YouTube promotes your bottom line with Merch Store

Now musicians can sell their merchandise and concert tickets directly from their YouTube channels

YouTube has long been the path to fame and fortune for many a budding musician—Justin Bieber, Rebecca Black, Antoine Dobson, and so on.  But now the video sharing giant has taken that all important step to bridge the gap between viral fame and monetization with the announcement that YouTube partners will now be able to sell merchandise directly from their YouTube channel via the Merch Store.

With the Merch Store, partners can now sell everything from T-shirts and posters to concert tickets and music downloads right from their YouTube channel—taking a note from Facebook by allowing visitors to purchase items without having to leave the site.

Merchandise sales will be powered by TopSpin, a direct-to-fan retail software platform, while concert tracking database Songkick will power concert ticket sales.  Music downloads will be made available via Amazon and iTunes.

YouTube will be hosting a panel on October 20 in NYC at the Mercury Lounge to shed more light on the Merch Store.  Speakers will include several artists who have found success on YouTube, including Dru Ha and Buckshot from Duck Down Music, Julia Nunes, Karmin, Portugal. the Man, and Ryan Leslie.

YouTube will be rolling out the Merch Store globally over the coming weeks.

The site appears to be doing pretty well for itself since it was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.  YouTube celebrated its sixth birthday over the summer and revealed that more than 48 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute—a 100% increase over last year.  By comparison, in 2007, the site saw eight hours of video uploaded every minute.

Additionally, the site sees some three billion views each day—an increase of 50% over last year.  More than 800 million people visit YouTube every month.

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