Crowd Outlet Seeks Your Crowdfunded Music For Post-Campaign Sale

I recently wrote about online outlets for crowdfunded products with a question about who would provide such services for digital music. Crowd Outlet founder Chris James responded with the news that they're very interested in selling musicians' crowdfunded products both physical and digital. Yesterday I spoke with him about the details including the fact that musicians who sign up in May can get a 50% reduction of Crowd Outlet's commission.

Crowd Outlet is a marketplace for crowdfunded products that offers post-campaign retail sales. It launched in early April so it's very much in the early stages of development and marketing but the basic pieces are all in place.

Tucson-based husband and wife team Chris and Melanie James began working on the idea back in August after successfully crowdfunding two board games, DiceAFARI and Off Your Rocker, and a related magazine, Casual Game Insider.

Though we didn't get into the details of their game-related activity, you can learn more in this Huffington Post interview with Chris James.

How Crowd Outlet Works

Crowd Outlet is pretty straightforward. They take orders, handle payments and offer direct digital downloads from the platform or pass information to creators so that they can ship physical goods. They charge 30% of the product pricing with no additional charges and all shipping fees collected pass through to the creator.

During May, they're offering creators who sign up a 50% reduction in their cut bringing their commission down to 15% of the sales price. In addition, James said they negotiate lower fees with nonprofits and don't want to turn anyone away. So if you end up with a product with an incredibly low margin, you should discuss the issue with him directly.

Crowd Outlet for Musicians

James said they were very interested in adding music and we discussed what the platform offers musicians.

Creators have the option of deciding exactly how their product will be described and what kind of visual assets are included. Of particular interest to musicians is the option to embed YouTube, Vimeo and Kickstarter videos.

James said that downloadable audio samples, including snippets, could be made available to shoppers. When I informed him of the widespread use of SoundCloud he immediately checked it out and soon after our interview I received an email informing me that they're also integrating SoundCloud for audio samples.

So, though they don't have a prior background in music retail, they are certainly responsive to the needs of musicians.

Special Marketing Opportunities

Music is also eligible for their Crowd Outlet Select Program which adds an additional marketing boost as well as reduced fees for those who don't sign up in May.

They're also working on a promotional effort with Kicktraq, a Kickstarter analytics service that I wrote about last year. Since then Kicktraq has expanded their site with Kickstarter news and listings for Kickstarter campaigns.

James said Kicktraq is now listing all Kickstarter campaigns and, starting in a month or so, each of those campaigns will have a link to Crowd Outlet product pages or an option to request that the creator make the product available on Crowd Outlet.

Additional features worth noting:

Shoppers can adjust currency on the fly so the site is designed for international sales.

Gift cards are available which can be purchased for delivery at a later date. Wishlists are available for shoppers who want products from Crowd Outlet as gifts.

The site is designed for mobile accessibility and also adjusts for retina displays.

If you're interesting in finding out more, check out their Vendor Information and get in touch. While you may want to save physical products for direct sale at shows or from your own site, given Crowd Outlet's fee-free approach, trying out digital music sales seems like a smart thing to do.

More:

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Guest Post on 05/01/2013 in Music Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Crowd Outlet Seeks Your Crowdfunded Music For Post-Campaign Sale

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