Shopify and Spotify Become Ecommerce Partners

New Ecommerce Partners 🤝

It was announced only yesterday morning that the Spotify company has become the latest Shopify ecommerce partner and we couldn’t be more excited about this collaboration.

With the power that Shopify’s ecommerce platform beholds and Spotify’s influence within the music and now podcast industry, the two companies have decided to merge their services to allow artists who utilise both services to connect their Spotify profile with a Shopify store.

What does this latest update mean for merchants? Well, artists will be in a stronger position to market their merchandise directly to fans on Spotify through the app.

After users have connected their Spotify for Artists account with a Shopify store, it’s time to sync the product catalogue with Shopify to showcase the products of their choosing on their Spotify profile. Doing this will enable fans to browse products and make purchases from their favourite artists on the platform.

The integration is expected to become an additional revenue stream for artists that have not yet established a merchandise website. Additionally, this partnership is expected to provide those who already have a website with another reason why they should make the switch to Shopify. So, it’s a win-win situation for both platforms.

Shopify has stated that their platform already plays host for thousands of artists who are expanding their businesses beyond music to build fully realised brands.

Additionally, Shopify’s Director of Products, Amir Kabbara stated that “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 monetise, and to experiment with their brands through commerce.”

Shopify has declared that its larger app ecosystem could accommodate artists when it comes to enabling new services, such as print-on-demand or product discovery tools.

The platform’s infrastructure is known for its ability to manage high volumes of traffic. So, for the users who have large followings, coping with a surge of website visitors will be like a piece of cake for Shopify, which is a fundamental attribute for artists who are looking for a reliable space to drop products and launch new collections.

While the partnership between these two industry giants is a buzz-worthy one, it’s not the first time that the Spotify company has taken action to provide artists with the opportunity to market their merchandise through its application.

For many years, Spotify offered artist profile integrations with other merchandise service providers such as Merchbar and in previous years, BandPage and Topspin have also been ecommerce partners of the platform.

With Merchbar, artists can select three products to showcase on their profile, but now artists using Shopify can do the same thing.

To get started, artists will first need to log into their 'Spotify for Artists' account and access their dashboard on the desktop, then click ‘Profile’ and select ‘Merch’.

From there, users will be able to pick the three items from their Shopify store to feature on their profile. At present, artists are only able to connect to one Shopify store, but we suspect that this may change in the future.

To encourage sign-ups, Shopify is offering a free trial for 90 days straight to all Spotify artists who sign up for the very first time. However, it’s important to bear in mind that the feature is currently in beta mode, so it’s still in the early stages of trial and error.

While all global artists can link their Spotify profile to a Shopify store, it should be noted that any existing merch will only appear to listeners in; Australia, Canada, New Zealand the U.K. and the U.S. at this current time, but again, we think that this list will expand once the feature comes out of trial and error stages.

We here at Karmoon believe that this partnership is a major step forward for both new and established artists who are looking to make themselves known through ecommerce outside of their talent and who better to give the task of making this possible to Shopify and the Spotify company?

Each of these ecommerce partners has similar interests in aiding the new creator economy, though with different focus areas, which is what makes this collaboration so unique. Shopify sees its ecommerce platform as a complement to creator businesses of all kinds, while Spotify’s interest is focused on the success of music artists and now, podcast creators too.

In the past, Spotify has rolled out a plethora of tools in the creator space, including those for; ticketing, tipping and Fans First emails, to help artists grow their larger businesses, but it was earlier this year that Spotify’s CEO (Daniel Ek) and Shopify’s CEO (Tobi Lütke) participated in a Clubhouse session where they discussed the many ways in which creators are beginning to diversify their monetisation strategies.

During this time, Ek hinted toward the possibility of working more closely with Shopify, as it was noted how many artists were already using the platform.

Ek stated - “Almost every successful creator now is omni-talented and omnichannel. That means that they are on YouTube putting up videos. They are on Instagram. They are perhaps putting together brands and putting it on Shopify, but they’re also putting out music and merchandise on Shopify and music on Spotify, of course, and touring.

So, they’re really just doing a multitude of different things and connecting with their fan bases across many different platforms.”

We for one are very eager to see the success that this new feature is bound to bring to users across the two platforms. What are your thoughts on Shopify and Spotify becoming ecommerce partners? Reach out and let us know.

If you’re actively looking to work with a Shopify agency designer or developer to assist you with your business, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch to get started!