14 DAY TRIAL // Music is a big draw for YouTube. Music videos from big artists or just people with a webcam and a guitar generate quite a lot of traffic for the site and, since so many people come to YouTube to listen and discover music, a lot of artists have set up shop on the site.
Now, YouTube is giving them the possibility to quite literally set up shop on the site, with The Merch Store, a way of selling music, tickets, t-shirts and so on right inside YouTube.
"With 800 million people per month coming to YouTube, you have a pretty big stage to share your music, and now we’re adding features to also make YouTube your box office, merchandise table and music store," YouTube announced.
"We’re launching a feature called the Merch Store that will allow YouTube partners to offer fans merchandise directly on your channel," it said.
"Fans will be able to buy artists’ merchandise, digital downloads, concert tickets and even unique experiences like meetups," it added.
The Merch Store will enable musicians to sell directly to their fans on YouTube itself, a great move for anyone involved.
While plenty of artists have found alternative ways of making money as musicians, since selling music alone is not going to pay the bills for many, they still have to get people to visit their official sites or other sites that don't really have anything to do with the music.
By getting the stuff they sell in front of people in the place they're most likely to see it means more music, posters, concert tickets and so on sold.
YouTube is rolling out the feature to music partners over the coming weeks. Partners will be able to set up the store and sell their stuff via various third-parties, music via iTunes and the Amazon MP3 Store, Songkick for concerts, Topspin for posters, concert tickets and other items.