D.I.Y.

Getonic: Buy Music Directly On Any Facebook Wall. No Credit Card Required

GetonicThe focus for musicians to sell directly to their fans continues to intensify, and looks like it won't slow for the foreseeable future. By bypassing the labels and traditional distribution channels, artists are able to take home a bigger profit and form a better, longer lasting relationship with their fans.

With this trend comes an increase in services to facilitate the sales. Some obvious ones come to mind like Bandcamp and Topspin, but there's a long list of startups in this space. That list recently got longer with the release of Getonic.

Getonic, a startup from Tel Aviv that's quietly been attracting thousands of artists for the past few months, tries to simplify the process of selling to fans. Their widget enables purchasing from within a Facebook wall post, instead of redirecting the fan to a store.

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I sat down with Getonic CEO Amit Or during a recent trip to Tel Aviv.

"We wanted to give bands the opportunity to meet fans where they are instead of making them be redirected elsewhere," says Or. "People today are impatient, they don't want to click on links to other sites to check out your music. Therefore, we created a widget where the entire process from sampling music to making a purchase would be in one place."

One key feature of the Getonic widget is how fans pay. Instead of leading the through a long checkout process, which usually results in a lot of lost conversions, the widget asks users to enter their cell phone number and carrier. The charge appears on their cell phone bill.

Screen Shot 2011-10-25 at 12.29.46 PMPayPal is also an option, but Or says that the cell phone option is performing a lot better. "Because many people (especially young people who in some cases are most of the fans) don't have access to a credit card, cellphone payments are currently more popular than paypal. In the future we plan on adding new methods such as Facebook credits to our payment options." 

Getonic has reduced the friction around their checkout process, which should in turn drive more sales, but that's not all their doing to help artists sell more. Sharing is also a big component of the widget.

"We allow musicians to turn their fans into partners and resell musicians' music for a cut of the profit. This allows bands to give back to their fans and increase the exposure and the distribution network for the band. Resellers today can join either by clicking on the shop or by signing up through our "Partners Program" app on the artist's facebook page."

Screen Shot 2011-10-25 at 12.37.12 PMGetonic is betting that by going to where fans already are, making it dead simple for them to purchase, and bringing them into the sharing process, they can increase profits across the industry. Artists can sign up for Getonic at http://getonic.com/. The video below gives an overview of the service.


What do you think of Getonic? Let us know in the comments.

Brenden Mulligan is the creator on Onesheet, the simplest web presence for bands, ever. Previously, he created ArtistData (acquired by Sonicbids in May 2010). Follow him on twitter: @bmull.

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8 Comments

  1. I just signed up and tried to set up their store for my EP. It doesn’t work. step one of their easy 3 step process has an “OK” button that clicking does nothing. There is no way to advance to steps 2 or 3 and setup a store. It did seem too good to be true.

  2. Charging directly to your cell phone is a great idea. Quick & simple. A lot of amateur marketers don’t quite understand that making consumers work too hard (too much clicking, scrolling, redirecting, etc.) is a sales killer. Let’s face it…humans are lazy.
    Whether or not it actually works, as mentioned by Graham, is another story.

  3. No mention of Getonic’s cut in this article.
    Also, I’d love to see a screenshot of what the backend earnings reports look like to see how transparent the service will be (we all know how convoluted cell service billing usually is).

  4. Hey Graham,
    I work for Getonic and I would be happy to address any problems or concerns you have. Please email me directIy at ben@getonic.com. I see you already managed to create two stores, you just have yet to add a preview to them. So I see you pretty much figured out how it works by yourself. Some times things are just good and not too good to be true:)

  5. Pimpy C,
    Its all spelled out for you on Getonic’s website. Just sign in, and click on the accounts tab and you will see how much everyone earns from a sale. Hows that for transparency:)

  6. How’s that for transparency? Not good. Nobody wants to set up an account before knowing if the split will be worth their effort. People are lazy, not stupid; why give up precious time and email permission in the dark? We’ve been burned by scammers/spammers like classmates.com before. Your service might be a godsend, but making people sign up before knowing those details (or even how they’ll set prices)is asking them to buy a pig in a poke. You might be doing well, but I’d bet you’re also turning away customers in droves.

  7. Upon further review, the explanation found here:
    http://www.getonic.com/PricingInfo.aspx
    seems to be that you can sell any digital thing you want as long as it’s a buck fifty, of which you get to keep roughly $.65 depending on country and carrier. I applaud the attempt to remove all friction from the transaction, (take a bow) and I think the price point well chosen; I just don’t know whether the lack of pricing flexibility will be a dealbreaker for some bands/brands, and $.65 is less than the $.79 you’d get from iTunes, which offers Cloud backup services to the fans in the deal.(albeit for an additional fee)
    Expressed as a percentage of the retail price it’s a lot less revenue than some other plans, and maybe a poor deal for an artist covering an existing song. (and paying songwriter royalties)It’s probably most significant that the new service will open markets to include young folks who have cells but not cards. How old do you need to be to get a debit card, again? It could be more worthwhile for musicians with a younger demographic, but I may be underestimating the convenience factor.

  8. Amazing. Brilliant. Needed!!!
    I’m going to add this to my business planning and marketing strategy immediately…
    This will revolutionize the way music is purchased in today’s markets, and we’re going to see a storm of conversion from streamers to buyers fairly quick. I feel it’s side effects will likely discourage piracy as well, and give artists the credit and revenues they deserve…
    My only question is, do they have an affiliate program set up for record labels and distributors???
    I’ll be looking into deeper into this opportunity right away!!!
    Nice work Getonic

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