Intercept Music, Inc., wholly owned subsidiary of Sanwire Corporation, has added customized online retail stores to the independent artists and bands enrolled in its Intercept Plus enhanced services program.  Each artist can opt for a turnkey, customized storefront stocked with branded merchandise, with Intercept gaining a share of gross revenue.

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Now, Intercept’s cohort of artists within the Intercept Plus program gain a powerful way to immediately monetize their music beyond performances and music sales. Intercept Plus is an enhanced service-level offering extended by invitation only to select artists and bands, on a revenue-sharing model. By offering their fans top-quality merchandise including apparel such as T-shirts, hats and hoodies through the Intercept-created stores, independent artists significantly expand their revenue potential among their fan bases. Intercept handles all order production, processing and fulfillment, streamlining the process for artists and eliminating customer service and inventory issues.

The introduction of retail services bolsters Intercept’s revenue streams beyond monthly subscription income from its core suite of online music marketing, promotion and distribution. Retail prices on promotional merchandise sold in the artists’ custom stores are at or below market level, and provide sufficient margin for both artists and Intercept to realize revenue opportunity. Additionally, Intercept artists and bands are incentivized to promote ongoing sales through their own branded stores, extending sales opportunities on behalf of Intercept.

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Each customized band storefront operates on the engine used by shop.interceptmusic.com. The rollout of artist stores will take place in several phases of five bands each, with the first phase launching today.

“Our music industry experience has made it clear that merchandise sales are a crucial component of independent artists’ overall revenue and business model,” said Tod Turner, president of Intercept. “We are making good on our promise to provide a complete suite of services designed to help the indie artist succeed. These plug-and-play retail stores are as important to the artist community as they are for us.”