Why use an online store for corporate branding and branded merchandise?
Want your employees to know and recognize your logo and the story behind your corporate brand? Whatever you want to call them: company merch stores, online company stores, company stores, company swag shop, or corporate pop-ups, they all do the same thing: they all present a space where you can sell branded merchandise, increase awareness of your corporate identity, and unify your employees.
A company store is a great way of supplying employees with day-to-day supplies such as workwear and uniforms, and custom branded merchandise for events.
And with the workplace changing – more of us working remotely or enjoying the benefits of a hybrid workplace – promotional products and merchandise, such as branded pot plants, desk toys, and other brand merchandise, are a great way of keeping employee morale high.
What is an online company store?
An online company store is an online store that sells branded custom products, custom clothing, branded merchandise and promotional items, and daily necessities to employees of a company. By showcasing your logo on your branded swag, you’ll reinforce and create a company culture that will resonate with your employees while giving your marketing department access to brand merchandise needed for events and gift opportunities for clients.
What can I sell in my company merch store?
To break this down further, an online company store typically sells anything from branded mugs, pens, notebooks, mouse mats, and backpacks to custom workwear, company apparel, corporate shirts, and event polos, all prominently featuring the company’s logo.
How does a company store work?
Selling your company swag to employees is simple: you need to choose an eCommerce solution that does the hard work for you. There are a number of platforms you can use to set up online company stores, but we’ve taken a look at three leading choices for you to take your pick from:
Shopify
As one of the most popular eCommerce platform technologies on the market, Shopify is the first choice for many people looking to set up and sell. Its ease of use, shop by category and filter functionalities, and wide range of templates have made it a practical choice for many independent sellers. However, for a lot of businesses, the platform is also prohibitively expensive.
Shopify’s basic $29 a month subscription fees are reasonable. Still, this doesn’t include integration costs, which means your business is throttled as it grows and scales if you don’t want to stray too far from this introductory pricing.
More advanced functionality can also set merchants back $299 per month. But if you’re looking to set up an online store to sell branded merchandise for your company and nothing else, creating a one-off company swag shop, branded merchandise store, or corporate shop for employees on Shopify won’t be worth your while.
Wix
Like Shopify, Wix features several templates users can readily customize to the needs of a business. It also offers integrations (you can always contact customer service to request more) and security that allows users to keep their data secure – an increasing concern for businesses worldwide.
However, the starter plan doesn’t remove ads from your site, and there are no unlimited plans that allow you access to a full spectrum of features such as uncapped bandwidth and storage.
If you’re only looking to set up a corporate shop, this may not be too much of a hindrance, but limited creative control and the impact of this on user experience (is it the best employee experience having ads present in your branded store?) should be considered. There’s also no permission control at a department or employee level, which means managing your store can be tricky if you want to allocate managers special admin credentials.
Brikl MicroStores
As the leading MicroStore platform worldwide, Brikl MicroStores offers your employees a highly personalized, highly branded experience. Branded corporate stores can be made in 15 minutes using an intuitive drag-and-drop content builder. A menu and categories can be set to make it easier for employees to find what they need and convert, and individual pages or the store as a whole can be easily shared (your marketing department will love you for that one).
Just like the other e-Commerce solutions described above, Brikl’s MicroStores does have its limitations too: its search functionality can be limited as there’s no search bar to directly look for products (however, that is a feature on the product roadmap, so watch this space!), but employees can shop by category.
And unlike other popular e-Commerce solutions such as Shopify and Wix, you can set admin permissions across your company store, making it so much easier to manage. At the same time, customized reports give you an added layer of control when managing stock.
Additionally, you can bulk embellish your logo across products and variants, greatly streamlining the design process. Employees can also unleash their creativity through custom designs. And you can set bespoke pricing for techniques such as sublimation, screen printing, embroidery, and more.
Leverage your brand with custom online company stores through Brikl.
Next-generation technology without the price tag
Unlike other e-commerce platforms and site-building services, Brikl MicroStores can be set up and created with minimal cost and effort: in fact, Brikl doesn’t make money until you do. This democratized online store pricing model is clearly different in a market where next-generation technology comes at a premium.
Swap silos for synergy
During the design, production, and selling process, you can naturally expect some breakdown in communication. This most commonly occurs when teams work in silos across spreadsheets and email. This lack of real-time collaboration can affect everything, from knowing how much of one item you have in stock to the time it takes to have one custom design signed off.
Not with a Brikl MicroStore.
Orders and live inventories are broken down in real-time to provide complete transparency on revenue generated and stock levels. And by giving the whole company access, reports generated on the platform can act as a single source of truth for everyone, cross-functionally
Be recognizable
Once set up, you have the option to customize your branding, adding your brand colors, your logo, and banners to make your store stand out to your employees.
Create a company noticeboard through content pages that highlight the latest news from across your business. And offer curated apparel, promo products, and more, all featuring your logo to let employees know they’re in the right place.
Replicate your success
Need to create a new store to promote an event? Does your marketing department want to make a separate store to gift external clients? No problem. Brikl’s team stores have a unique duplication feature that allows you to clone a store to create an entirely new one, with selected products and collections also carrying over.
The time saved during this process is also considerable and can equate to almost 50-60 hours
Localize your brand store
Office managers, marketing teams, and HR departments can add multilingual and multi-currency features to create a localized and inclusive experience for employees. This is incredibly important to ensure the best user experience possible.
Set up discounts and donate
Setting discounts and fundraising options will allow your employees to benefit from sale prices or donate directly to the store’s chosen charities or causes. Need to set up a custom workwear or safety equipment bundle and highlight the savings to your employees? Want to create a box of brand promotional merchandise for remote office workers, the proceeds from which can go to a good cause?
With Brikl, all of this and more are possible.
What’s more, your employees will love the human side of the business you’re showcasing when you give them the option to donate to good causes. According to Cone Cause Evolution Study:
have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a charity they care about.
wish more of the products and services they use would support charities.
Corporate brands like yours love Brikl
Its intuitive user experience, reasonable pricing, and ease of management make Brikl MicroStores a clear winner in ensuring your brand store is cost-, effort-, and time-efficient.
And once your first store is set up, a MicroStore solution will only continue to save you all three, whether you need custom event stores, pop-up stores for clients, gift stores for friends and family, or referral schemes.
The possibilities are truly endless – contact Brikl’s expert team to sign up for a free trial and demo now to see the benefits of a MicroStore firsthand.