Shopify and Spotify - The Collab You Needed

Spotify and Shopify are working together to help artists build brands that combine audio streaming and e-commerce. 

In a recent announcement, Spotify announced a new partnership with Shopify, which will enable artists on its service to link their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them to directly sell merchandise to their fans through the Spotify app. Artists will be able to sync their Shopify online store with their Spotify for Artists accounts so that their products become available on their Spotify profile. This form of Shopify marketing can really help indie musicians increase their already limited streams of income. 

Upon reaching your Artist profile page, fans will now be able to browse your merch and make purchases. Along with enabling easier access to artists' existing Shopify stores, this integration could offer artists who have not yet made themselves a merchandise website as an additional revenue stream.

Spotify’s History with Such Integrations

While the Shopify marketing move is significant, this is not the first time another company has partnered with Spotify to let artists market their merchandise through the Spotify for Artists. 

Spotify, for many years, has offered artist profile integrations with other merchandise service providers. As of now, this includes a deal with Merchbar, but previously, BandPage and Topspin had been partnered with as well. 

Merchbar allows artists to choose three products to display on their profiles. Shopify users can now do the same. 

What Does This Partnership Mean For Artists

Spotify says that this partnership will give “artists even more opportunity to grow additional revenue streams.” This is great, since Spotify’s streams aren’t going to be paying the bills any soon. 

The sad reality of Spotify streams aside, this integration with Spotify for Artists is indeed great news. Consider this: You might make the most beautiful merch on the market, but you might not have superfans yet that are willing to do the extra work of visiting your website to check it out in the first place. Even a casual listener can become a paying customer if they end up loving how your merch looks. Hence, your goal should also be to make merch that is objectively good-looking.

In any case, even if you do have superfans, it is always nice to have a little reminder of your merch’s existence on your Spotify profile that might really help drive sales.

How to Set Up Shop

For artists to list merchandise on Spotify with Shopify, they will need administrator access to their Spotify for Artists accounts and a Shopify store.

The first step to begin Shopify marketing for artists is to log into Spotify for Artists on their desktop, click the “Profile” tab, and then click “Merch.” From there, artists will get to select the three items from their Shopify store they want to feature on their Spotify profile. There is currently no way for artists to connect more than one Shopify store.

After a Shopify store is connected to Spotify, an artist can publish up to 250 items from Shopify directly to Spotify for Artists, and then choose up to three of them to appear on their artist page.

According to Spotify, Shopify will allow artists to manage inventory and control which products are featured on their profiles easily — for instance, out-of-stock items will be removed from profiles automatically.

To encourage sign-ups, Shopify is offering a 90-day free trial to all Spotify artists signing up for the first time.

This feature, however, is in "beta," Spotify says. This means that despite the fact that all artists worldwide can link their Shopify stores to their Spotify for Artists, the merch will only be available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. for the time being.

What Do The Companies Have to Say About This

According to Shopify, here are thousands of artists whose websites are powered by Shopify marketing, and they are taking their brands beyond music to build "fully realized" brands.

“Artists today are entrepreneurial. They’re building multifaceted brands and businesses, and now we’re making it easier for them to meet fans where they are. By bringing entrepreneurship to Spotify, we’re empowering artists to think beyond the traditional merch table with new ways to monetize, and to experiment with their brands through commerce,” said Shopify’s director of Product,  Amir Kabbara, in a statement.

Shopify and Spotify have different focus areas, but both the companies share an interest in enabling the new creator economy. The Shopify e-commerce platform is aimed at supporting creator businesses of all kinds, while Spotify's focus is on artists (and podcasters now). 

Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek, and Shopify's CEO, Tobi Lütke, participated in a Clubhouse session earlier this year where they discussed how creators are becoming more creative in their monetization strategies. Ek hinted at the possibility of collaborating with Shopify when he noted the number of artists already using the service.

As part of Spotify's creative space, the company has rolled out a number of other tools, including ticketing, tipping, and Fans First emails, to help artists grow their businesses. Speaking of helping artists grow their businesses, one of the most effective yet untapped ways of doing that is through SMS Marketing.