The Merch Dilemma
I’ve never really been a fan of logos on sweatshirts because I resent being used as a mobile advertising hoarding! I don’t much care for tour itineraries on the back of t-shirts because the way I see it, once they’re done, they’re done. It’s a personal thing. Others should do as they like in spite of my grumbling! But most of all, I struggle with the environmental consequence of too much product, while at the same time completely understanding why musicians need additional income streams.
Ah. That word ‘stream’. Music fans used to buy music almost exclusively from record shops, but music is consumed very differently these days. The insulting rates per play offered by multinational streaming platforms owned largely by multi-millionaires are not always as ‘good’ for the artist as at first it may seem. Taking Spotify as the most obvious example, no musician earns anything from them until such time as they’ve achieved 1,000 song streams. Spotify then take a cut. After all, their little business has to make money too! They generally take 30%, with independent artists who self-release taking the rest. Musicians working with a publisher and/or signed to a label will have to give away more of their share. So yes, I completely get why independent musicians need to sell merchandise. It’s an important part of our armoury.
Beware of Greenwash!
A couple of years ago I became really irritated by one of the music support agencies – it might have been the Music Venues Trust but I honestly can’t remember – selling sustainably manufactured t-shirts. I asked them several times in a public social media post where the t-shirts were actually manufactured. They eventually came back with a form of words, without actually answering this important question. I had a similar issue with the UK government agency WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) when I was ordering a water butt ‘made from recycled materials’ about 20 years ago. My question then was “what is the source of your recycled materials?” They also came back with a form of words, so I persisted. They eventually admitted in writing that the recycled materials were sourced from China, and justified that by adding ‘otherwise containers we send over there would come back empty’. Hmm. Little did they know I was an international trade specialist at the time, but it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to work out that many times more containers leave China for the UK than ever leave the UK for China.
The Path of Merch
Putting aside the recycling argument for now, when a product is sourced from another country it is generally transported on a truck to a distribution point then carried to port in a container on the back of a truck. Most take space in a ship’s hold, and that ship will use a huge amount of fuel to transport that container and thousands of others to their respective destinations, whereupon the container will be put on the back of another truck to take it to a distribution depot. Good are then distributed mainly by road to a retailer or wholesaler. Yes, you can divide the impact of that by the many thousands of products that are shipped in any single container, but the fact remains that in a world currently in an existential climate crisis, we really need to look at the way in which we sell or consume physical goods.
Simple Solutions
The ‘Merch Dilemma’ isn’t going away anytime soon, but there are easy things that artists and consumers alike can do to mitigate its environmental impact. It starts with the buyers: anyone who buys anything. If a buyer stops buying, demand falls away. If artists see demand falling away, they will react. It starts with simple questioning, as simple as ‘where in the world do you have your cups manufactured?’ Most musicians won’t have a clue, but the fact that the question was asked in the first place might set them thinking about where they source their merchandise.
Those who do think about these things might say “I did a deal with a ceramics factory in Stoke on Trent”. That would mean one shipment direct by courier between the manufacturer and the seller. No containers. No ships. No aeroplanes. Minimal fuel. Supporting local employment. Known manufacturer.
It’s so easy to find out more about the origin of the main ingredients for ceramic cups. The UK retains a positive trade balance in Kaolin (China Clay), exporting £15.2 million and importing £1.5 million (mainly from the USA, Germany, Belgium, China, and India). That means that if you source from a UK factory, there’s a reasonable likelihood that your cup will have been made there, from materials largely of UK origin. You can apply that principle to almost any product on earth: t-shirts, CDs and their cases, vinyl, USB sticks, coasters, etc. Some products aren’t made here, and that gives us other choices.
Musicians should use the unique selling point (USP) that their merchandise is locally sourced, sustainably produced etc. but they can play a direct part in reversing the trend of needlessly shipping millions of small items across the planet. It’s very easy to check by the way! I know at least one of the sources for my own future merchandise, which need not be expensive, but it should always come from the heart. Food for thought – I hope.
Peace.
John