERS:

Duh! Of course stickers are a must, whether they are vinyl cut, dye cut, or plan cheap stickers everyone loves stickers! Your fans put them everywhere, on poles, trashcans, cars, guitars, walls, etc... EVERYWHERE! 

2) BADGES/PINS:

Badges come in pretty much any size you need, from 1.25 to 5 inch badges. I don't know why you would want a 5 inch badge unless you are running for office, but hey it's available.

3) T-SHIRTS:

Another no brainer is t-shrits, if you are in a band or play any kind of music at all and want people to take notice having your own t-shirts is a must. If you don't have any then you should probably fix that. The best way for anyone to support your music is custom screen printed t-shirts. 

4) FLYERS:

Yea maybe the internet should have killed flyers, but it didn't. Why didn't it? Well mainly because word of mouth and face to face interactions are still the best ways to spread the word. Also people love collecting flyers from artist to show that they remember that band when they were starting out. I know I do! I still have some flyers with bands on them before they were even well known, back when they played clubs not amphitheaters.

5) POSTERS:

Much like flyers posters are another thing your fans will love collecting. I myself have tons of posters from bands at the club level that I would rip the poster off the wall and take it home and put it up in my bedroom.

6) BUSINESS CARDS:

Business cards are more for the professional musicians and wedding bands, not so much the rock bands. But not bad for the rock bands either. As a musician meeting people in the industry or people to help you get to where you want to be a business card can be a quick "here you go" to someone. It's easy for them to slip it in there pocket and you don't have to explain all your contact and social media information to them.

7) BEANIES:

I love beanies! I think beanies are like hoodies, everyone has them and everyone has 20 of them. I think I had a beanie from every band I liked going up and probably still do. Though they are more for the cold months, they are popular year round. Your fans will love sporting your badass logo on there sweetass beanie! I know I would!

8) MUGS:

Who doesn’t love custom mugs for coffee or whatever else you are putting in there. Wink wink. The mug is something that people cherish, and they take better care of their mugs than they do most other personal items. Think about it everyone has that favorite go to mug, so why shouldn't it be your logo!

9) NOTEBOOKS:

This item I never really had myself but over the years I have seen this go in popularity, can't really explain much about this other than it's a notebook with your bands logo. You can get some awesome picture on there, or have it screen printed.

10) PHONE CASES:

Last but not least, the phone case! Yea I know who would have thought phone cases would be a popular merch item for bands, but it is. With everyone and their mothers, mothers, mother having a phone now a days you can't afford not to get in on the action. There are so many endless options for what style of case to what color to what logo you put on it. Try it out, just buy a couple and put them on your merch table at your next show. Someone will buy them I know it!

Thanks for reading, check back a few times a week as I will be posting a lot about band merch, where to get screen printing done, and how to open a web store in the coming days. Contact us at www.printon-demand.com follow us @printon_demand

So you want to put out your own vinyl...

To make a vinyl or not to make a vinyl?

It’s no secret that vinyls have made a triumphant return to the music industry. For so many years they were just locked away in your parents basement or in your grandmother's attic. Most people didn’t even know how to operate a record player until the last few years. But now… now vinyls are the new hottest to you and your friends. You have vinyl parties and everyone listen to old and some new records, and it got you thinking that you want to put out your own vinyl for your music. But is it worth it?

The answer… Hell Yeah it’s worth it!

Vinyls will last a lifetime and your fans will cherish that record for years to come, telling friends and family all about the time they saw your band play and they just had to have your record. But putting out just a vinyl is just half of it. By putting out your own vinyl you have told the world and your fans “We are here to blow your minds!” You are showing them you are to be taken seriously and you’re not just some band playing songs about an ex while drinking beer in your drummer's garage, but you are the next big thing that everyone should be talking about and coming to see play on Saturday night.

Once you have decided that having your own vinyl would be awesome how to go about making one. Well there are so many places online that will put your music on vinyl and hook you up with a great looking record with a great sleeve to hold it. But what about the quality? You don’t want to just put any old music on vinyl, vinyls have a different sound putting your demo you made at a friends house on 4 track or with some cheap online recorder is just a waste of money. You want to make sure the songs you are putting on your vinyl are good quality, use an actual recording studio or have some master those recordings you made with the online recorder and let them know you want to put it on vinyl so they will work harder to make it sound legendary.

But is the vinyl enough to satisfy your fans?

Maybe some, but not all. Honestly buying just a vinyl with no download code is risky, some musicians out there can pull it off but not all. Really when you think about it sucks to buy the vinyl of band you love for $25 then have to turn around and pay $10 bucks to buy the same album online just so you can listen to it everywhere else you don’t have your record player. Unless you have record player rigged up in your car, which would be pretty awesome if you did, but highly unlikely and it would probably skip a lot.

So if you decide to pay the money to put your music on vinyl for your fans and lets be honest for yourself make sure to put a free album download with it or something else with it.
Don’t be the artist who just sells a vinyl alone with no extras, unless it’s just a 7 inch, you could get away with just a 7 inch.

Once you have made your vinyl how are you going to sell it?

Well first you make sure to get the word out that you are making a record and start by doing pre-orders. Pre-orders will give you a good idea of how many vinyls you need to have pressed, but it’s also a great way to tie in other merch. You do pre-order bundle packs with the vinyl, a shirt, and your stickers for X amount of money or for X amount fans get the vinyl and shirt, offering 2 or 3 bundle packs will give yours fans more options for their money. Once your pre-orders are in where are you going to sell your leftover vinyls? Well for starters you sell them at your shows, but that’s not enough, you also need to sell them online through a webstore, but then you have to do shipping and fulfillment for it. printon-demand.com does artist fulfillment for all your merch as well as printing all your, so you can call us and we can take care of it for you and set you up with a great webstore.