FAQ
Good questions.
If yours isn't here, email hello@sonichighway.io.
The basics
What is Sonic Highway? +
A way to stock your online store with the entire record industry. You browse the catalogue, publish what you want, and sell it under your own storefront. The records ship themselves.
What do I need to get started? +
An online store you already run. Sonic Highway installs onto it as an app, so there is nothing new to stand up. We are on Shopify today; if you are on something else, say so on the access form and we will talk it through.
Is this a migration? +
No. Nothing moves and nothing gets rebuilt. Your theme, your domain, your customer list, your apps and your order history all stay exactly where they are. The catalogue arrives behind them.
Do I hold any inventory? +
Never. There is no stockroom and no upfront buy. You publish from the library and, when a customer orders, it ships straight to their door.
Does it work alongside what I already sell? +
Yes. Coffee, apparel, tickets, whatever you already carry stays live and untouched. The records sit next to it in the same store, under the same brand.
Who is it for? +
Record shops, yes, but also media companies, labels, festivals, venues and brands with an audience that buys music. If you have the audience, this gives you the catalogue to sell them.
The catalogue
How big is it? +
More than 285,000 titles across every format, and it grows daily as new releases land.
What formats can I sell? +
Vinyl, CD, cassette, 7-inch, box sets, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K, plus apparel, books, posters, memorabilia, collectibles, puzzles and the gear to play it all.
Do I have to carry all of it? +
No, and most shops should not. You publish what fits your store, whether that is one record, one artist, one genre or one whole department. The rest stays in the library until you want it.
Can I keep things out of my store? +
Yes. Curate by department, genre, format or artist. If a category does not belong in your shop, it never reaches your storefront.
Does it come with artwork and details? +
Yes. Cover art, tracklists, formats, release dates and the rest arrive attached, so a published record lands as a finished product page rather than a row in a spreadsheet.
How fresh is it? +
The catalogue refreshes every night. New releases appear on their own, and titles that go away drop back out, so your storefront does not quietly fill up with records nobody can get.
What about new releases and pre-orders? +
Both are in there. Pre-orders carry their own badge and release date so a customer knows what they are buying and when it arrives.
What are franchise worlds? +
One tidy bucket per artist that pulls together their records, apparel and memorabilia so a fan sees everything in one place. There are 42 and counting.
Money
Who sets the prices? +
You do. Every listing you publish carries your price and your margin. Your storefront, your call.
What does it cost? +
A flat subscription, scoped on your access call against the size of your catalogue and the support you want. No per-order fees and no cut of your sales.
Do you take a percentage of what I sell? +
No, and we never will. The fee is flat and the sale is yours. That is a deliberate line, not a launch promotion.
What happens to my payout? +
You keep 100% of your sale. Customers pay you the way they always have, through your own checkout. Sonic Highway is not a payment processor and never sits between you and your money.
Can I set margins once instead of per record? +
Yes. Set a markup rule and preview the margin before anything goes live, then adjust individual listings wherever you want to price differently.
Orders and shipping
How do orders ship? +
A customer checks out on your store, the order is fulfilled and shipped to their door, and the tracking flows back into your store automatically. You stay the retailer the whole way through.
Does the customer deal with anyone but me? +
No. They buy from your store, they get email from your store, and the relationship stays yours.
What if a customer cancels? +
If the order has not shipped yet, you cancel it in your store and the request is pulled back. If it has already gone out, the standard return path applies.
How do returns work? +
You stay the retailer, so returns run under your own policy with your own customer. The mechanics are walked through on your access call so nothing is a surprise the first time it happens.
Who answers customer emails? +
You do, by default, the same as every other order in your store. If you would rather not, a managed support desk is available as an add-on.
Your store stays yours
Does it work with my other apps? +
Yes. Tapcart, Klaviyo, your POS, reviews, loyalty, subscriptions. Everything you run today keeps running, because this is an app on your own store rather than a platform you move onto.
What happens to my SEO? +
Nothing. Your domain, your URLs, your rankings. There is no shared subdomain and no starting over.
Can I run more than one storefront? +
Yes. Multiple stores are supported, and the number included depends on your plan.
What if I want out? +
Remove the app. The catalogue layer leaves and your store stays, with your theme, customers, orders and everything you sold before intact. There is nothing to walk back.
Getting in
How do I join? +
It is invite-only while we onboard the founding stores. Tell us about your shop on the access form. If it is a fit, we will set you up and walk you through it.
What are you looking for? +
A real audience and a real reason to sell music to it. Size matters less than fit, so a focused shop with the right customers beats a big one without them.
How long does it take to go live? +
Once you are in, setup is done with us rather than left to you. The timeline is set on your access call against how much of the catalogue you want to carry.
What's coming next? +
An even simpler way in, launching 2027: the full network, no setup, install and go. Join the waitlist and we will bring you in when it opens.