StreamElements–which produces free tools for livestreamers and puts out quarterly reports tracking top-watched platforms, creators, and topics in the streaming space–has opened its new venture SE.Merch up for open beta.
SE.Merch lets creators open, maintain, and promote their own merch shops for free. A StreamElements representative tells Tubefilter the platform is intended to be a “turnkey” approach to merch sales that removes common barriers to entry like difficult store setup, low profit margins, and having to pay to unlock useful features. Creators should be able to simply log in, upload their designs, and go.
“StreamElements’ research revealed that 85% of streamers do not have a merch offering,” the company said in a statement. “SE.Merch is built upon the philosophy that if a creator can build a community, then they should be able to move merchandise.”
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Along with offering virtual storefronts and U.S./Europe-based production of items, SE.Merch gives creators graphic marketing features like panels of their items, sale goals, and alert overlays that’ll pop up on their streams.
All of this is free to use, but (as is usual with merch vendors) SE.Merch does take a set cut per item sold. That amount differs depending on the item–it takes $4 from each T-shirt sold, and $6 from each hoodie, for example. Creators can set items’ prices to whatever they want; SE.Merch’s set cut will remain the same regardless. StreamElements says it specifically set its cut amounts to be lower than other merch vendors in the creator space. For comparison, Teespring’s starting cut of a T-shirt is $10.57, and its starting cut of a hoodie is $20.21. These amounts can go down to $5.42 and $15.06, respectively, depending on how many units a creator moves per month.
SE.Merch is currently open to creators on Twitch, and currently vends hoodies, T-shirts, mugs, stickers, and mousepads. It says it does plan to eventually expand to creators on YouTube, Facebook, and Mixer, and is working to add more items for creators to sell.
“Since this is one of our core products, we will be continuing to add more items and refining it based on community feedback,” Doron Nir, StreamElements’ CEO, said in a statement.
You can check SE.Merch out here.
