Three Things I'm Watching in Artist Merch Right Now

Spent last week looking at what's new in artist merch. Three things I'm watching that most of the industry is still under-indexing on:

1. Mobile Ordering at the Show

Fans scan a code at their seat, the merch meets them at the concourse or ships home. I've seen single-night totals run well past what the same room would have done at a traditional booth, mostly because you stop losing the people who won't stand in a 40-minute line during the encore.

Skip The Line reported one case study hitting $60,000+ in merch sales in a single night with mobile ordering. That's not replacing the booth — it's capturing sales that would have walked out the door.

2. TikTok Shop

The platform moved $84.3B in GMV last year and artists running exclusive drops into that pipeline are seeing returns that used to require a full DTC build. Discovery and checkout in the same scroll is a different business than running fans from a video to a Shopify link.

84% of songs that entered Billboard's Global 200 went TikTok-viral first. The artists who are meeting fans where discovery happens are the ones capturing the moment.

3. Livestream Auctions on Whatnot

Vinyl variants, test pressings, signed pieces, one-of-ones. It's catalog monetization for the artists who have it and a real second life for inventory that used to sit. The format rewards personality, which most artists already have and most brands don't.

Whatnot hit $8B in sales last year, doubling from 2024. This isn't eBay — it's QVC for the TikTok generation, and vinyl dealers are running auctions 6-7 days a week.

What are you seeing work?