Heyo Merchies,

Had this sort of crazy week with a bunch happening on both our sides, but that’s the thing about a weekly newsletter that goes out the same time: it always goes out at the same time! So to peel back the hood a little, sometimes we finish writing the newsletter days in advance. Sometimes mere minutes!

But it’s a nice moment for us, as we are now about to pass 1000 readers in a pretty short amount of time, so that’s pretty cool. We appreciate all the great messages and of course the random merch tags we get sent. Keep them coming!

Today we profile the Online Retailer conference in Sydney and Christmas in July with July.

“July?”

“No, we’re very honest about good merch actually.”

Gaz & Kayla

This week I attended Online Retailer and staked out all the merch brands were giving away. Honestly, since this was retail I was kind of excited to see what was up.

A few months ago I went to a Klaviyo event, and instead of doing merch they profiled their retail customers’ products. I found some new favourite items out of that and got a serious appreciation for just highlighting your customers instead of yourself through merch.

But. Alas, this was disappointing!

The majority of exhibitors went with “let’s give away food”, however all of them went with something sweet. As a result, there was an overwhelm of sugar, making all of it a turn off. There was a gelato cart, multiple (indulgent, thick) cookies, lots of lolly/candy jars, chocolate, bubble tea, and other similar things. It means that if you walked in and accepted one, you then turned down every single sweet offer afterwards.

So what did stand out? Going clockwise from top left in my collage this week:

Activation > merch

Highlighting your customers > highlighting yourself

Doing something different > doing what everyone else is doing

Offering a snack? Do one sweet and one healthy so you can still stand out without too much risk of over spending on one item. Klaviyo had a snack table at their K:SYD event which I loved.

I get it, it’s the halfway-ish mark of the year, people need to have something fun to talk about (now that the World Cup is over especially) and it’s sorta dorkish but also provides an excuse to have some sort of celebration: a sort of bastardized EOFY meets ‘I need a circuit breaker’ in either the blazing heat (Europe) or the blisteringly cold (usually my house in Melbourne).

But seeing as today is the 24th July, meaning it’s technically Christmas Eve if you do happen to celebrate, my shower thought as I was putting this brief little piece together surprised even I with how perfect it was.

Gift-giving. July (the travel accessories brand). In July.

Some DRIP DROP’s just write themselves!

Now, hate for this to sound like a paid shill (because it isn’t) but July started in my hometown of Melbourne, and are so so good at what they do in the travel accessories category of luggage and more, that I love talking about them. They’re far removed from a challenger by now, maturing year on year with even more stunning store fitouts, global expansion, new product ranges, you name it.

But look at this personalised merch. LOOK AT IT. Yeah that’s some of the most recognisable brands in the world right there, but that could be your logo. THAT COULD BE YOU! All you have to do is get out of your own head on how to produce some merch that people could care about, and if you have the cashola to throw at it: Send It (Your Logo) and Spend It (Your Unburdened $$)

It is gift-giving season after all. Send this to someone you love (your loyal team members) or someone you barely tolerate (that customer you hate but need their annual retainer)

A) Pick Product B) Ask for Personalised C) Spend Money D) Gift-give E) Receive praise.

If you’re in the position of being able to send someone one of these (and obviously, think of the actual Christmas period here) then do it. You can personalise anything these days, and luckily the July team have a whole focus area on it.

All you need to do is get your head out of the way trying to think about the best merch you could make when you probably have a million other things to do and cant dedicate the brain space to it, and instead, throw money at it.

Check out the DRIP DROP Sublime for more merch inspo