In the next few days, Hot Topic, a brick and mortar retailer with a chain of stores that sells music inspired clothing and accessories will to be the latest entrant into digital music sales with a new online store called ShockHound. (www.shockhound.com) While existing digital music retailers, fans sites, and media outlets have presumably been eyeballing the margins in merchandise sales for some time, it would appear that HotTopic has been looking towards music download sales as a way to drive new business. It's hard to image why selling music would be strategy for any new business these days except perhaps to save an existing sagging retail channel? Whether Shockhound ultimately proves successful or not, I believe this is the beginning of an important new trend in digital music retailing.

ShockHound is the first digital music retailer to combine digital music and merchandise sales. While the merchandise catalog is largely based on Hot Topic's existing lines, I believe this is going to force other digital retailers, social sites, discovery engines, media and other music related outlets to look at artists as more than just an album or song. This will be a sign that incorporating physical, non-recorded items for each artists is an effective way capture a larger portion of the consumer music spend and to drive other ancillary revenue programs. In fact, their very survival may depend on it!