Ben Lord, Founder and CEO of Softlimit, has been in and around the music industry for over 30 years and in ecommerce for the last sixteen. A touring drummer (Falling Forward / Elliott / Sharon Van Etten / Mascott / Bird of Youth / Phantom Family Halo / Kilowatthours), he's also released records through independent labels (Initial, Revelation, Temporary Residence Ltd., Jagjaguwar), and worked in Atlantic Records' New Media Division during the launch of the first digital music store.

He later led campaigns at Bond Strategy and Influence across entertainment verticals before spending the last decade building Softlimit, a Shopify Premier Partner Agency helping brands like Sacred Bones, Temporary Residence Ltd., Polyvinyl, Moon Juice, Misen, and The Perfect Jean grow their ecommerce revenue.

Music still sits at the center of his life, and he works closely with label heads, agents, and artists.

This conversation draws on Softlimit's January 2026 whitepaper, "Built-In Demand, Broken Infrastructure: The Music Industry's Revenue Gap," co-authored by Ben Lord and Martina England, which explores how independent labels can close the gap between fan demand and captured revenue by adopting DTC ecommerce practices.

• [00:00] Introduction
• [01:17] Helping the music industry master D2C
• [01:54] From touring drummer to agency founder
• [02:53] Why agencies walk away from music clients
• [04:03] Why label stores are glorified merch shops
• [05:59] When clients show up with the prescription
• [06:56] Conversion and AOV wins for music clients
• [07:24] Fixing broken filters and legacy platforms
• [09:23] The cost of selling through third parties
• [10:33] Why music isn't like other big catalogs
• [11:51] How labels lift conversion rate and AOV
• [12:31] Cross-sells built on product relationships
• [13:55] Label-curated "you'll like this too" picks
• [14:55] The Shopify tech stack behind the wins
• [15:33] Cleaning up messy product data
• [15:50] Migrating legacy CMS data and using Rebuy
• [17:14] Why indie labels hesitate on email and SMS
• [18:51] Turning fan data into more tour sales
• [20:48] Fan clubs and new streaming rules
• [21:28] The indie music industry is growing up
• [22:32] First steps to think like a D2C brand
• [23:39] Capturing first-party data at live shows
• [24:21] Your fans are your customers
• [25:10] Final thoughts

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• Take the stress out of commerce https://www.softlimit.com/
• Follow Ben Lord https://www.linkedin.com/in/benlord/

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