How to Build a Corporate Merchandise Store (Step by Step)

A few years back, employee merchandise was limited to festival gift boxes or bulk T-shirts ordered once or twice a year. Today, the way companies look at employee merchandise has changed. It is no longer just about giving gifts. It is about building consistent brand experience, recognition, and engagement throughout the year.

Most organizations still manage employee merchandise manually. Emails go back and forth. Designs are shared repeatedly. Approvals take time. Vendors change. Delivery timelines slip. What should be a simple process often becomes time-consuming and difficult to manage at scale.

On the other hand, a well built corporate merchandise store solves these problems. It centralizes products, designs, approvals, and fulfilment in one place. Teams gain access to approved brand merchandise when needed. HR and admin teams get control, visibility, and predictable costs.

Our expert team at TapWell has prepared this practical guide to help you understand what a corporate merchandise store is, why it matters, and how to build one effectively. We will also share insights based on our experience of building 50+ high-value employee merchandise stores for leading organizations across India.

What Is a Corporate Merchandise Store?

A corporate merchandise store is a dedicated online brand store created for employees to access approved company merchandise. It brings all branded products under one system with controlled designs, pricing, ordering, and fulfilment. Employees can order merchandise as per defined rules, while the company retains full control over brand usage and costs.

In simple terms, it replaces scattered vendor coordination and manual approvals with a structured and scalable setup.

What it is not

• A public ecommerce website
• A one time festival gifting solution
• A bulk order catalogue shared over email
• An open marketplace with unrestricted products
• An unmanaged swag distribution process

With a corporate merchandise store in place, employees or HR teams can easily access brand approved merchandise as and when required. Orders can be placed within a predefined and approved budget, without repeated approvals or vendor follow ups. This makes employee merchandise predictable, brand safe, and easy to manage across teams and locations.

Why Companies Are Moving to Employee Brand Stores

Earlier, most companies placed fresh merchandise orders every time a new requirement came up. Budgets were discussed repeatedly, designs were reapproved again and again, and vendors were changed based on availability or urgency. 

This led to inconsistent branding, cost overruns, and unnecessary pressure on HR and admin teams. Vendors also struggled to maintain quality and timelines in such ad hoc setups. 

Companies like TapWell changed this approach by helping brands move from one time orders to structured employee brand stores. 

Here is why more organizations are adopting this model.

Eliminates repeated approvals for every gifting request

In a brand store model, products, designs, pricing, and usage rules are approved once. Teams no longer need to seek approvals for every onboarding kit, reward item, or internal event. This saves significant time for HR, procurement, and leadership while keeping decision making clean and controlled.

Maintains brand consistency across teams and locations

When different teams order merchandise independently, branding almost always gets diluted. Logos change, colors shift, and product quality varies. A corporate merchandise store locks brand guidelines into the system so every employee, across any location, receives merchandise that looks and feels the same.

Reduces last-minute gifting chaos

Urgent requirements often lead to rushed decisions, limited options, and compromised quality. With a ready catalog and defined fulfilment process, teams can place orders quickly without scrambling for vendors or negotiating timelines. This makes gifting smooth even during high pressure moments.

Makes gifting measurable and predictable

Brand stores bring visibility into what is ordered, by whom, and for what purpose. Companies can track usage, control budgets, analyze demand patterns, and plan better for future requirements. Gifting stops being an expense that surprises finance teams and becomes a controlled operational system.

Use cases most companies overlook

Here are some practical use cases that many companies overlook while planning employee merchandise, but where a brand store delivers strong long term value.

• New employee onboarding kits
• Probation completion or milestone rewards
• Internal team achievements and spot awards
• Sales incentives and performance contests
• Employee referrals and internal campaigns
• Event and conference merchandise
• Employee self purchase with company subsidy

How to Build a Corporate Merchandise Store Step by Step

Let us break this down into a clear and practical process. This is how you can build a scalable and easy to manage corporate merchandise store through TapWell without overcomplicating decisions or operations.

Step 1: Define the Objective

Start by being clear about why you need a merchandise store. Is it for employee onboarding, rewards and recognition, internal events, or all of these combined. A clear objective helps decide the product mix, budget limits, and ordering rules. Without this clarity, brand stores often become underused or misaligned with HR goals.

Step 2: Decide the Ownership Model

Next, decide who pays for what. Some companies fully sponsor employee merchandise. Some allow employee purchases at corporate pricing. Others follow a hybrid model where employees get credits or allowances. This decision directly impacts adoption, budget control, and long term sustainability of the store.

Step 3: Lock the Product Strategy

Choose products that employees will actually use. Focus on daily utility items, quality apparel, and meaningful rewards instead of novelty swag. Keep the catalog limited and relevant. This ensures better inventory planning, consistent quality, and higher employee satisfaction.

Step 4: Choose the Right Partner

The success of your brand store depends heavily on the partner you choose. TapWell offers access to 4000 plus curated corporate gift options, a free branded merchandise store, fast shipping within 5 to 7 days, and reliable PAN India delivery. 

More importantly, TapWell handles customization, fulfilment, and ongoing support so your internal teams do not have to manage multiple vendors or workflows.

Cost Control and Budgeting Best Practices

When you move to a corporate merchandise store, cost control becomes easier, but only if the right rules are set early. Without structure, even a brand store can lead to overspending or low value purchases. Let us look at practical budgeting best practices that work at scale.

Set per-employee or per-department limits

Define clear spending limits based on employee level, department, or use case. For example, onboarding kits can have a fixed value while rewards and incentives follow a different cap. This prevents uneven spending and keeps budgets aligned across teams.

Use credits instead of open budgets

Credits work better than open budgets because they create natural boundaries. Employees or teams can only spend what is allocated, which removes the need for manual checks. It also simplifies finance approvals and makes costs predictable month after month.

Avoid over-customization

Excessive customization increases cost, production time, and error risk. Limit customization to approved logos, colors, and placements. Reusing the same base products across multiple use cases helps control pricing while maintaining brand consistency.

Track usage patterns quarterly

Review what products are being ordered every quarter. Identify items that move fast and those that stay unused. This data helps refine the catalog, plan inventory better, and avoid spending on products that do not deliver real value.

Retire low-performing SKUs

Do not keep products in the store just because they were added once. Remove items with low adoption, quality complaints, or poor feedback. A lean and relevant catalog always performs better than a large and cluttered one.

Merchandise Stores Are Long-Term Infrastructure

A corporate merchandise store is not a short term gifting solution. It is long term infrastructure that supports employee engagement, brand consistency, and operational efficiency. When you are building one, you should think beyond products and focus on core components like objectives, ownership model, budget controls, and partner reliability.

When designed properly, a merchandise store becomes a system that works quietly in the background throughout the year. It reduces manual effort, keeps branding consistent, and helps teams move faster without confusion or delays.

If you want to build a scalable and brand safe employee merchandise store, you can partner with TapWell. Get in touch with our expert team and we will help you plan, launch, and manage a corporate brand store that fits your organization today and supports your long-term growth.