First things first, what is ‘merchandise management’?

Promotional merchandise is a popular asset for businesses to raise brand awareness, it places your brand into the hands of your prospects, customers or employees. It’s a highly effective part of your marketing strategy, however so many businesses are managing it ineffectively.

The process of selecting your merchandise (or swag as it is also referred to) is the easy part, the challenges come once the items are delivered by the courier to your offices:

  • The excitement of their arrival is often dampened when you go to lift the box and realise you have a workout ahead of you to get everything up 2 floors to your desk!
  • Next, finding a place to store your goodies, making sure they are secure as employees tend to come and help themselves, making it difficult to manage stock levels.
  • Everyone wants to get their hands on the swag and you’re inundated with requests that take over your day, not to mention the effort required to organise the fulfilment and distribution.

When the pandemic hit so many customers told us their precious marketing collateral was locked away in offices they were no longer allowed to attend. This meant they had no ability to use these promotional items to drive employee and customer engagement, in addition to supporting sales.

The management of merchandise usually falls to marketing teams and is a huge can be an extremely time-consuming burden on their time.  With busy marketing calendars and events, we have lost count of how many times customers have called us with a panicked last-minute requests for event merchandise, as they did not realise their cupboards were bare!

Place your brand into the hands of your prospects, customers or employees

What if there was a better way?

Freshthinking Business share their insight into everything you need to know about merchandise management – ‘As far as management of promotional products is concerned, it deals with the sourcing, storage and distribution of your marketing products. By managing promotional merchandise, you work towards improving your brand’s equity and quality of products, plus ensuring that your promotional goals are realised in the best way’. We couldn’t agree more and therefore we’ve created our own solution to overcome the challenges you face.

Top 5 Merchandise Management Benefits

In order to develop the perfect solution we reviewed the key challenges of managing merchandise in-house and asked ‘what would make this process easier?’ Here are the top 5 answers:

  1. Centralised global sourcing and manufacturing of marketing collateral – providing consistent brand
  2. 24/7 user access to order items for events, marketing campaigns and customer giveaways – giving them the support when they need it whilst giving you real-time stock visibility to manage stock levels.
  3. Secure warehousing and logistics taken care of, including international shipping and customs – enabling you to take back precious business hours.
  4. Digital asset management repository for all your organisations logos, data sheets and style guides – a one-stop-shop for your company’s collateral – saving you time and providing brand protection and consistency.
  5. A solution for remote working – so you no longer need to be desk bound to manage your organisations swag cupboard.

SwagOnline will add value to your business give you back precious time to spend elsewhere in your business

Streamline your business with our portal

So if all of this sounds great, who can help you? We can! We are proud to offer you a hassle-free solution with our new merchandise management portal SwagOnline, that allows you to manage sourcing, storage and distribution of your merchandise and collateral. Our system is user friendly and fully tailored to fit with your specific requirements. We store all of your marketing assets securely at our UK facility and handle global distribution on your behalf.

Using your own customised platform you can manage your marketing collateral regionally and globally. SwagOnline enables multiple users in your business to see the same live information, whether they’re in London or the States, so you won’t ever run out of the essential merchandise.

Why is SwagOnline for you?

SwagOnline will add value to your business give you back precious time to spend elsewhere in your business. You can say goodbye to logistics and headaches of swag management and experience a fully featured management platform.

SwagOnline simplifies the buying, managing and distribution of your branded merchandise – giving you the ability to ship direct to your customers, prospect and events. What separates us from other providers is our complete swag management capabilities and online swag management portal. You name it we have probably branded it. We spend time ensuring your brand remains consistent on all printed assets and then manage the logistics of getting your items to those that need them at the right place and time.

Say goodbye to your chaotic office merchandise cupboard!

Say goodbye to your chaotic office merchandise cupboard and hello to a smart system that will keep your marketing collateral ship-shape!

Learn more about the features of SwagOnline and start taking advantage of the merchandise management benefits now – call Donna on 01256 352415 to arrange a no obligation demo.

Sources:

Fresh Thinking Business: https://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/advice-ideas-and-planning/all-you-need-to-know-about-merchandise-management/41855.article