DESTINATION Are your recipients domestic (all USA, all Canada) or will kits have to cross borders? International shipments add time and money (for duties and brokerage), knowing this early will help us calculate expenses up front and flag any potential concerns concerning shipping certain items across borders. PRODUCT VARIABLES Do you have apparel or are you giving recipients the choice to opt in? If so, using a pop-up shop so recipients can choose their size and gender, or whether to receive a gift at all is a good way to go. Pop Up shops also allow recipients to opt in to receiving goods at their home address, ensuring compliance with privacy legislation. One note, we recommend ordering an overage of 5-10% to allow for those folks who ‘forgot’ to order or who ordered the wrong size. TIMING Do you have the lead time for a merchandise program? Once you have your strategy and plan in place and we’ve narrowed the merchandise
collection (this can take 1-4+ weeks depending on decision-makers), standard production timelines are 3-4 weeks and kitting adds 1-2 weeks. Add in 1-2 weeks for ground shipping and a typical timeline is 6-10 weeks for a custom merch drop. KITTING OPTIONS One last consideration. If you’re letting your recipient ‘ choose’ a kit or a size , it will add a ‘lag time’ between when we close the pop-up shop and consolidate orders and when they get the kit, there may also be risks with inventory running out while we wait for the team to choose their gift. With generic kits , we can decorate the merchandise right away so when orders close, the kits are ready to ship. In situations where we wait for sizing, we can only go into production after the shop closes. We have email communications to keep recipients up to date, but in the world of next-day delivery, it’s important to note this model can add an additional 4 weeks to project timelines. If you want more details on the logistics, check out our guide to kitting and drop shipping.
19
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker