Shopify and Spotify: how it works
Spotify started a partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify in 2021, allowing artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, giving them the opportunity to market their merchandise directly to fans through the Spotify app. Here is everything you need to know about setting this up for your own artist profile.
Shopify makes it simple for artists to manage inventory and control which items are featured on their profiles. For example, out-of-stock items get automatically removed from your profile. As soon as you’re ready to drop new merch, you’ll immediately be able to share it with fans and capitalise on your release moments so that they can browse your merch while they stream your new music.
Listing your merch on Spotify with Shopify is easy. All you need to get started is admin access to your Spotify for Artists account and a Shopify store, before you can go ahead and connect the two.
- Log in to artists.spotify.com
- Click View Profile in the top-left
- Click MERCH
- Click Connect store
- Enter your Shopify store URL and click Link shop. This is the URL in the address bar when you’re on your Shopify store (e.g. “your-store-name.myshopify.com”).
- Log in to Shopify, then follow the steps to set up your accounts.
Note: You’ll be prompted to Add sales channel, accept the terms, and choose the artist you want to link your shop to.
Once this is set up, you'll be able to choose the three items from your store you want to feature on your artist profile. The products will then become available at the bottom of your artist profile under 'Merch'.
As of recently, Spotify has added merch to more surfaces throughout their listening experience, making it easier than ever for fans to find and purchase your merch as they are listening to your music.
- You can now tag your merch items with relevant releases so they automatically appear on album and single release pages - one of the best-selling surfaces - and in the ‘Now Playing’ view.
- You can now select a merch item as your Artist Pick, giving your vinyls or t-shirts top billing on your artist profile. You can only set this up on the web version of Spotify for Artists.
- Fans can now click “Browse all merch” from any merch details page to see all the items you have published through Spotify for Artists, letting them shop until they drop. Fans can also see all your published merch by clicking on “See More” under the merch module in your profile on iOS.
You can find more information on how to list Shopify merch here.