Watch: How music e-commerce is evolving in the digital age

Entertainment companies are seeking to modernize their e-commerce platforms to provide unique experiences to fans.

In brief

• Most of today's music revenue comes from streaming, opening new opportunities for direct-to-consumer connections between artist and fan.
• There is a new urgency for music companies to modernize their e-commerce platforms to provide unique experiences rather than just physical products.
• Learn how EY teams assist music industry clients to create global platforms to grow with the changing digital landscape.

Streaming services are now creating new direct-to-consumer opportunities between artists and fans and increasing urgency for music companies to improve their E-commerce platforms. With fans, turning to online experiences to connect with the artists they love, record labels must shift their commercial focus to meet fans where they are.

A patchwork of new technologies is making more intimate experiences possible, but threading those opportunities into a cohesive e-commerce strategy can be a challenge in and of itself. There's a plethora of new technologies that are really changing the way that artists can connect with their fans. The first is through e-commerce where companies are selling bespoke and innovative products to fans that they can find nowhere else in the world. Over time, the artists and fan experience will change, becoming more digital and more connected. We'll have better ways to link and speak to the fans about what they're ultimately needing.

E-commerce is no longer just online stores selling physical products. The music industry is beginning to create global networks that offer unique experiences to fans through online-only concerts, backstage experiences, virtual merchandise, and images or videos that are sold as NFTs. For record companies, this shift in consumer purchases from record sales to online experiences represents both a challenge and opportunity to help connect artists and fans in new ways.

Consulting at EY assists music industry clients to create global platforms that can grow the changing digital landscape. EY teams have long been thinking about how tech can create a more direct connection to customers and a more modern interaction with them, while expanding relationship with artists. The music industry is in a very interesting disrupting moment right now. People don't want to buy any more physical things. They want to buy an experience. Artists are on social media telling who they are, beyond being on the stage.

The winning company will be the one that has a solid e-commerce platform, which can capture all the different data. And, at the same time, assess the data, and create actionable insights. This is about understanding the desire, the preference of the customer, of the fan. Then analyzing this data, harnessing its power and creating content and campaigns which are fit for the customer.