Why MerchPunk?
We built the world’s biggest anime merchandise search engine
About Elon’s Shirt
Before 2019 disappears can I share an update?? （日本語版はこちら）
Did you know that Elon Musk is an anime fan? Here he is wearing a ‘Kakegurui’ T-shirt (a show I worked on at Netflix with Avex Pictures and Mappa).
We can’t be sure where he bought the shirt but when Kakegurui came out the only merch you could buy was on a Japanese ecommerce site that only ships within Japan or a pirated Kakegurui shirt on a site like redbubble.com. In the streaming age, shows are seen globally the moment they are released but unfortunately merchandise distribution isn’t as global. For a market worth $8 Billion in consumer spend its a big problem. To solve it we built 2 things:
- For creators, a way to get merch to fans around the world from Japan. With our smart print on demand solution, any anime creator can print and ship quality physical merch worldwide at no risk with all the billing and customer support outsourced. All products come with a digital certificate of authenticity secured on blockchain proving its the real thing. Since it’s print on demand we can also give the creator a higher margin than the usual licensing process. And if fans resell through us we can also give back a portion of the resale. Thank you to everyone who has bought our Zombie Land Saga or Banana Fish products so far!
- For fans, we built the world’s biggest anime merchandise search engine! Check it out at merchpunk.co We called it ‘MerchPunk’ (see what we did there?) and it already covers over 120,000 items, all the major indie anime studios including Kyoto Animation and all the major stores. All in one place, all authentic, official merch. As soon as a new show drops, you’ll find the merch on MerchPunk, straight from the source.
Right now we have focused on easy search and good coverage of titles. Please tell us at hello@blockpunk.net if anything’s missing! In future, we’re exploring:
- Easy buying. Once you’ve found your item we want to make it easy to buy and receive it.
- Sharing your collection. Show off your collection and get recognised by fans and creators.
- Easy re-selling. Because there comes a time in life when you just run out of space and need to recycle.
Our vision for MerchPunk might be loosely described as StockX for Film/TV merch. Or Lyst meets TVTime. It’s a community of creators and fans where authentic merch is created, sold, and then recycled. Creators get compensated directly to support their independence to create more content, fans can make money from recycling and each item is authenticated and has a personal history of its provenance and ownership. In the future, fans could feedback to creators what they want and creators can plan better merch. Creators can recognise and reward fans for their loyalty. The digital certificate of authenticity could also track ethical and sustainable sources along the supply chain.
In the global streaming age we believe that merchandise will become an increasingly important business model for creators and also an opportunity to build community. What’s special about Film/TV merch? There is a constant stream of new releases that drive the business. In the case of anime, its 200 new series or films a year. The drop IS the new release. Whether it’s The Mandalorian with Baby Yoda, or an underground high school gambling den with Kakegurui.
Some open questions we have are:
- Are fans happy with the current way of searching and buying merch?
- How important is authenticity to fans?
- Will fans just as easily buy fan art versus the original?
- How much will anime fans share their collections publicly?
- How often do anime fans recycle their collections?
- How important is the ownership history of the item?
Would you pay more for a Kakegurui T-shirt if you knew Elon Musk owned it before? Elon if you’re listening send us your shirt and let’s find out! (If you could throw in a CyberTruck too that would be wonderful :))
We hope you’ll join us on our journey to find out
In the meantime, *Happy Holidays from Everyone at BlockPunk!* Thank you for all your support in 2019 and we look forward to 2020.
Answer our survey here for the chance to win a $100 gift card.
