Audiolife.com - widget-based full-service e-com for musicians

Here’s something to look into… I haven’t signed up for an account yet, but it looks like the folks at audiolife.com could be on to something really interesting.  They offer full back-end services for bands to sell mp3 albums, physical CDs, ringtones, and merch, and there are two things that are most interesting about their service.

1 – Bands don’t need to create any inventory upfront… all the CDs are done using digital manufacturing, at audiolife’s HQ, and the clothing items are all made-to-order using some sort of digital printing techniques.  Again, that means that bands don’t have to pay to manufavture the shirts first, and they don’t need to worry about any shipping.  All bands need to do is upload content (mp3s of songs, mp3s of ringtones, and images for t-shirt designs) and audiolife handles everything else.  (Sure they take commissions, but who doesn’t?)

2 – The resulting storefront that you get from audiolife is fully widget-based, and can be embedded on any website or social network profile page you have, and the entire purchase process happens right inside the widget, never redirecting the customer to any other site.  They stay right on your site, the whole time.  The other beautiful part of the store being widget-based is that it can then be shared, and embedded on as many sites as you want, thus allowing all your fans to help you out by posting your store on their pages too… you just need to come up with ways to motivate them to do so!

It doesn’t cost any upfront fees to create your store, they only make money when you sell items (i like that). Their agreements are fully non-exclusive, thus allowing you to still post and sell your content any other way you choose.

My two questions would be:

a – how good do the t-shirt prints turn out?  It’s tough to say, so if anyone has experience here, please comment and let me know.

b – how detailed are the backend metrics?  I’m sure you can track sales geographically and demographically, but I’d like to know since the widget is embeddable, can purchases be tracked back to which instance of the widget generated the sale? If so, one could create incentive programs for fans who sell more merch for you… free tickets to the top sellers monthly etc.

Again, if anyone reading has experience using audiolife, let me know, it looks like it could be really useful!

check out their site here: www.audiolife.com and see an audiolife widget store in action here: www.myspace.com/theharmmusic