# Merch Resources — full text This file is the concatenation of every article in the Merch Resources center (merch.com/resources). It is generated from the source MDX at request time. Each article is preceded by a header containing the canonical URL. # Getting started New to Merch? Start here. --- ## Welcome to Merch Source: https://merch.com/resources/getting-started Welcome. Merch is the platform your team uses to design, order, store, and ship branded merchandise — from a one-off run of T-shirts to a recurring program of new-hire kits. This page is a map of what you can do here and where to go next. ## How you'll work with us Every account has an **account team** — the people you'll work with day-to-day. They handle most of the heavy lifting: helping you start a design, sourcing items not in our catalog, pricing and quoting, placing orders on your behalf, planning storage levels, scoping campaigns, and setting up integrations. The platform is the surface you share with them. Most customers spend more time messaging their team than clicking around the portal. See [Working with your account team](/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team). Account access starts after we countersign your [master service agreement](/resources/account/master-service-agreement) — your account team handles this during onboarding. ## What you can do in Merch - **Find and design products.** Pick a starting point from the **Product Catalog** or message your account team with a custom idea. Once it's priced and approved, it lives in **My Products** as a ready-to-order item. - **Place wholesale orders.** Build the order yourself in My Products, or ask your account team to set it up with you. - **Hold inventory.** Store items with us in our global warehouse network and drop-ship from stock as you need them. - **Drop-ship three ways.** Once items are in inventory, you can ship them via regular orders, **campaigns** (recipients claim items via a link or invite), or **integrations** (your CRM, store, or custom app triggers a shipment). - **Brand every recipient touchpoint.** Invite emails, the redemption page, order confirmations, tracking pages, and delivery emails all pick up your brand kit. - **Manage billing.** See every invoice, set payment terms, turn on auto-pay, or pre-load account funds. - **Bring your team in.** Invite teammates, manage who can do what, and keep one source of truth for orders and approvals. ## Start with your first order If you have never used Merch before, the fastest way to learn is to walk through one order end-to-end. See [Your first order](/resources/getting-started/your-first-order) for a step-by-step guide that covers picking items, approving the proof, paying the deposit, and tracking the shipment. ## Find your way around The portal is organized around the things you do most: - **Products** — your library and the broader catalog - **Orders** — everything you have placed, in progress, or shipped - **Campaigns** — recipient-driven sends and redemptions - **Inventory** — items held in our warehouse network - **Billing** — invoices, payments, and account funds - **Settings** — your profile, your team, and account-wide preferences For a deeper tour, see [Navigating the portal](/resources/getting-started/navigating-the-portal). ## Speak the language We try to keep terminology plain, but a few words have specific meanings inside Merch — like the difference between an order and a fulfillment order, or what a campaign actually is. The [Glossary](/resources/getting-started/glossary) is a one-page reference. The two articles every new customer should read are [How Merch works](/resources/getting-started/how-merch-works) and [Your first order](/resources/getting-started/your-first-order). Together they cover 90% of what you need to know. --- ## How Merch works Source: https://merch.com/resources/getting-started/how-merch-works Every Merch account starts with an account team. They're the people you'll work with day-to-day to design, price, and place product. The platform you log into is the surface you share with them — most customers spend more time in email or on a call with their team than clicking around the portal. Here is how the pieces fit together, in the order they usually happen. ## 1. Pick a starting point — catalog or custom Two paths lead to the same place: - **From the Product Catalog.** Browse the full library on our site, find an item you like, and tell your account team. They dial in your colors, decoration, and sizing. - **From a custom idea.** Message your account team with what you want — even if it's nothing like anything in the catalog. They work with the design team to source it and build it. Either way, the result is a finished, priced product ready for you to order. ## 2. The product lands in My Products Once a design is approved and priced, it lives in **My Products** — your account's short-list of ready-to-order items. Reordering is a few clicks; the spec doesn't have to be rebuilt each time. See [My Products vs the Product Catalog](/resources/products/my-products-vs-product-catalog). ## 3. Place a wholesale order Tell us what you want, how many, and when you need it. Most orders include a quick approval step on the **design proof** before production begins. While we wait on you the order shows as **Pending Client Approval**; once you approve it flips to **Client Approved** and production starts. The order's top-level status is **Open** while everything's in motion. You can build the order yourself in My Products, or just message your account team and ask them to set it up with you. Both paths are normal. ## 4. Ship now or hold inventory with us When the order is made, you have two choices: - **Ship it now.** Bulk to one address, or split across recipients on the order itself. - **Hold it with us.** Store the items in our global warehouse network and drop-ship from stock as you need them. Storage is flexible — you'll see charges for fulfillment, shipping, and storage where it applies. ## 5. Where merch can be drop-shipped from Once items are in inventory, recipients can be served three ways: - **Regular orders.** Pick from My Products, choose recipients, ship. - **Campaigns.** Send a redemption link or personal invites — recipients pick what they want and enter their own shipping address. One redemption, one shipment. See [What campaigns are for](/resources/campaigns/index) and [Address on claim](/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim). - **Integrations.** Drop-ship straight from your own systems — Shopify, Salesforce or HubSpot via Zapier, or your custom apps via REST API and webhooks. See [Integrations](/resources/account/integrations). ## Your brand on every customer touchpoint When merch goes out to your recipients — through a campaign, an integration, or a regular order — every email and page they see is white-labeled with your brand kit. Invite emails, the redemption page, order confirmations, tracking emails, the tracking page itself. See [White-labeling and branding](/resources/campaigns/white-labeling-and-branding). ## Statuses, fulfillment, and billing Once an order ships, each box becomes its own **fulfillment order** with carrier tracking — **Awaiting Shipment**, **Shipped**, **Delivered**, or (rarely) **Returned**. Most orders bill in two pieces: a **deposit invoice** at the start and a **balance invoice** once items ship. You can pay manually, turn on **auto-pay**, or pre-load **account funds**. The fastest way to learn the platform is to walk through your first order end-to-end. See [Your first order](/resources/getting-started/your-first-order). For the binding agreements that govern your account — payment, cancellation, returns, IP, data handling — see [Legal and policies](/resources/account/legal-and-policies). --- ## Your first order Source: https://merch.com/resources/getting-started/your-first-order Placing your first order takes about ten minutes once your account is set up. (Account access begins after your [master service agreement](/resources/account/master-service-agreement) is signed — your account team handles that during onboarding.) You can build it yourself in the portal, or just message your account team and they'll set it up with you. Both paths are equally normal — pick whichever feels easier. ## 1. Pick what you want You can build the order yourself in **My Products**, or just message your account team and they'll set it up with you. Both paths are equally normal. If you're going self-serve, open **My Products** to see items already configured for your brand. Click into a product to choose variants — size, color, or any other options — and the quantity per variant. If you don't see what you need, browse the **Product Catalog** or ask your account team to add a new product. See [Requesting new products](/resources/products/requesting-new-products). ## 2. Tell us where it ships You can ship a single order one of two ways: - **One address** — fastest. Bulk to your office, an event, or a single location. - **Multiple recipients** — paste a recipient list or upload a CSV with names, addresses, and item assignments. Need recipients to enter their own addresses? Use a **campaign** instead. ## 3. Set your in-hands date Tell us when you need items delivered. We work backwards from that date to plan production and shipping. The earlier you can give us the date, the more options you will have. ## 4. Review and approve Before production, you'll get a **design proof** to confirm. Look closely at logo placement, colors, and sizing. While we wait on you, the order shows as Pending Client Approval. Once you approve, it flips to Client Approved and production starts. Changes after approval can delay the in-hands date. If you spot something off on the proof, flag it before approving. ## 5. Pay Most orders generate a **deposit invoice** at the start. You'll get an email with a link to pay. Once items ship, a **balance invoice** is issued for the remainder. If you have **auto-pay** turned on, eligible invoices charge automatically. See [Auto-pay and account funds](/resources/account/auto-pay-and-account-funds). ## 6. Track your shipments Each box that leaves the warehouse becomes a **fulfillment order** with carrier tracking. You can see every shipment, its status, and its tracking number from the order detail view. That is the whole loop. The next order you place will feel a lot faster — whether you build it yourself or hand it back to your account team. --- ## Navigating the portal Source: https://merch.com/resources/getting-started/navigating-the-portal The portal is organized around the things you actually do day to day. Here is what each section is for. ## Dashboard Your home base. Active orders, recent activity, upcoming in-hands dates, and quick links to the things you touch most. Open the portal and you land here. ## Products Everything related to what you can order: - **My Products** — the list set up for your brand - **Product Catalog** — the full library you can request additions from - **Presentations** — curated product picks your account team shares with you for review ## Orders Every order you have ever placed. Use the filters to narrow by status — **New**, **Open**, or **Closed** — or by date range. Click any order to see fulfillment, design proofs, invoices, and tracking in one place. ## Campaigns If you are running a recipient-driven program, this is where it lives. Create the campaign, share the link, and watch claims come in. ## Inventory If you stock items with us, this is where you check what is on hand and reorder when stock gets low. ## Billing Invoices, receipts, payment methods, and account funds. You can download a PDF of any invoice from here. See [Billing and invoices](/resources/account/billing-and-invoices). ## Account Your profile, your team's profiles, account-wide settings, addresses, and integrations. Most one-time setup happens here. If you're connecting Merch to your own systems, head to **Settings → API Keys** for credentials. For the full picture of what we connect to, see [Integrations](/resources/account/integrations). ## Top bar shortcuts A few things live in the top bar regardless of which page you are on: - **Search** — jump to any order, product, or recipient by name or number - **Notifications** — alerts about approvals, deliveries, and invoices - **Help** — a link back to these resources Lost? Press the search shortcut in the top bar and type what you are looking for. It will get you there faster than clicking around. --- ## Key roles and permissions Source: https://merch.com/resources/getting-started/key-roles-and-permissions Most teams using Merch have a mix of people: someone who places orders, someone who approves spend, and a handful of folks who just need to see what's going on. Access on Merch works one of two ways, depending on whether spend controls is enabled on your account. - **Standard access (default).** Every teammate you invite gets the same access — anyone on the account can do anything inside it. - **Spend controls enabled (opt-in).** Three roles — Admin, Manager, and Sender — take effect, with permissions stacking up the hierarchy. Optional Teams group senders under a Manager with shared caps. See [Roles, teams, and permissions](/resources/account/roles-teams-and-permissions) for the details. ## What every teammate can do in standard mode Once invited and signed in, a teammate can place orders, approve proofs, run campaigns, view invoices, manage payment methods, edit saved addresses, invite other teammates, and use the API. If they are on your account, they have the keys. ## Inviting teammates Open **Settings** in the side nav, choose **Users**, and click **Invite User**. Enter their name, email, and (optionally) job title. They get an email with a sign-up link, set a password, and they are in. See [Team and users](/resources/account/team-and-users) for the full flow. ## How to manage access In standard mode, access is uniform, so the lever you have is who is on the account. - **Add someone** when they need to take action in the portal - **Remove someone** as soon as they do not — when they leave the company, change roles, or finish a project Removing a teammate stops their sign-in immediately. Their order history and comments stay attached to their name as a record. Audit your Users list every quarter. People come and go faster than you remember, and a clean list is the simplest security control you have. ## When you need stricter access If your team needs a tighter model — view-only access for some people, billing locked away from order placers, per-team budgets, regional separation — spend controls is the path. Turning it on switches your account into the Admin/Manager/Sender model with optional Teams and per-user or per-team caps. Reach out to your account team to enable it, and see [Roles, teams, and permissions](/resources/account/roles-teams-and-permissions) for what changes once it's on. --- ## Glossary Source: https://merch.com/resources/getting-started/glossary If you see a word in Merch and you are not sure what it means, this is the page. Definitions are short on purpose. ## Orders and fulfillment **Campaign** — A program where recipients claim or redeem branded items, usually through a public link or a personal invite. Each campaign is a set of rules — what's on offer, who can redeem, where it can ship, how addresses are verified — plus a recipient experience styled with your brand. **Order** — A single purchase from your account. An order can ship to one address or split into many shipments. **Quote vs sales order** — A **quote** is a non-binding price your account team puts together so you can review what an order would cost. Nothing is committed and the numbers can still change. A **sales order** is what we work against once you approve the quote — production, billing, and shipping all key off the sales order. **Fulfillment order** — A single shipment that goes to a single recipient. One order can produce many fulfillment orders, one per box that leaves a warehouse. **Recipient** — A person who is going to receive items from your order or campaign. Each recipient has a name, address, and the items they are getting. **Allocation** — Whether the inventory needed for a shipment has been reserved. **Allocated** means the units are set aside for that shipment; **Unallocated** means we are still pairing inventory to it. You'll see these as the portal labels **Allocated** and **Unallocated**; the API returns them as `ALLOCATED` and `UNALLOCATED`. **In-hands date** — The date you need items in the recipient's hands. We work backwards from this when we plan production and shipping. **Public link** — A link you can share with recipients so they can enter their address, pick a size, or claim an item without logging in. ## Storage and routing **Storage / inventory** — Items you've already ordered and are holding with us in our global warehouse network. Inventory drop-ships from those warehouses on demand — through a regular order, a campaign, or an integration. You'll see charges for fulfillment, shipping, and storage where it applies. **Inventory (held) vs Inventory (line items)** — Two different uses of the word *inventory*. **Inventory (held)** is stock you've ordered and are storing with us in one of our warehouses, ready to drop-ship. **Inventory (line items)** is what appears as a row on a quote or an order — the items and quantities being priced or shipped. Same word, different meaning depending on where you're looking. **Smart routing / campaign rules** — The rule-based engine behind a campaign. It decides who can redeem, what they can pick, and where it can ship from. You configure it in the campaign's **Regions & Routing** settings — pairing fulfillment regions to specific destination countries, then assigning warehouses to each region. **Address verification** — The rules that decide which recipient addresses we'll accept and ship to. Configurable account-wide and overridable per campaign. See [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## Products **My Products** — Your account's short-list of ready-to-order items. Each one has your sizing, colors, and decoration baked in. Items get here either from the Product Catalog (your account team configures a SKU for you) or from a custom design (your account team and the design team build something fresh and price it). **Product Catalog** — The full library of products available to your account. You can request to add anything from the catalog into My Products. **Brand kit** — Your saved logos, fonts, and colors. We pull from your brand kit when we set up new products, generate design proofs, and white-label every campaign surface a recipient touches. Manage it in **Settings → Brand Kit**. **Design proof** — A visual mockup of how a product will look once it is decorated, sent to you for approval before production starts. **Presentation** — A curated set of products your account team puts together and shares with you for review or approval. You can browse the products, share the presentation internally, and respond. Presentations are created by your account team, not by you. ## Money **Deposit invoice** — An invoice issued at the start of an order, often before production begins. **Balance invoice** — The remaining invoice issued once an order ships. Deposit plus balance equals the order total. **Account funds** — A pre-loaded balance on your account. When funds are available, eligible invoices can draw from them automatically. **Auto-pay** — A setting that pays your invoices automatically using your default payment method on file. # Account Manage your profile, team, billing, and account settings. --- ## Account overview Source: https://merch.com/resources/account Your account is where everything that's true about *your company* on Merch lives — who's on your team, where you ship from and bill to, how you pay, what's connected to what, and the agreements that cover it all. This page is a map of the settings; each section below has a deeper article. ## Who you are - [**Profile**](/resources/account/profile) — your personal name, contact info, and notification preferences. - [**Account settings**](/resources/account/account-settings) — your company name, industry, and account-wide preferences. - [**Brand kit**](/resources/account/brand-kit) — your logos, colors, fonts, and brand guidelines so we apply them consistently across orders, proofs, and campaigns. ## Your team - [**Team and users**](/resources/account/team-and-users) — invite teammates, manage seats, keep your team list current. - [**Roles and permissions**](/resources/account/roles-and-permissions) — how access works for the teammates on your account. - [**Working with your account team**](/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team) — your assigned account rep, how to start new projects, and the three ways to reach us. ## What we ship and how we verify it - [**Addresses**](/resources/account/addresses) — save shipping and billing addresses and keep them verified. - [**Address validation rules**](/resources/account/address-validation-rules) — set the rules for which addresses we'll accept and ship to, at the account level or per campaign. ## How you pay - [**Payment methods**](/resources/account/payment-methods) — cards and bank accounts on file. - [**Billing and invoices**](/resources/account/billing-and-invoices) — every invoice, paid or unpaid, with downloadable receipts. - [**Auto-pay and account funds**](/resources/account/auto-pay-and-account-funds) — automate invoice payment and pre-load funds for faster checkout. ## Connect Merch to your stack - [**API keys and integrations**](/resources/account/api-keys-and-integrations) — generate keys for your custom integrations. - [**Integrations**](/resources/account/integrations) — Shopify, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, and your own apps via REST API and webhooks. ## Security and the legal layer - [**Security**](/resources/account/security) — passwords, sessions, and good account hygiene. - [**Intellectual property and artwork**](/resources/account/intellectual-property-and-artwork) — who owns what, and what to verify before sending us artwork. - [**Legal and policies**](/resources/account/legal-and-policies) — the binding agreements that cover your account. - [**Master service agreement**](/resources/account/master-service-agreement) — the MSA we sign to provision your account, and how custom agreements work. If you're new, the two settings worth sorting first are your [brand kit](/resources/account/brand-kit) and your [addresses](/resources/account/addresses). Almost every other workflow pulls from one of those two. --- ## Your profile Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/profile Your profile is the personal half of your account — your name, your contact info, and the preferences that follow you around the portal. ## What lives in your profile - **Name and photo** — what other teammates and your account team see - **Email address** — where notifications and approval requests are sent - **Phone number** — used for shipping confirmations and account recovery - **Time zone and locale** — affects how dates and times display - **Communication preferences** — which kinds of emails you want to receive ## Update your profile Open the portal, click your avatar in the top bar, and choose **Profile**. Edit any field and save. Your changes apply right away. Some fields, like email, may ask you to verify the new address before the change takes effect. ## Change your email address When you change your email, we send a verification link to the new address. Click it to confirm, and your login switches over. Your old email stays on file as a record but cannot be used to sign in. If you lose access to the email tied to your account, contact your account team. Do not create a second account — order history is tied to the original profile. ## Profile vs account settings There is a distinction worth knowing: - **Profile** — your personal info. Changes only affect you. - **Account settings** — your company's info. Changes affect every teammate. See [Account settings](/resources/account/account-settings). ## Photo guidelines A photo is optional but makes it easier for teammates and your account team to recognize you in comments and approvals. Square images work best. We will resize automatically. ## Notification preferences Inside your profile you can also pick which notifications you receive. For the full breakdown, see [Notifications](/resources/account/notifications). --- ## Account settings Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/account-settings Account settings are the company-wide configuration for your Merch account. Anything here applies to every teammate, not just you. ## What you can configure - **Company name and details** — what shows on invoices and shipping labels - **Brand kit** — your logos, brand colors, and typography - **Default addresses** — the addresses that pre-fill on new orders - **Default payment method** — what we charge first when an invoice is paid - **Communication defaults** — the kinds of emails new teammates receive by default - **Connected integrations** — any direct integrations your team has set up (e.g., Shopify); see [Integrations](/resources/account/integrations) for the full list ## Who can edit account settings Anyone on your account can edit account settings today. Because changes here affect every teammate, coordinate with the rest of your team before changing brand kit, default addresses, or default payment methods. See [Roles and permissions](/resources/account/roles-and-permissions). ## Brand kit Your brand kit drives a lot of small decisions across the platform. We pull from it when we set up new products, generate design proofs, and prepare campaign pages. Keep your brand kit current and you will save time on every order. Out-of-date logos lead to back-and-forth on proofs. Upload logos in vector format (SVG or AI) wherever possible. Vector files scale cleanly to embroidery, large prints, and small engraving — raster files do not. ## Default addresses Add the addresses you ship to most often — your office, a warehouse, frequent event venues — so they pre-fill on new orders. You can always override on a single order. For full details on address management, see [Addresses](/resources/account/addresses). ## Account vs profile Account settings affect everyone. Personal preferences — your photo, your notification choices, your time zone — live in your **Profile**. --- ## Brand kit Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/brand-kit Your brand kit is the single source of truth for how your brand looks on everything we make for you. We pull from it when we set up new products, build design proofs, and design any branded surface (campaign pages, redemption links, and so on). Keeping it current is one of the highest-leverage things you can do to speed up turnaround. ## What lives in your brand kit - **Logo** — your primary mark. Managed alongside your company info; it is what shows on invoices, proofs, and customer-facing pages. - **Colors** — the hex codes that make up your palette. Add as many as you need, including primary, secondary, and accent colors. - **Fonts** — the typeface families you use. We will match decoration and design treatments to the closest available font for the production method. - **Guidelines URL** — a link to your brand guidelines PDF or web page, so the design team has the full reference if they need it. ## Where to manage it Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **Brand Kit**. - **Logo** — uploaded via **Settings → Company**. The Brand Kit page shows the current logo so you can confirm it is what we will use. - **Colors** — paste a hex code (with or without the leading `#`) and click **Add Color**. Colors render as swatches; remove with the X. - **Fonts** — type the family name and click **Add Font**. We render a small preview using the family if your browser has it installed. - **Guidelines** — paste a URL. Click **Save** to commit changes. ## How we use it When we build a new product, design a proof, or assemble a customer-facing surface for your account, the design team pulls from your brand kit so the output looks like you. A clear, current brand kit means fewer back-and-forth proof revisions and faster turnaround. Out-of-date logos and colors are the single most common reason a proof comes back wrong on the first pass. If you rebrand, update the kit the same day. New product set-ups in flight will pick up the new kit on the next proof revision. ## A note on logos The logo lives in **Company** rather than the Brand Kit page so it stays consistent across invoices, the portal, and customer-facing emails. If you need to update it, see [Account settings](/resources/account/account-settings). ## Multiple brands or sub-brands If your account covers more than one brand and you need separate kits, talk to your account team. We can structure it so the right kit applies to the right products and orders. --- ## Team and users Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/team-and-users Most accounts are used by more than one person. The Users page is where you bring teammates into your Merch account and keep that list accurate over time. ## Where to find it Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **Users**. You will see a table of everyone with access to your account, when they last signed in, and an actions menu for each row. ## Invite a teammate Click **Invite User** and fill in: - **First and last name** - **Email address** — we send the invite here, and this becomes their sign-in email - **Job title** — optional, helps your team recognize each other When you submit, we email them a sign-up link. They click it, set a password, and they are in. The invite link is single-use and tied to that email. If you would rather add someone without sending them an email yet — for example, you are still figuring out their start date — there is an option to skip the invite email. You can resend it later from the actions menu. ## Edit or remove a teammate From the Users table, hit the actions menu on any row to: - **Edit** — update their name, email, or job title - **Resend invite** — if they never received the original - **Remove** — take away their access immediately When you remove a user, their order history and comments stay intact under their name. Only their ability to sign in goes away. This is the right move when someone leaves the company. Do a quick audit of your Users list every quarter. People change roles, leave, or join — keeping the list accurate keeps approvals routing to the right inboxes. ## Permissions Every teammate on your account gets the same access today — they can place orders, approve proofs, and manage settings. See [Roles and permissions](/resources/account/roles-and-permissions) for the details. ## Sign-in problems If a teammate cannot sign in after accepting an invite, the most common causes are an expired invite link or a typo in their email. Resend the invite from the actions menu, or remove and re-invite if needed. --- ## Roles and permissions Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/roles-and-permissions Access on Merch works one of two ways, depending on whether spend controls is enabled on your account. - **Standard access (default).** Every teammate you invite gets the same access. Anyone on the account can place orders, approve proofs, run campaigns, see invoices, manage payment methods, invite teammates, and use the API. - **Spend controls enabled (opt-in).** Three roles — Admin, Manager, and Sender — take effect, with hierarchical permissions: a Manager has everything a Sender has plus team-level controls, and an Admin has everything a Manager has plus account-level controls. Optional Teams let you group senders under a Manager with shared caps. See [Roles, teams, and permissions](/resources/account/roles-teams-and-permissions) for the full breakdown. The rest of this page covers how access works in the standard mode, plus the principles that apply in both modes. ## What teammates can do in standard mode Once invited and signed in, a teammate can: - Browse My Products and the Product Catalog - Place orders and approve design proofs - Run campaigns and view recipient activity - See invoices, receipts, and payment activity - Manage saved addresses and default settings - Invite other teammates and manage the user list - Add and remove payment methods - Generate API keys and connect integrations ## When you need stricter access If you want a tighter model — view-only people, sending separated from billing, regional separation, per-team budgets — spend controls is the path. Once it's turned on, you get the Admin/Manager/Sender roles plus optional Teams to organize who can do what. Reach out to your account team to enable it. ## Removing access In both modes, the most important lever you have is who is on the account. If someone should not be able to take an action, they should not be on the account. When a teammate leaves the company or changes roles internally, remove them from the **Users** page right away. Their sign-in stops working immediately, while their order history and comments stay attached to their name as a record. See [Team and users](/resources/account/team-and-users) for the click path. Do not share a single login between teammates. Audit trails, approval emails, and notifications all assume one person per account. Sharing logins makes it hard to tell who did what — and harder to revoke access cleanly when someone leaves. ## Sensitive actions Actions that touch money or account access — payment methods, auto-pay, API keys, removing teammates — are logged. When something changes, the rest of your team can see who did it and when, so accountability is built in regardless of which access mode you're on. ## Best practice Keep the user list tight. The shortest path to a clean account is to invite people only when they need access and remove them as soon as they do not. If you're on spend controls, pair that with caps that match how your team actually buys, so the rules carry the load instead of relying on memory. --- ## Roles, teams, and permissions Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/roles-teams-and-permissions When spend controls are on, three roles plus optional Teams determine who can do what. Without spend controls, access on the account is uniform — these only matter once you've turned controls on. ## The three roles | Role | Send | Create campaigns | Edit caps | Manage teams | |---|---|---|---|---| | Sender | Yes | — | — | — | | Manager | Yes | Yes (their team) | Their team only | Their team only | | Admin | Yes | Yes (all) | Yes (all) | Yes (any) | Roles are inclusive: a Manager is also a Sender, an Admin is also a Manager and a Sender. Everyone sends, and everyone's sends are subject to the same caps — Admins don't bypass their own caps. ## Teams Teams are optional. Create one when you want a shared budget across a group, a Manager who runs that group day-to-day, or campaigns scoped to specific people. Manage them from **Settings → Teams**. A user belongs to zero or one team; dissolving a team releases members back to "no team" with their personal caps intact. ## Campaign access Each campaign can have an allowed list of users and teams. Empty means open to the whole account. With entries, only those people (plus all Admins) can send from it. A user can also be granted account-wide campaign access — useful for a senior individual contributor who needs visibility everywhere without becoming an Admin. --- ## Setting up spend controls Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/setting-up-spend-controls Spend controls let you delegate gifting to teammates without giving up oversight. Turning it on is a four-piece configuration: roles, optional teams, caps, and the master toggle. You'll need an Admin role on the account. If your account has one or two senders and a single annual budget, you can skip this entirely — Merch works fine without any caps. ## The fulfillment credit limit (always on) Worth knowing before you start: every account also has a [fulfillment credit limit](/resources/billing/credit-limits-and-payment-terms) — the in-flight ceiling on how much allocated-but-not-yet-invoiced work your account can carry at once. Your sales rep sets it; you can't change it from the portal. It applies whenever it's positive, separate from any of the caps below. ## 1. Roles From **Settings → Users**, assign each teammate one of three roles: - **Admin** sets account policy, edits any cap, and turns spend controls on or off. - **Manager** runs their own team only — members, caps, and team-assigned campaigns. - **Sender** sends from the campaigns they have access to. Newly invited users default to Admin so they can manage their own account immediately. Demote to Manager or Sender when you want to narrow what someone can do. See [Roles, teams, and permissions](/resources/account/roles-teams-and-permissions) for the full breakdown. ## 2. Teams (optional) Skip if you only have a few senders. Otherwise, create teams from **Settings → Teams** to group users for shared budgets and campaign-scoped access. Each team has a Manager and members; the Manager edits the team's caps from then on. ## 3. Caps You can set spend and link caps at three levels: - **Per-user** — each sender, with their own period (monthly, quarterly, annual, or lifetime) - **Per-team** — shared across team members, same period choices - **Per-campaign** — total budget, total invite links, links per sender, and an optional per-recipient cap that overrides the account-wide annual All caps are optional. Leave a layer blank to skip that constraint. ## 4. Turn it on From **Spend Controls** (Admin only), flip the toggle. If your current in-flight exposure is already above your fulfillment credit limit, fix that first — either wait for invoicing or ask your sales rep about a higher limit. Once on, every new order is evaluated against your caps and the fulfillment credit limit. Anything that doesn't fit goes on [credit hold](/resources/campaigns/credit-hold-orders); recipients see no error. ## FAQs **Can I configure caps before turning controls on?** Yes. Caps are advisory until enforcement is on — useful to watch usage for a week or two before flipping the switch. **Do Admins escape their own caps?** No. Roles are inclusive; an Admin's sends count against the same per-user cap as anyone else's. **What if I turn it back off?** Held orders don't auto-release. They stay held until you raise limits or override them individually. --- ## Understanding unit value Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/understanding-unit-value When spend controls are on, every order has to count for *something* in dollars. Unit value is the per-unit number Merch uses for that math. You'll see it on each product's Budget Tracking section. ## What it is A reference price per variant, used only to decrement your spend caps. It doesn't show up on invoices or anywhere a recipient can see — it exists for your budget tracking and nothing else. An order of 3 t-shirts with a $14.50 unit value deducts $43.50 (plus shipping and fees) from your campaign, team, user, and account caps. ## Where the number comes from For a variant you've never ordered before, Merch averages the published price tiers on the catalog page and uses that as the default. Once you place a real sales order at a negotiated price, future spend-controls math uses that price instead. The number stays grounded in what you actually pay. ## When to override Most accounts never need to. Set it manually only when your real pricing is meaningfully different from the catalog average — usually for custom-priced products. Edit it from the product's Budget Tracking section; saving locks the variant so the auto-update doesn't overwrite you. Unlock it whenever you want auto-updates to resume. ## Already-placed orders Each order takes a snapshot of unit value at the moment it's created. Later changes don't reach orders already in flight — your accounting stays consistent. --- ## Working with your account team Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team Every Merch account starts with an account team. They are the people you work with day-to-day — picking products, scoping designs, pricing quotes, placing orders, and planning what to do next. Most customers spend more time with their account team than they ever do clicking around the portal. ## What your account team handles Almost everything. Specifically: - **Getting your [master service agreement](/resources/account/master-service-agreement) signed and your account access provisioned** — the MSA is required for account access unless you have a custom agreement; we send it for electronic signature during onboarding - **Getting you set up** — assigning your account, walking you through the portal, getting your brand kit dialed in - **Designing product** — starting a design from scratch or off a catalog item, working with the design team on proofs, iterating with you until you approve - **Sourcing** — finding products that are not already in our catalog when you have something specific in mind - **Pricing and quotes** — putting together a quote with quantities, decoration, and lead time - **Placing orders for you** — many customers prefer to email their order details and let us build it. That is fine. You can always do it yourself in My Products instead, or mix the two - **Planning storage levels** — deciding how much of each item to hold in our warehouses so you can drop-ship from stock when you need to - **Scoping campaigns** — helping you design a redemption flow, pick the right products, set limits, and brand the recipient experience - **Configuring address-verification rules** — walking through [the toggles](/resources/account/address-validation-rules) with you so we ship to the addresses you want and flag the ones you do not - **Setting up integrations** — wiring Shopify, Salesforce, Zapier, or your own system into Merch so orders flow through automatically. See [Integrations](/resources/account/integrations) - **Shipping snags** — re-routes, address corrections, late shipments, claims for damaged or lost packages - **Billing terms** — payment methods, terms, account funds, auto-pay, statements If it touches your account, they can either handle it or get you to the person who can. ## Starting new projects Most work starts with a quick note to your **assigned account rep** — not a support ticket. Email them or message them in the portal with a sentence about what you have in mind ("we want welcome kits for 50 new hires," "we're planning a holiday gift to our top 200 customers," "let's build a co-branded box with this partner") and they'll take it from there: scoping, sourcing, pricing, timelines. The whole point of having a rep is that you don't need to know the right form or the right team — they route everything internally for you. ## How to reach them You have three easy paths. Use whichever is most natural for the moment: - **Email** — your rep's address is the same one that signs the threads they've started with you. Replying to any past thread lands with the right people; emailing your rep directly works the same way. Best for anything you'd otherwise put in an email. - **Message in the portal** — open the side nav and start a conversation. Same people on the other side, no email tag, with the order or campaign already in context. - **Support** — for portal issues (a stuck status, a missing tracking number, a payment that didn't post), the **Support** flow in the side nav routes to the right place fastest. ## Getting fast answers A few habits make the back-and-forth shorter: - **Reference an order, campaign, or invoice number** when relevant. It cuts a round of "which one?" - **Send screenshots** of what you are looking at, especially for proof or design comments - **Be specific about timing** — "I need this in-hands by the 22nd" is easier to plan around than "ASAP" - **Loop in the right teammates** — if your finance lead pays the invoice, copy them on billing threads ## Hours and response times We monitor support during US business hours and aim to respond same-day. Urgent issues — orders that need to ship today, payments that just went out, recipients reporting a missing package — go to the top of the queue. For urgent shipping issues, mention the order number in your first message. It lets us check carrier status before we even reply. --- ## Intellectual property and artwork Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/intellectual-property-and-artwork When we make designs together, you own the designs. When you send us artwork to put on a product, we need a few things from you to use it. This article walks through both sides in plain English. The binding language is in our [terms](/terms). ## Designs we create with you When our design team creates artwork for your account — logos rendered for embroidery, repeat patterns, layouts laid out to a product's print area, production-ready files — that work product is yours. The terms call this **Design Output**, and it includes the mockups, concepts, and final production files we produce in line with your instructions. You can use Design Output for anything, including production with other manufacturers. We retain ownership of the underlying tools, templates, and methodologies we used to make it — the things we bring to every customer — but not the output itself. ## Artwork you supply When you send us a logo, image, font, or any other asset to put on a product, you are confirming you have the right to use it. The terms include a representation and warranty from you that your brand assets and design instructions don't infringe anyone's intellectual property and that you've obtained any third-party licenses required. A few examples of where third-party rights commonly come up: - **Fonts** — many fonts require a commercial license for production use - **Stock imagery** — licenses vary; some don't cover apparel or merchandise - **Sports leagues, universities, characters** — almost always require a license - **Celebrity or public-figure names and likenesses** — separate rights of publicity apply - **Other brands' logos or marks** — even on a "co-branded" piece, you need permission from the other side If you're not sure whether something is cleared, talk to your account team before submitting. They'll route borderline assets to the design team for a quick review. ## Mockups and proofs Mockups and proofs are part of Design Output — they belong to you. We share them for your review and approval, and once you approve, the design moves into production. Approval is the green light: production begins from the approved file. If something is off in a proof, flag it before approving. Changes after approval can carry re-decoration or re-pick fees depending on where the order is in production. ## Campaign content Anything you put into a campaign — the messaging on the redemption page, the imagery on the invite, the branding on the gift link — needs to comply with applicable law and not infringe third-party rights. Campaigns are presented under your brand, and the terms put the responsibility for that content on you, with an indemnity for claims that arise from it. ## What to do if you're not sure The shortcut for any borderline asset: ask your account team before sending it in. A two-minute check up front saves an awkward conversation after a piece is already on a product. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language on IP, design output, brand-asset warranties, and campaign content. If your account has a custom agreement, the IP language in that document governs instead of the standard terms — see [your master service agreement](/resources/account/master-service-agreement). --- ## Notifications Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/notifications Merch sends emails for the things you actually want to know about — order updates, invoice activity, campaign progress. The Notifications page lets you turn off the ones you do not. ## Where to find it Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **Notifications**. ## What you can opt in or out of Toggle these categories on or off: - **Inventory** — low-stock alerts, out-of-stock alerts, and warehouse updates. Defaults to on for new and existing accounts. Admins and managers see every product on the account; senders only see alerts for products tied to campaigns they can access. Full detail: [Low-stock and out-of-stock alerts](/resources/account/inventory-alerts). - **Campaigns** — invites, reminders, and status updates - **Support tickets** — ticket status changes and assignments - **Product releases & updates** — new features and platform improvements There is also a master switch — **Unsubscribe from all non-essential emails** — that turns every optional category off in one click. ## What you cannot turn off A few categories stay on for everyone, because they affect orders, money, or account access: - **Orders & shipping** — order confirmations, approval requests, and shipping notifications - **Billing & invoices** — invoice notifications and payment confirmations - **Security** — password resets, invitations, and account changes Notification preferences are personal. Each teammate manages their own. Turning something off only affects your inbox — not anyone else on your account. ## Make sure email reaches you If a notification you expected never showed up: - Check your spam or promotions folder - Add `@merch.com` to your safe senders - Confirm the email on your [profile](/resources/account/profile) is current and verified ## Turning everything off The master opt-out switch is useful when you are on vacation or want a break. Required notifications still come through, and when you flip the switch back on your previous category preferences are restored. --- ## Low-stock and out-of-stock alerts Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/inventory-alerts Every product you store with Merch has a low-stock threshold. When your available stock crosses below that number, we send an alert so the right people on your team can decide whether to reorder, rebalance between warehouses, or hold off until production catches up. A second, louder alert fires when a SKU hits zero so anyone about to ship from that warehouse can pause or redirect. The goal is the same as the rest of the platform: surface the signal that actually needs attention, and keep noise out of inboxes that cannot act on it. ## How the threshold works Every product has a **minimum inventory threshold**. You set it from the product detail page in your portal. We default new products to a safe baseline so alerts work out of the box, and most teams tune the threshold after a few order cycles based on: - How quickly the SKU moves week to week - How long a fresh production run takes to land in your warehouse - Whether you have a campaign or event coming up that will draw the SKU down faster than usual A good rule of thumb: set the threshold to cover the units you would expect to ship between now and the day a reorder would arrive. You can change the threshold any time. Lowering it makes alerts quieter; raising it gives you more lead time before a stockout. ## When the alert fires We watch your available stock and trigger on the boundary cross, not on every order. - **Low stock** fires the first time available drops under the threshold. - **Out of stock** fires the moment available hits zero, even if no Low stock alert preceded it (a single bulk order can take you from healthy straight to zero). We will not re-send the same alert until the SKU recovers above the threshold and then crosses back down. So a busy campaign that draws the SKU through the threshold once will not produce a flood of duplicate emails for the same product. If you change the threshold itself and your current stock is already below the new value, we treat that as a fresh crossing and send a Low stock alert. That way bumping the threshold up on a quiet product cannot accidentally hide a real problem. ## Who gets notified This is the part most teams want to tune carefully. Different people care about different SKUs, and the wrong defaults turn alerts into noise. **Account admins and account managers** Every inventory alert on the account. These are the people responsible for the program overall, so they always have the full picture. **Senders** Only alerts for products tied to a campaign they can access. A sender running a new-hire kit campaign sees alerts for those SKUs. The same sender does not see alerts for a SKU that lives in another team's holiday giveaway, because they cannot act on it. If a campaign is open to everyone on the account (no specific user or team is locked to it), every sender on the account is treated as having access to its SKUs. **Your Merch account team** Your account rep, order rep, and production team also get internal copies of inventory alerts so they can act on the same signal you do, often before you have to ask. These are not subject to personal preferences; they are part of the service. Senders who want every inventory alert, not just the ones tied to their campaigns, can ask an Admin or Manager to promote their client role. Inventory targeting follows access. There is no separate firehose toggle. ## Managing alerts as an individual Every teammate manages their own alerts. Turning your own inventory alerts off does not change anything for anyone else on the account. To mute or unmute: 1. Open **Settings** in the side nav of your portal. 2. Choose **Notifications**. 3. Toggle the **Inventory** category on or off. Or use the master switch (**Unsubscribe from all non-essential emails**) when you are heading out for vacation. It pauses every optional category and restores your previous choices when you flip it back on. You can also unsubscribe directly from the footer of any inventory alert email. That mutes only the inventory category, not the rest of your notifications. ## Across warehouses Thresholds are set per product. We check available stock at every warehouse the product is held in, and the alert tells you which warehouse triggered it. When the same product is stored in multiple regions, that detail matters. A low-stock event in your UK warehouse might mean you simply need to rebalance from the US warehouse, while a US-only stockout might require a fresh production run. The alert gives you enough context to make that call without opening the dashboard first. ## Tuning quick reference - **Getting too many alerts?** Raise the threshold so it only fires when the SKU is genuinely close to risk, or mute the Inventory category on your personal Notifications page. - **Missing restocks?** Lower the threshold (more lead time before stockout) or check that your Inventory category is on. - **Senders complaining about irrelevant pings?** Confirm their campaigns are scoped to the right users or teams. If a campaign is open to the whole account, every sender on the account is in scope for its SKUs. - **Senders missing alerts they expect?** Confirm the campaign they expect to see alerts for has them or their team listed as an allowed principal. ## Related - [Notifications](/resources/account/notifications) shows the full list of categories and how the master switch works. - [Roles, teams, and permissions](/resources/account/roles-teams-and-permissions) explains how Admin, Manager, and Sender roles map to what each teammate can see. - [Setting up spend controls](/resources/account/setting-up-spend-controls) covers the budgets and caps that pair naturally with inventory thresholds for predictable operations. - [Storage and inventory policy](/resources/billing/storage-and-inventory-policy) covers our storage terms and the rules around long-held inventory. --- ## Merch.com Inbox for Gmail Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/gmail-inbox-extension The Merch.com Inbox extension lives in your Chrome side panel inside Gmail. Open any thread, click the Merch icon, and the recipient is already filled in from the people you are emailing. You can send a campaign invite, a one-off gift link, or a re-send of something you have sent that contact before, all without switching tabs. It is the fastest way to put a gift in front of someone you are already talking to. ## What you can do with it - **Send a campaign invite** to the person in the active Gmail thread. Pick a campaign, confirm, done. - **Send a one-off gift link** when you do not need a full campaign behind it. - **Re-send what you have sent before**. The panel surfaces the recipient's past sends so a follow-up gift is two clicks. - **See your spending caps in context**. Budgets, per-recipient limits, and credit headroom show up in the panel before you send, so you never trigger a hold by surprise. ## Installing it The extension is available for any teammate on your account. Two ways in: 1. **Chrome Web Store.** Search for "Merch.com Inbox" and click Add to Chrome. The icon lands in your toolbar. 2. **Early access via your account team.** If your team is on the early roster, your account rep will send a sideload link with install instructions. Once installed, pin the icon to your toolbar so it is always one click away. Then open any Gmail tab and click the icon to launch the side panel. ## Signing in Three paths, tried in order: 1. **Auto-detect.** If you are already signed into [merch.com](https://merch.com) in the same browser, the extension picks up your session automatically. Nothing to do. 2. **Stay signed in.** Once you have signed in through the extension, your session is remembered until you sign out or the token expires. 3. **Sign in inside the panel.** First time on a new browser, type your normal email and password. Same credentials as the portal. If you are part of multiple accounts on Merch, the extension uses whichever account is active in the portal. Switch accounts in the portal and the extension follows. ## Sending merch from a thread 1. Open the Gmail thread with the person you want to send to. 2. Click the **Merch.com Inbox** icon in your Chrome toolbar. 3. The side panel opens with the recipient pre-filled from the thread. 4. Pick a campaign from your account, or choose the gift-link option for a one-off send. 5. Review the budget and limits surfaced in the panel. 6. Click **Send**. The recipient gets the same invite or link they would get if you had sent it from the portal, including your account's branding, language, and redemption settings. The To field is editable. If the Gmail thread has multiple people on it, pick the one you actually want to gift to before you send. ## Spend controls and limits still apply The extension is a sending surface, not an escape hatch. It calls the same API the portal uses, so every guardrail you have set up applies: - **Campaign budgets** that have hit their cap will block the send and tell you why. - **Per-recipient limits** will block a re-send if the recipient is already at their cap. - **Team and user spending caps** apply to the teammate doing the sending. - **Account fulfillment credit limit** governs all of the above. If a send would breach any of these, you see the same message you would see in the portal, and you can resolve it (raise a cap, swap to a different campaign, or request a higher limit) before retrying. For background on these guardrails, see [Setting up spend controls](/resources/account/setting-up-spend-controls) and [Campaign budget and link limits](/resources/campaigns/campaign-budget-and-link-limits). ## Privacy The extension only reads what it needs: - **Thread participants.** So it can fill in the recipient. Names and email addresses, not message bodies. - **Your active Gmail tab.** So the icon can act on the right conversation. It does not read message content, attachments, unrelated tabs, or anything else. Everything is processed locally in the browser. The only network call out of the extension is the GraphQL request that creates the campaign send, exactly the same call the portal makes. ## Troubleshooting **The recipient field is empty.** The extension reads the thread's participants from the page. If Gmail is still loading or the thread has not finished rendering, give it a second and click the icon again. **Send button is disabled.** A limit or hold is blocking the send. Hover the disabled button to see which cap is at issue. The most common ones are an empty campaign budget, an exhausted per-recipient cap, or the account being at its credit limit. **I see a sign-in screen even though I am logged into the portal.** Confirm you are signed in on the same browser profile. The extension reads your session cookie from your merch.com domain, so a different Chrome profile or an incognito window will not share state. **I want to stop using the extension.** Right-click the toolbar icon and choose **Remove from Chrome**. Your account and history are untouched. You can reinstall any time. ## Related - [Sending invites](/resources/campaigns/sending-invites) covers the same send action as it works inside the portal. - [Campaign budget and link limits](/resources/campaigns/campaign-budget-and-link-limits) explains the caps the extension respects. - [Setting up spend controls](/resources/account/setting-up-spend-controls) walks through the broader guardrail system. - [API keys and integrations](/resources/account/api-keys-and-integrations) lists other ways to send through Merch from external systems. --- ## Addresses Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/addresses Your address book holds the shipping and billing addresses you use most often. Save the ones you reuse so they pre-fill on new orders, and let our verification step catch typos before a shipment is on its way to nowhere. ## Where addresses live There are two places addresses show up: - **Account-wide defaults** — your main shipping and billing addresses, set in **Settings** under your company info. These pre-fill on new orders. - **Saved addresses** — frequently used addresses (offices, warehouses, event venues, recurring recipients). You can pick from these on any order. You can always type in a one-off address on a single order without saving it. ## Adding an address When you add a new address, fill in the standard fields — name, company, street, city, state, postal code, country, phone. Carriers use the phone number for delivery exceptions; it is not shown to recipients. When you save, we check the address against verification and assign it a status. For what each status means and how to control which ones we ship to, see [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## Editing or removing Open the address book, click an address, and edit any field. Save and we re-verify. To remove an address, use the row's actions menu. Removing an address does not affect any past orders that used it. Editing an address on file does not change addresses on orders that have already been placed. If a recipient's shipping address is wrong on an active order, contact your account team — we may still be able to update it before it ships. ## International addresses International addresses follow the same flow. Verification rules are looser outside the US — some countries do not have address-level data — so you may see more **Needs review** results internationally. That is normal. Confirm it visually and proceed. ## Address verification settings Account-level settings control which verification statuses are allowed to ship without a manual override, and you can override those rules per campaign. Manage them at **Settings → Address Verification**, where you will also see a **Confirm Settings** button that marks the setup-checklist step done once you have reviewed the rules. Full walkthrough in [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## Tips that save shipments - Always include a phone number — carriers use it for delivery exceptions - For office buildings, include the floor or suite - For events, save the venue with the event date in the nickname (e.g., "SXSW 2026") - Re-verify any address you have not used in a year — businesses move --- ## Address validation rules Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/address-validation-rules Some teams want every address scrutinized before we ship. Others want us to ship to anything that looks plausible. Address validation rules let you pick where on that spectrum your account sits, and override the choice for a specific campaign. ## What gets verified Every address that goes into your account — saved addresses, recipient addresses on a campaign, one-off shipping addresses on an order — gets checked. These rules are what gate addresses recipients enter through an [address-on-claim](/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim) campaign as well. The result is a status: - Verified — matches a known deliverable address exactly. Safe to ship. - Needs Review — close to a known address but missing something (apartment number, suite, building) or borderline. Worth a human look. - Corrected — we matched it to a deliverable address with light cleanup (for example, "Saint" became "St"). - Overridden — the address was manually corrected by someone on your team, replacing whatever the verifier returned. - Invalid — does not match a real deliverable address. Almost always a typo or a made-up entry. - Unverified — we could not get a verification result back (often international addresses where address-level data is thin). The status is visible everywhere addresses show up — your address book, the recipient list on a campaign, the address card on an order. ## What to do when you see each status - Verified — Nothing to do. Safe to ship. - Needs Review — Open the address and confirm the missing piece (apartment, suite, building number). Update or override if you're confident. - Corrected — Skim the cleanup we applied and confirm it matches what you intended. No further action if it looks right. - Invalid — Treat as a typo or bad entry. Fix the address before shipping, or remove the recipient. - Unverified — Sanity-check the address visually (especially international ones). Override if it looks deliverable. ## Set the rules at the account level Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **Address Verification**. You will see eight toggles, four for US addresses and four for international: **US Addresses** - **Allow Overridden** — ship to addresses your team manually corrected - **Allow Needs Review** — ship without flagging the address for a human look first - **Allow Invalid** — ship even when the address did not match anything deliverable - **Allow Unverified** — ship when no verification result came back **International Addresses** - **Allow Overridden** - **Allow Needs Review** - **Allow Invalid** - **Allow Unverified** Toggle each one on to allow that status to ship; toggle off to block it. Hit **Save Changes** when you are done. The page also has a **Confirm Settings** button. Clicking it stamps the page with a "last reviewed on" date and ticks the matching item off your account setup checklist. Use it once you have settled on rules you are happy with. ## Override per campaign Inside any campaign, open **Settings** and pick the **Address Verification** section. You will see a mode dropdown: - **Use Account Settings (Default)** — the campaign inherits whatever you configured at the account level - **Custom Settings for this Campaign** — the campaign uses its own toggles, and the same eight switches (US + International) appear below Custom mode is useful when one campaign needs different rules than the rest of your account — usually tighter for a high-stakes invite list, looser for an internal recipient list where you trust the data. ## Recommendations The defaults work for most accounts. A couple of patterns we see often: - **Tighten** for invite-only campaigns going to important recipients (clients, prospects, executive gifts). Block Invalid and Needs Review so we never ship to a bad address. - **Loosen** for internal-recipient campaigns where the address data comes straight from your HRIS and you trust it. Allow Unverified so a thin international match does not stall a shipment. If you are not sure where to land, walk through the toggles with your account team — they have seen what works for accounts like yours. --- ## Payment methods Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/payment-methods Your payment methods are the cards and bank accounts saved to your account. Save one or more so you can pay invoices in two clicks and turn on auto-pay. ## Where to find it Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **Payment Method**. ## Supported types - **Credit and debit cards** — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover - **Bank accounts** — US bank accounts via ACH We use Stripe to process and store payment details. Card numbers and bank account numbers are tokenized — Merch never sees or stores the raw numbers. ## Adding a card Click **Add Payment Method**, choose **Card**, and enter the card details. Stripe runs a small authorization to confirm the card is valid (this drops off — it is not a real charge). Once saved, the card is available on every invoice. ## Adding a bank account Choose **ACH**, enter the name on the account, and click **Link Bank Account**. A secure window opens where you sign into your bank with your normal online banking credentials, and the account is verified in seconds. For details, see [Adding a bank account](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account). ACH is the better choice for larger invoices. Card processing fees are higher and many cards have lower limits than your typical merch order. ACH avoids both. ## Setting a primary method You can mark one method as your primary. The primary is what we charge first when you pay an invoice or when auto-pay runs. You can pick a backup too — if the primary fails, we try the backup automatically. For more on this, see [Auto-pay and account funds](/resources/account/auto-pay-and-account-funds). ## Editing a payment method You can update billing zip codes and nicknames in place. To change a card number or bank account, remove the old method and add a new one. ## Removing a method Open the payment method's actions menu and choose **Remove**. We will warn you if it is currently the primary or backup for auto-pay — you will need to set a new primary first. Removing a payment method does not affect past charges or invoices already paid. ## Failed payments If a payment fails, we email the teammate who triggered it (or who owns auto-pay). Common causes: - Card expired or replaced - Insufficient funds - Bank account closed or restricted - Daily transaction limit reached Update the method or pay with a different one. The invoice stays open until paid. ## Security Adding or removing a payment method is logged and visible to everyone on your account, so changes are accountable across your team. Treat shared payment methods like the rest of your account hygiene — only people who should be able to touch them should be on the account. --- ## Billing and invoices Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/billing-and-invoices Every charge on your account becomes an invoice. The Billing page is where you find them, see what is paid or unpaid, and download PDFs for your records. ## Where to find it Open **Billing** in the side nav. You will see a table of every invoice on your account, sortable by date, status, or amount. ## Invoice statuses Each invoice shows one of: - Closed — fully paid. The PDF doubles as a receipt. - Due — open and within its payment window. - Past Due — recently past its due date. - Over Due — significantly past due. You can filter the table by status to focus on what needs your attention. For more on what happens when an invoice goes past due, see [Overdue invoices](/resources/billing/overdue-invoices). ## Types of invoices you may see - **Deposit invoice** — issued at the start of a new order, before production. This locks in your spot in the production queue. - **Balance invoice** — issued once items are produced and ready to ship. This covers the remaining cost of the order. - **Fulfillment fees** — billed for warehousing and shipments out of inventory you have on hand with us. - **Subscription invoices** — your monthly platform fee, if your plan includes one. ## Paying an invoice Click any unpaid invoice to open it. From the invoice page you can: - Pay with a saved card or bank account - Pay with account funds, if you have a balance - Download the invoice PDF - See the line items, taxes, and shipping (if applicable) Once payment clears, the status flips to Closed and the invoice PDF is available as your receipt. ACH payments take 1-3 business days to clear. Card payments are usually instant. The invoice stays in Due until clearance is confirmed. ## Downloading invoices and receipts Every invoice has a **Download** button. The PDF includes your company info, our company info, line items, taxes, and a payment record (for paid invoices). Use it for accounting, expense reports, and reimbursement. For a roll-up of activity over a date range, contact your account team — they can pull a statement. ## Payment terms Your account has a payment term — most commonly **Due on receipt** or **Net 30**. The term controls when an invoice is considered overdue, not when it can be paid. Net 30 means you have 30 days from the invoice date. ## Tax exemptions If your organization is tax-exempt or you have a valid resale certificate, send it to your account team. Once approved, eligible orders will not be taxed on future invoices. ## Auto-pay Tired of paying invoices one at a time? Turn on auto-pay and we will charge a payment method on file when invoices come due. See [Auto-pay and account funds](/resources/account/auto-pay-and-account-funds). ## Questions on a charge If a line item looks wrong, reach out to your account team with the invoice number. We will pull it apart with you and fix anything that does not add up. --- ## Auto-pay and account funds Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/auto-pay-and-account-funds Two tools can take the friction out of paying invoices: **auto-pay** charges a saved payment method when invoices come due, and **account funds** lets you pre-load a balance and draw from it. ## Auto-pay Auto-pay watches your invoices and charges your primary payment method automatically when each one is due. No more "did anyone pay this?" emails. ### Turning it on Open **Settings**, choose **Payment Method**, and step through the auto-pay setup wizard — you pick which invoice types to cover, choose a primary and optional backup method, and confirm. For the full walk-through of the wizard, see [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay). ### Invoice categories you can auto-pay - **Sales order invoices** — deposits and balances on your orders - **Storage & fulfillment invoices** — warehousing and per-shipment fulfillment fees - **Subscription invoices** — your monthly platform plan fee, if applicable You can have auto-pay on for some types and off for others. Many teams auto-pay subscription and fulfillment invoices but pay sales order invoices manually. ### Stopping or changing auto-pay Open the auto-pay section and toggle the categories on or off, or change the primary or backup method. Changes apply to future invoices — anything already auto-charged is settled. If a card on auto-pay expires, the next attempt fails and we email your team. Update the card to keep auto-pay running. The invoice stays open until paid. ## Account funds Account funds is a pre-paid balance on your account. Wire or pay in any amount, and that balance is available to apply to invoices instantly — no card swipe, no ACH wait. ### Why use it - **Speed** — no payment to clear when you are placing a fast-turn order - **Predictability** — you know exactly what is sitting on your account and ready to spend - **One transfer covers many invoices** — wire once a quarter and forget about it ### Adding funds Contact your account team to add funds. Once we receive the wire or ACH, your balance updates in the portal. You will see it in **Billing** at the top of the page. ### Spending funds When you pay an invoice, account funds are offered as a payment option (when you have a balance). Pick "Pay with account funds" and the invoice is paid instantly. ### Refunds Funds you pre-load stay your money. If you want to drain the balance back, contact your account team and we will return it to the bank account or card it came from. ## Auto-pay plus account funds You can use both. Many teams keep a balance of account funds for fast manual payment on big orders and run auto-pay against a card or bank for the recurring categories — subscription, fulfillment fees, and similar. Talk to your account team about the setup that fits your billing rhythm. --- ## API keys and integrations Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/api-keys-and-integrations This article covers the in-portal workflow for managing API keys on your account — creating them, naming them, rotating them, and revoking them. It does not cover the API itself. Looking for Shopify, Salesforce, or Zapier? See [Integrations](/resources/account/integrations). For the full API and webhook reference, see [Developers](/resources/developers/index). ## Where to find it Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **API Keys**. ## Creating an API key Click **Create a Key** and fill in: - **Name** — what this key is for ("HR system", "Order webhook", etc.) - **Description** — anything else your team needs to know about it When you save, the full key is shown to you once. Copy it immediately and store it somewhere safe — a password manager or your secrets vault. We do not store the raw key, so if you lose it you will need to create a new one. Treat API keys like passwords. Anyone with the key can act on your account. Never paste keys into shared docs, Slack channels, or email. Rotate them if you suspect a leak. ## Using your key Send the key as a bearer token on every request: ``` Authorization: Bearer ``` For the full API reference — endpoints, request and response shapes, error codes — see [Developers](/resources/developers/index). ## Labeling and organizing keys Most teams create one key per system that talks to Merch — one for the HR tool, one for the e-commerce store, one for a custom internal app. That way if you need to revoke a key, you know exactly which system goes dark. Keep the **Name** descriptive and the **Description** specific. "Production webhook for HR onboarding" beats "key 3." ## Rate limits Each API key is limited to roughly **1,000 requests per 24 hours** by default. If your use case needs more, talk to your account team — we can raise the limit when there is a real need. If you exceed the limit, you will get a `429 Too Many Requests` response. Back off and retry later. ## Webhooks Webhooks let your systems subscribe to event notifications (order status changes, shipping updates, campaign redemptions, invoice events) instead of polling. For the full setup, signing, and event reference, see [Webhooks reference](/resources/developers/webhooks-reference). ## Removing or rotating a key From the API Keys table, hit the row's actions menu and choose **Remove**. The key stops working immediately — any system still using it will start getting `401 Unauthorized`. To rotate a key, create a new one, switch your systems over to it, and remove the old one. Most teams rotate keys at least once a year, and immediately if a teammate with access leaves. ## Getting help API issues that look like ours and not yours, or just questions about how to model something, go to your account team. Send the request payload, the response, and what you expected — we will sort it out. --- ## Integrations Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/integrations Merch holds your inventory in our global warehouse network and ships it on demand. Integrations let your own systems — your store, your CRM, your HR tool — tell us when to ship and where, sourced from data you already maintain. No re-keying, no CSV uploads. ## Why integrate You probably already track the things that should trigger a Merch shipment somewhere else: orders in your e-commerce store, opportunities in your CRM, new hires in your HRIS, milestones in a spreadsheet. An integration plugs Merch into that data so a shipment goes out automatically when the trigger fires. We handle storage, fulfillment, and shipping; the integration tells us what to send and to whom. ## Shopify If you sell merch on Shopify, we can sync products and pull new orders straight into Merch. When a customer checks out, the order flows to us and we ship from your held inventory at our warehouses. You manage the storefront and pricing in Shopify; we manage the fulfillment. ## Salesforce and HubSpot via Zapier Both Salesforce and HubSpot connect to Merch through Zapier. That gives you an enormous range of triggers without writing code: send a new-customer welcome kit when an opportunity flips to Closed Won, ship a milestone gift when a contact hits a tenure threshold, send a thank-you when a deal closes. You wire the trigger in Zapier and we ship. ## Zapier Zapier connects Merch to 5,000+ apps. The most common triggers we see: - **HRIS** (BambooHR, Workday) — onboarding kits for new hires, anniversary gifts - **Communication** (Slack) — team rewards triggered from a channel - **Marketing** (Marketo, Mailchimp) — swag drops when a contact hits a lifecycle stage - **Spreadsheets** (Google Sheets) — bulk-trigger sends from a list - **Forms** (Typeform) — instant fulfillment for a survey response or signup If your tool is on Zapier, we can probably wire it up. ## REST API and webhooks For fully custom integrations, we have a REST API and outgoing webhooks. Use them when: - Zapier does not have your app - You need logic that does not fit a no-code rule - You are building a feature for your own users that involves sending physical product The API has endpoints for orders, products, inventory, campaigns, recipients, and contacts. Webhooks push order, shipping, and campaign events to your endpoints. For creating and managing the keys themselves, see [API keys and integrations](/resources/account/api-keys-and-integrations). ## Where to start Talk to your account team. Most integrations are quick to wire up — we walk through the trigger you want, the data we need, and which side of the integration owns what. For deeper context on any specific integration, see `merch.com/integrations`. --- ## Security Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/security Your Merch account holds order history, payment methods, and access to your team. A few simple habits keep it locked down. ## Where to find security settings Open **Settings** in the side nav and choose **Security**. ## Use a strong, unique password Your sign-in password should be: - **At least 12 characters** long - **Unique** — not used on any other site or service - **Generated by a password manager** when possible If you suspect your password has been seen by anyone else — for example, you typed it on a shared screen or pasted it into the wrong window — change it now. Use **Forgot password** on the sign-in screen, or reset it from your profile. ## Support access Sometimes the Merch support team needs to look at your account to help diagnose an issue. The Security page has a **Support Access** toggle that lets you grant temporary read access for a chosen window — 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days. Support access: - Is **off by default** — you have to grant it - Expires automatically when the window ends - Is fully logged — every action is recorded - Can be revoked at any time Use the shortest window that gets the issue solved. We will only ask for support access when there is an active issue we are working on with you. If you get an unexpected request, double-check the email address and the open ticket — and when in doubt, contact us through the portal instead of replying to a suspect email. ## Sessions and sign-outs You can be signed in on multiple devices at once — laptop, phone, tablet. If a device is lost or you are signing in on a borrowed machine, sign out from the avatar menu when you are done. If you suspect your account is compromised, change your password right away. That signs out every active session and forces a fresh sign-in everywhere. ## Watch for phishing Real Merch emails come from `@merch.com` addresses. We will never: - Ask you to email your password - Ask you to share full credit card numbers - Send you to a non-`merch.com` URL to sign in If something feels off, check the sender domain and forward the email to your account team. Better paranoid than sorry. ## Keep your team list current When a teammate leaves, remove them from the **Users** page so their sign-in stops working immediately. See [Team and users](/resources/account/team-and-users). ## API keys count too If you use the API, treat keys with the same care as passwords. See [API keys and integrations](/resources/account/api-keys-and-integrations) for rotation and storage guidance. --- ## Legal and policies Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/legal-and-policies The agreements below are the binding documents that govern your account. This article is the plain-English orientation — for the actual binding language, follow the links to each document. ## Terms of service The [terms](/terms) cover the substance of working with us: how orders are placed, paid, and fulfilled; ownership of designs and artwork; storage and inventory; shipping and risk of loss; returns, defects, and the inspection window; payment terms, late fees, and chargebacks; and the warranties and indemnities that go both ways. Most of the specific numbers customers ask about — late-fee rate, defect tolerance, inspection window, international handling — live there. ## Privacy policy The [privacy policy](/privacy-policy) covers what data we collect from you and from your campaign recipients, how we use it, and the rights you and your recipients have over it. Two things worth knowing up front: we collect recipient names, addresses, and phone numbers because we need them to fulfill orders, and we don't track behavior or build behavioral profiles on anyone. ## Data policy The [data policy](/data-policy) covers the operational side of how data is handled — where it lives (US-hosted cloud), encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, retention, our breach-response process, your data subject rights, and the contact for our Data Protection Officer. ## Master service agreement Your [master service agreement](/resources/account/master-service-agreement) is the binding agreement that covers your account specifically. The MSA incorporates the terms above and adds anything your company negotiated — payment terms, custom rates, account-specific provisions. An MSA is required for account access unless there's a custom agreement in place. For some accounts, a separately negotiated custom agreement governs instead of the standard MSA — your account team will let you know which path you're on. ## Where to ask questions For account-specific questions about how a policy applies to your situation, your account team is the fastest path. For legal-specific questions, they'll route you appropriately. See [working with your account team](/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team). --- ## Your master service agreement Source: https://merch.com/resources/account/master-service-agreement The master service agreement — the **MSA** — is the binding agreement between your company and Merch. An MSA is required for account access unless there's a custom agreement in place. Until it's signed, your account doesn't open. Once it's countersigned, you're set up and ready to work. ## What the MSA is The MSA is the contract that governs your relationship with us. It incorporates the public [terms](/terms) plus anything specific your company negotiated — payment terms, volume considerations, custom storage arrangements, IP language, or any other provisions tailored to your account. The MSA is the single document that ties all of that together for your account. ## How signing happens During onboarding, your account team sends you the MSA for electronic signature. You sign, we countersign, and once both signatures are in place, your account access is provisioned. Most customers sign and start the same week. ## Custom agreements For some accounts — typically larger or enterprise relationships — a custom agreement is negotiated in place of the standard MSA. If your company has a custom agreement, that document governs your relationship with us instead of the standard MSA, and the public terms apply only to the extent the custom agreement says they do. Your account team will let you know which path you're on before any signature is needed. ## What's covered At a high level, your MSA covers: - **Payment terms** — how invoices are issued and when they're due - **Fulfillment** — order processing, shipping, risk of loss - **Storage** — how inventory is stored and the notice for required removal - **Intellectual property** — ownership of designs and artwork warranties - **Returns and defects** — the inspection window and what counts as a defect - **Confidentiality** — how each side handles the other's confidential information - **Data handling** — incorporated through our [privacy policy](/privacy-policy) and [data policy](/data-policy) - **Term and termination** — how the relationship is renewed or wound down The specifics for your account depend on what was negotiated. Your MSA defines your specific terms. ## Where to find your signed copy We don't surface signed agreements in your portal today. Your account team can send you a copy of your countersigned MSA — or your custom agreement, if you have one — anytime you ask. ## Amendments If something material changes — a new payment term, an updated rate, a new line of business — we amend the MSA. Amendments are signed the same way as the original: electronically, by both sides. ## Scope The MSA covers your overall relationship with Merch. It doesn't replace the [privacy policy](/privacy-policy) or [data policy](/data-policy), which cover data practices specifically, and it sits alongside per-order documents like sales orders and statements of work that describe specific transactions. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language that the standard MSA incorporates. For your specific MSA or any custom agreement, ask your account team for a copy. # Orders Place orders, follow them through production and shipping, and handle issues if they come up. --- ## How orders work Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders An order is the full record of one job we run for you — what you ordered, who it ships to, what it costs, and how it is going. This page is the map; the deeper articles fill in each step. ## 1. Spec and quote Every order starts with a spec: the products, quantities, decoration, and where they need to go. You either build it yourself in **My Products**, or your account team builds it with you for a custom run. Once the spec is locked in, we generate a quote and a deposit invoice. ## 2. Approval Before production starts, you confirm the proof and the order details. This is your chance to catch logo placement, color, and sizing issues. While we wait on you, the order shows as **Pending Client Approval**. Once you approve, it flips to **Client Approved** and production starts. If you ask for edits, it moves to **Client Change Requested** and goes back to your account team. These same actions are available on a shared approval link, which your account team can send to stakeholders who do not have a portal login. ## 3. Production We make the items. Lead times depend on the products, decoration method, and quantity — see [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times). You will see the order move from approval into production in the portal. ## 4. Fulfillment Once items are ready, they leave our warehouse network as one or more **fulfillment orders** — one shipment per recipient address. Each fulfillment order has its own status, carrier, and tracking number. See [Fulfillment orders and tracking](/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking). ## 5. Billing Most orders bill in two pieces: a **deposit** at the start and a **balance** once items ship. You can pay manually, with account funds, or via auto-pay. See [Billing and invoices](/resources/account/billing-and-invoices). International shipments incur a **15% handling fee** applied to the order subtotal, decoration and pick rates, packaging, and shipping. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. ## 6. Closing out When every fulfillment order has shipped (or otherwise reached a terminal state) and the balance is paid, the order is **Closed**. It stays in your history forever — searchable, reorderable, and downloadable. ## Statuses you will see At the order level: New, Open, Closed. See [Order lifecycle and statuses](/resources/orders/order-lifecycle-and-statuses) for what each one really means and what is happening at each step. If something on an order ever looks off — a status that has not moved, a shipment with no tracking, an invoice with the wrong total — your account team is your fastest path to an answer. --- ## Order lifecycle and statuses Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders/order-lifecycle-and-statuses Your orders move through a small number of customer-visible statuses. Here is what each one means and what is happening behind the scenes. ## The three top-level statuses The **Orders** list filter offers three statuses: - New — the order has been created but is still being scoped or quoted with your account team. New orders are kept off the main list until they are ready for you to act on. - Open — the order is live. It may be waiting on your approval, in production, shipping, or settling its balance. - Closed — every shipment has landed (or otherwise wrapped) and the balance is paid. The order is in your history. You can filter the Orders table by status to focus on what needs attention. ## Phases shown in the status column While an order is in the Open phase of its life, the **Order Status** column on each row tells you which step it is on. The labels you may see include: - **Pending Client Approval** — we have a proof or a final spec waiting for you. Production does not start until you approve. From the order detail page (or a shared approval link, if your account team sent you one) you can **Approve** or **Request Change**. - **Client Approved** — you signed off. Production begins. - **Client Change Requested** — you asked for edits. The order is back with your account team to revise the spec or proof. - **Open** — production, packing, shipping, or balance settlement is underway. The status filter at the top of the table lists three rolled-up options — **New**, **Open**, **Closed** — for high-level filtering. To drill into a specific approval moment, scan the status column itself or open the order. ## What happens behind the scenes after approval Once approved, the order moves into production. Items are made and decorated, then packed and handed to carriers. Each shipment becomes its own fulfillment order with a tracking number — see [Fulfillment orders and tracking](/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking). Once production begins, cancellations cannot be guaranteed. We may attempt to accommodate a request on a best-efforts basis in extreme circumstances, but the order is binding once placed and you remain responsible for the full amount. See [Cancellation and changes](/resources/orders/cancellation-and-changes) for what's editable at each step, and the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. When the balance invoice clears and the last shipment is in a terminal state (Delivered, Cancelled, or Returned), the order moves to Closed. ## Payment status is separate An order also carries a payment status (Paid / Unpaid / Partially paid via the deposit). Paying the deposit does not change the order status — only the payment status. See [Billing and invoices](/resources/account/billing-and-invoices). A Closed order can still have something happen to it after the fact — a return, a claim, a re-issued receipt. We will reopen it briefly if needed and close it again when resolved. ## When a status feels stuck If an order has been in one phase longer than your in-hands date suggests it should, ping your account team with the order number. We can usually tell you within minutes what is gating progress. --- ## From quote to sales order Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders/quote-to-sales-order A **quote** is the priced version of an order before you've approved it. A **sales order** is what it becomes once you have. The conversion from one to the other is the most important step in the lifecycle — it's the moment production gets scheduled, the deposit is invoiced, and the spec gets locked in. ## What's in a quote A quote captures everything we'd need to produce and ship the order if you approved it as-is: - The products, with variants and quantities - The decoration — method, placement, artwork - Setup charges (one-time prep fees) - Per-piece pricing at the chosen quantity tier - Shipping destination(s) and method - The target in-hands date - Tax (if applicable to the destination) - Total at the bottom Quotes are revisable. If something looks off — a quantity, a color, the decoration — say so and your account team will issue a revised quote. Multiple rounds are normal on a new product or a complex run. ## How approval works Two paths: - **In-portal approval.** Open the order and approve from there. The order moves to Client Approved and production gets queued. - **Shared approval link.** Your account team can send a shared link that lets someone approve the order without logging into the portal. Useful for getting sign-off from someone on your team who isn't a portal user. Approval is a deliberate checkpoint. We don't auto-approve, and quotes don't expire silently — they wait for you. If something has changed since the quote was issued (supplier price moved, the in-hands date drifted), your account team will issue a revised quote and ask you to approve the new one. For the full lifecycle of statuses around approval, see [Order lifecycle and statuses](/resources/orders/order-lifecycle-and-statuses). ## What's locked once you approve Approval is the meaningful edit window. Once you approve: - **The spec locks in.** Products, variants, quantities, decoration, artwork, placements — what you approved is what production will run. - **The price locks in.** The quoted total becomes the order total. Material costs already incurred are yours from this point. - **Production gets queued.** The order takes a slot in the schedule. - **The deposit invoice issues** (on most orders). Some things are still editable post-approval, but the window narrows fast. For what you can still change and when, see [Cancellation and changes](/resources/orders/cancellation-and-changes). ## What still needs a proof For decorated orders, there's often a separate **design proof** step in parallel with quote approval. The proof shows exactly how the decoration will look on the product — placement, size, colors, method. You approve the quote *and* the proof; both have to be green before production starts. If the proof needs a revision after you've approved the quote, the order sits at Pending Client Approval on the proof side while the design team adjusts. Production doesn't start until both checkpoints clear. ## What triggers production Production gets queued once: - You've approved the quote - You've approved the proof (for decorated orders) - The deposit invoice is settled (if your account requires deposit clearance before production) On accounts with auto-pay or sufficient account funds, the deposit settles automatically and production starts on its own. On accounts paying by wire or with payment terms, production may wait on the deposit clearing — your account team will let you know. ## How the deposit invoice fits in Most orders bill in two pieces: - A **deposit invoice** at approval, covering the materials and setup needed to start production. - A **balance invoice** once the order ships, covering the rest of the order, shipping, and any per-piece work completed. The deposit is what gives production the green light on most accounts. The balance is what closes the order out. See [Invoice types](/resources/billing/invoice-types) for the breakdown. Smaller orders, reorders, and certain payment configurations may bill in one piece instead. The quote will show whether your order has a deposit, and the deposit amount if so. ## After production starts Once production is underway, the order is in motion: - Items get produced and decorated - Pieces get packed - Shipments get handed to carriers - Each shipment becomes its own fulfillment order with a tracking number For where the order is at each step, see [Order lifecycle and statuses](/resources/orders/order-lifecycle-and-statuses). For tracking individual shipments, see [Fulfillment orders and tracking](/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking). Treat the approval moment as the last meaningful edit window. Walk the quote, walk the proof, and look at every line before you click. Changes after approval are possible but they get harder fast — and once production starts, cancellation isn't guaranteed. The [terms](/terms) cover the binding language on what an approved order obligates. --- ## Cancellation and changes Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders/cancellation-and-changes What you can change on an order — and whether you can cancel it — depends on where it is in its lifecycle. The earlier you reach out, the more options are on the table. See [Order lifecycle and statuses](/resources/orders/order-lifecycle-and-statuses) for the full picture of where an order sits at each step. ## Before you approve While the order is still being scoped or sitting at Pending Client Approval, almost everything is editable: - **Quantities** — add or drop units. - **Products and variants** — swap a sku, change colors or sizes. - **Decoration** — adjust artwork, placement, or method. - **Shipping address or recipient list** — update destinations. - **In-hands date** — pull it in or push it out. Some of this you can edit directly in the portal; for anything more involved, message your account team and we will revise the spec or the proof. ## After approval, before production starts Once you approve, production is queued. There is usually a short window between approval and the first material being cut or decorated where most changes are still workable. Reach out as soon as you know — the sooner the better. We will tell you what is still possible and what it costs. ## Once production starts Once production has begun, cancellations cannot be guaranteed. Per the terms, we will attempt to accommodate cancellation or modification requests on a best-efforts basis only in extreme or unusual circumstances. Material costs already incurred — decoration setups, materials cut, items already decorated — typically can't be unwound, and you remain responsible for the full order amount. Approval is the meaningful checkpoint. Treat the proof and the final spec as the last edit window. Once you sign off, options narrow quickly. ## Common change requests - **Adding or removing units** — easy before approval; possible during production if stock and decoration capacity allow, often at additional cost. - **Swapping a recipient address** — straightforward before the shipment is picked; once a label is generated, it gets harder. - **Changing the in-hands date** — pulling it in may not be possible; pushing it out usually is. - **Changing decoration** — fully open before approval. After production starts, expect re-setup or re-decoration costs if it can be done at all. ## After a shipment has gone out If a recipient address turns out to be wrong after fulfillment, the package will either be returned to us or marked undeliverable. See [Returns and claims](/resources/orders/returns-and-claims) for what happens with undeliverable shipments and the restock fees that apply. ## When a recipient changes their address mid-campaign It happens — someone claimed at the home address but moved before the box shipped. The fix depends on where the shipment is. - **If the order hasn't shipped yet** — message your account team with the recipient and the new address. We can update it before the label is generated. - **If it has already shipped** — a redirect through the carrier may be possible, but it depends on the carrier and how far along the shipment is. In many cases the recipient is better off contacting the carrier directly with their tracking number to request a redirect or hold. - **If it has been delivered to the wrong address** — that's a claim. See [Returns and claims](/resources/orders/returns-and-claims). See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language on cancellation. --- ## Fulfillment orders and tracking Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking A **fulfillment order** is a single shipment to a single recipient. One order can produce many fulfillment orders — that is the whole point if you are shipping to a list of addresses or running a campaign where recipients claim items themselves. ## Order vs. fulfillment order - **Order** — the contract. What you ordered, what it costs, and the spec we built against. - **Fulfillment order** — one box leaving our warehouse network for one address. It has its own status, carrier, and tracking number. Bulk shipments to a single address typically produce one fulfillment order. Recipient lists and campaigns produce one fulfillment order per recipient. ## Where to find them Open **Fulfillment Orders** in the side nav for the full list across every order. Or open any order from **Orders**, scroll to the shipments section, and you will see every fulfillment order tied to that parent. ## The five customer-visible statuses - Awaiting shipment — packed or in the queue to be packed. Has not left the warehouse yet. - Shipped — handed to the carrier. Tracking is live. - Delivered — the carrier confirms it landed at the address. - Cancelled — the shipment was cancelled before it left. Items go back into stock. - Returned — the package came back. Usually because of a bad address, refusal, or a delivery exception. ## How tracking works When the carrier picks up a shipment, we record the tracking number and the carrier — USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, and others depending on destination. The fulfillment order page shows: - The carrier and tracking number - A link to the carrier's tracking page - The current status, updated automatically as the carrier scans the package Recipients who got their items via a campaign or a recipient list also receive an email with the tracking link, so they do not have to ask you for it. If a fulfillment order shows Returned or has been sitting in Shipped well past the expected delivery date, that is your signal to dig into the tracking. See [Returns and claims](/resources/orders/returns-and-claims) for next steps. ## Address verification Before a shipment is created, recipient addresses are checked against carrier databases. Any address that comes back as **Needs review**, **Corrected**, or **Invalid** is flagged for you to confirm — this prevents most return-to-sender outcomes. See [Addresses](/resources/account/addresses) for how that works. ## Risk of loss Once a shipment is accepted by the carrier, responsibility for damage in transit rests with the customer under the [terms](/terms). We pack carefully and choose the carrier and service level, but we don't carry the risk after handoff. If the contents warrant it — high-value items, fragile decoration, large international shipments — carrier insurance can be arranged through your account team. Damage and loss claims still flow through us; see [Returns and claims](/resources/orders/returns-and-claims) for how to file one. ## Searching and filtering The Fulfillment Orders list supports filters for status, carrier, source (CSV import, campaign, manual, and so on), date range, and recipient. Pair status with date range to spot anything that has been Awaiting shipment longer than expected. --- ## Global warehousing and fulfillment Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders/global-warehousing-and-fulfillment We store your inventory and ship your merch from our own warehouse network, so drops, kits, and campaign redemptions go out from the location closest to the recipient instead of crossing an ocean one box at a time. ## Where the warehouses are - **Los Angeles** — serves the United States, Canada, and the rest of the Americas. - **Scotland (UK)** — serves the United Kingdom. - **Netherlands** — serves the EU, so shipments inside the Union avoid post-Brexit customs friction. We're regularly expanding the network, so the list grows over time. ## Why region matters Shipping from the region your recipients live in does three things: - **Faster transit** — domestic or intra-region delivery instead of international. - **No customs surprises** — an EU recipient served from the Netherlands never sees an import charge on their doorstep. - **Lower cost** — regional carrier rates instead of international ones. When you run a program with recipients in multiple regions, we split your inventory across the relevant warehouses and each fulfillment order ships from the closest one automatically. ## Shipping beyond the network We ship to 150+ countries from the existing warehouses, handling duties and customs along the way. And for **special projects** — a program concentrated in a country where local fulfillment would work better, an event that needs in-country staging, unusual customs situations — we can often set up something custom. Ask your account team what's possible for the specific country and volume; that's a conversation, not a settings toggle. If you're planning a global send, tell your account team the recipient-country breakdown early. Positioning inventory in the right warehouses before the send is far cheaper and faster than shipping internationally after the fact. --- ## Returns and claims Source: https://merch.com/resources/orders/returns-and-claims A claim is how you flag a shipment that arrived wrong, damaged, or not at all so we can investigate and make it right. Most shipments land exactly as intended; when one does not, here is how to file the claim and what happens next. ## When to file a claim Reach out as soon as you (or your recipient) notice any of these: - **Damaged in transit** — packaging crushed, items broken, decoration scuffed. - **Wrong item** — quantity off, wrong size or color, wrong product entirely. - **Missing from the box** — short shipment compared to the packing slip. - **Never delivered** — carrier shows Delivered but the recipient never got it, or the package has been stuck in transit for days past the expected date. - **Returned to sender** — the fulfillment order shows Returned. Sooner is better. Carriers have short windows for filing damage and loss claims, and items in stock may run out if a replacement is delayed. ## The 14-day inspection window You have **14 calendar days from the date of delivery** to notify us in writing of any defects, missing items, or quantity discrepancies. After that window closes, claims are waived and the shipment is treated as accepted. Inspect every shipment promptly — count, check decoration, and confirm sizes — and flag anything off within the 14 days. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. ## What counts as a defect A defect is an objectively demonstrable deviation from the proof or spec that materially affects the product's use or appearance — a misprint, a wrong size, a structural failure. Subjective preferences and minor color or material variations within industry-standard tolerances don't qualify. The terms acknowledge a normal **defect tolerance of up to 2%** of the units in an order unless we agreed to a different tolerance in writing; units within that tolerance aren't treated as defective. ## What to send us Open the order or the fulfillment order in your portal and message your account team, or email us with: - **Order number and fulfillment order number** — both help us pull the right shipment fast. - **What is wrong** — short description, plus the recipient name and address. - **Photos** — for damage or wrong items, photos of the box (inside and out), the items, and any visible carrier damage. Photos do most of the work in a carrier claim. ## What happens next Your account team reviews the claim and works the right path: - **Replacement** — we re-ship from inventory if the items are in stock. This is the usual outcome for damage and short shipments. - **Credit** — applied to your account funds for use on future orders. - **Refund** — to the original payment method, when replacement is not the right call. The exact outcome depends on what happened, what is in stock, your in-hands timing, and what makes sense for the recipient. We will lay out the options and you decide. Carrier resolution for lost or damaged packages can take days to weeks. We do not wait on the carrier before making things right with you — replacement or credit happens on our timeline, not theirs. ## Returns of unused inventory This page covers issues with shipments. If you want to return unopened or unused product — for example, end-of-program inventory — that is a different conversation. Reach out to your account team with the order number and quantities; we will tell you whether the items can come back and what the process looks like. ## When a recipient shipment comes back to us If a fulfillment order is returned to our warehouse — bad address, refused delivery, or any other carrier return — the **full fulfillment fee and pick rates are re-charged** when the items are received and restocked, plus any return shipping the carrier billed us. If you'd rather skip the return shipping, you can ask your account team to have the carrier abandon the package instead — but abandoned packages can't be recovered and aren't refundable. The cleanest way to avoid this entirely is tighter address handling up front. See [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## Prevention A few habits cut down on claims: - **Keep recipient addresses verified** — see [Addresses](/resources/account/addresses). - **Approve proofs carefully** — the proof is the point of last edit before production. - **Check sizing on apparel runs** — request a sample if you are unsure. See [Samples](/resources/products/samples). See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language on returns and claims. # Campaigns Send branded swag to lists of recipients with redemption pages and invites. --- ## What campaigns are for Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns A **campaign** is the way you send branded merch to a group of people without collecting their addresses, picking sizes, or assembling a recipient list yourself. You set up what's on offer, share a link, and recipients claim what they want. ## What a campaign actually is A campaign is a set of rules. You define: - **Which products are on offer** — pulled from your existing items. - **Who can redeem** — public link, invite-only, gated by email domain, gated by a shared password. - **Where it can ship to** — the regions you support, plus optional rules that route specific countries to specific warehouses. - **How addresses are verified** — strict or loose, set at the account level and overridable per campaign. - **What the recipient sees** — your campaign logo, colors, fonts, and message on every customer-facing surface. Once those rules are in place, the campaign runs itself. Recipients pick what they want, the rules decide what they can claim and where it ships from, and we handle the rest. For who can reach the campaign in the first place, see [Sharing and access controls](/resources/campaigns/sharing-and-access-controls); for what happens after you send invites, see [Invite tracking and funnel](/resources/campaigns/invite-tracking-and-funnel). Every customer-facing surface a recipient sees — invite email, redemption page, order confirmation, tracking email, delivery email, tracking page — is branded to your campaign. See [White-labeling and branding](/resources/campaigns/white-labeling-and-branding). ## Why use a campaign instead of a regular order A regular order is the right fit when you already have every recipient's address and item assignment. A campaign is the right fit when: - You don't have addresses on file (new hires, event attendees, contest winners, customers). - You want recipients to pick their own size or color. - You want to send to a moving target — a list that grows over time. - You need a self-serve link your team can drop into Slack, email, or a welcome sequence. ## How a campaign works at a glance 1. **You set it up.** Pick the products on offer, set any limits, and brand the redemption page. 2. **You share access.** Either a public link (anyone with the URL can redeem) or invite-only (only people you invite by email can redeem). See [Campaign types](/resources/campaigns/campaign-types). 3. **Recipients redeem.** They click through, choose their items, enter their own shipping address, and confirm. See [Address on claim](/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim) for why no recipient address is needed up front. 4. **We ship.** Each redemption becomes its own shipment from our warehouse network with carrier tracking. 5. **You watch it run.** From your portal, see how many invites were opened, how many redeemed, and what's been shipped. ## What a campaign is good at - **Onboarding.** New-hire welcome kits without the spreadsheet. - **Events.** Pre-event ship-to-home or post-event reward sends. - **Customer gifting.** Send a thank-you box to a list of customers. - **Internal recognition.** Birthdays, milestones, anniversaries. - **Lead gen.** Use a public redemption link as a campaign incentive. ## What you'll find in this category The articles in this section cover the full life of a campaign — from creating it, to sending invites, to closing it out. Start with [Creating a campaign](/resources/campaigns/creating-a-campaign) if you're spinning one up now, or [Campaign lifecycle](/resources/campaigns/campaign-lifecycle) for the big picture of how a campaign moves through its states. If you only need to send to one address or a fixed list of addresses you already have, a regular order is faster. See [Your first order](/resources/getting-started/your-first-order). --- ## Campaign lifecycle Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/campaign-lifecycle Every campaign moves through a handful of states. The status sits next to the campaign name in your portal and controls what you and your recipients can do at any moment. ## The four states Draft — You've created the campaign but it's not yet live. You can edit anything, add products, change limits, and set up the redemption page. Recipients can't redeem from a Draft. Active — The campaign is live. The redemption link works, invite emails can be sent, and recipients can place orders. Most edits still work, but changes you make take effect right away. Paused — The campaign is temporarily off. New redemptions are blocked. Orders that were already placed continue to ship. You can resume at any time. Expired — The campaign is closed. The redemption link no longer works. Existing orders still ship, and you can still see analytics, but you can't restart it. ## How a campaign moves between states | From | To | How | |---|---|---| | Draft | Active | You click **Activate** once products are added | | Active | Paused | You click **Pause** | | Active | Expired | You click **End**, or the expiration date passes | | Paused | Active | You click **Resume** | | Paused | Expired | You click **End**, or the expiration date passes | You can change the state from the campaign detail page — click the status tag next to the campaign name to see the actions available at that moment. ## What enables and blocks each state - A **Draft** can only be activated once it has at least one product attached. - An **Active** campaign cannot be turned back into a Draft. To stop redemptions, pause or end it. - A **Paused** campaign keeps everything intact — limits, products, branding, recipients — so you can resume cleanly. - An **Expired** campaign is read-only. If you want to run it again, duplicate it. See [Duplicating a campaign](/resources/campaigns/duplicating-a-campaign). ## What happens when the expiration date hits If you set an expiration date when creating the campaign, we automatically end the campaign at that date. The redemption link stops accepting new orders, and any outstanding unredeemed invites stop working. Anything already in flight continues normally. You don't need to do anything to "close" an expiring campaign — that part takes care of itself. You can also expire individual invites independently of the campaign — useful when you want a tighter window for a specific recipient. See [Sending invites](/resources/campaigns/sending-invites) for the per-invite expiration options. If both are set, whichever fires first wins. Set an expiration date even if you think you'll close manually. It's a safety net that prevents a forgotten link from staying live for years. --- ## Campaign types Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/campaign-types A campaign is either a **public link** that anyone with the URL can redeem, or **invite-only** where each recipient gets their own private link. You pick one when you set up the campaign and you can change it later. Here is how each works. Both types use the same underlying flow — the recipient enters their own shipping address when they claim. The difference is how they reach the link in the first place. See [Address on claim](/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim) for the workflow itself. ## Public link Anyone with the URL can redeem. You share one link — paste it in Slack, drop it in a welcome email, post it on an internal wiki — and anyone who opens it can place an order. **Best for:** - Open-to-everyone offers (all hands, conference giveaways, customer thank-yous) - Lists you don't have email addresses for - Shares that need to spread organically **Watch out for:** - Anyone with the link can redeem, so set [Campaign limits](/resources/campaigns/campaign-limits) to prevent abuse. - Restrict by **email domain** if you only want people with a `@yourcompany.com` address to be able to redeem. - Add **password protection** if you want a quick lightweight gate. ## Invite-only Only people you specifically invite can redeem. Each recipient gets their own private link tied to their email. The link only works for them. **Best for:** - New-hire welcome kits and onboarding - Customer gifting where the list is known - Anywhere you want one redemption per person, locked to an identity **Watch out for:** - You need email addresses for every recipient. - Recipients have to actually receive and open your invite. See [Invite deliverability](/resources/campaigns/invite-deliverability) if invites aren't landing. Regardless of which type you pick, you can layer on email-domain restriction, password protection, or a private invite-only gate from the same Sharing & Permissions settings. See [Sharing and access controls](/resources/campaigns/sharing-and-access-controls) for the full list. ## Switching between types You can flip a campaign between public and invite-only from the campaign's settings page. If you switch a public campaign to invite-only, the public URL stops working — only invite links count from that point on. ## Which to pick - **You have everyone's email** -> invite-only is cleaner. One link per person. - **You don't have emails or want to share broadly** -> public link. - **You want both** -> use a public link with the email-domain restriction turned on. People still need to sign in with a recognized address, but you don't have to send individual invites. Either type can have an expiration date, item caps, and per-recipient limits. The choice is really about how recipients reach the redemption page, not what they can do once they're there. Limits, regions, address-verification, and styling settings work the same regardless of type. --- ## Creating a campaign Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/creating-a-campaign Spinning up a campaign takes about ten minutes. Here's the flow. ## 1. Open the create dialog In the portal, go to **Campaigns** and click **Create Campaign**. You'll be asked for a few basics: - **Campaign title** — what you'll call it internally - **Company name** — what recipients see at the top of the redemption page - **Expiration date** (optional) — when the campaign auto-ends - **Campaign logo** (optional) — overrides your account logo on the redemption page Save and you'll land on the campaign detail view with the campaign in Draft. ## 2. Add products Open the **Products** tab and add the items recipients can choose from. These come from your existing catalog — you can pick one product or several. For each product, you control which variants are available (sizes, colors). A campaign needs at least one product before it can be activated. ## 3. Brand the recipient experience Open the **Landing Page** tab to set up the redemption page recipients land on, then open **Settings → Styling** for the colors, fonts, and theme that carry across the rest of the campaign. You can: - Add a hero headline and message - Upload a hero image - Pick the colors, fonts, and theme that match your brand Your campaign branding doesn't stop at the redemption page. It applies to every customer-facing surface a recipient touches: - **Invite email** - **Redemption page** - **Order confirmation email** - **Tracking email** - **Delivery notification email** - **Tracking page** See [White-labeling and branding](/resources/campaigns/white-labeling-and-branding) for the full breakdown of what gets the brand treatment and how account-level vs. campaign-level settings layer. ## 4. Choose how recipients get access Open **Settings → Sharing & Permissions**. Decide between: - A **public link** anyone can redeem - **Invite-only**, where each recipient gets a private link Public campaigns can also be gated by email domain or a shared password. See [Campaign types](/resources/campaigns/campaign-types) for the trade-offs. ## 5. Set limits In the same settings panel, set caps on what recipients can claim: - **SKU per Order Limit** — how many distinct items in one redemption - **SKU Quantity Limit** — how many of any one item per redemption - **Order Quantity Limit** — total items per redemption - **Orders per Recipient Limit** — how many times one person can redeem Leave any blank for "no limit". See [Campaign limits](/resources/campaigns/campaign-limits) for guidance. Limits work alongside the campaign's other rules — regions, address verification, and sharing — to gate who can redeem and what they get. ## 6. Configure shipping regions In **Settings → Regions & Routing**, pick which countries the campaign ships to. By default we route from the closest warehouse with stock. You can set rules to route specific countries to specific warehouses if you have inventory in more than one location. ## 6.5. Set address-verification policy In **Settings → Address Verification**, choose how strict the campaign is about which addresses we accept. By default the campaign uses your account-level rules; you can switch to **Custom Settings for this Campaign** to override per-campaign — useful when a particular send needs to be tighter or looser than the default. See [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## 7. Add recipients (invite-only) If you went with invite-only, open the **Invite Links** tab to add recipients. You can: - Create one invite at a time with name and email - Bulk-create a batch from a CSV - Generate a set of unassigned invite links to hand out manually See [Sending invites](/resources/campaigns/sending-invites). ## 8. Activate Back at the top of the page, click the status tag and choose **Activate**. The campaign moves to Active and recipients can start redeeming. Walk through the redemption page yourself before you activate. Open the public link in a private window and run through a redemption end to end so you know exactly what your recipients will see. --- ## White-labeling and branding Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/white-labeling-and-branding Your account brand kit is the default look across every customer-facing surface, and every campaign can override it. The result is the same either way: recipients only ever see your brand. They never see Merch. ## Where your brand shows up Every surface a recipient touches in a campaign carries your branding: - **Invite email** — sent when you invite a recipient to redeem. Uses your campaign logo, colors, and a sender name aligned to your campaign. - **Redemption page** — the public landing page recipients reach via the invite link or public URL. Your hero, your colors, your fonts, your message. - **Order confirmation email** — sent after a recipient places their order. - **Tracking email** — sent when the shipment ships, with the carrier name and a tracking link. - **Delivery notification email** — sent when the shipment is delivered. - **Tracking page** — the page recipients land on when they click the tracking link in any of the emails above. That's the full recipient journey, end to end, on your brand. ## What gets customized The pieces you control, per campaign: - **Campaign logo** — overrides your account logo on every customer-facing surface for this campaign. - **Campaign name** — the name recipients see at the top of the redemption page and in email subject lines. - **Color palette** — heading color, subtitle color, call-to-action color, call-to-action text color, and theme background. - **Fonts / typography** — the typeface used across the redemption page and emails. You set these in the campaign settings sidebar under **Styling**. Changes apply to every customer-facing surface for that campaign. ## Account brand kit vs. campaign overrides There are two layers, and they stack in this order: 1. **Account brand kit** — your default. Lives in **Settings → Brand Kit** and covers your logo, colors, fonts, and brand guidelines URL. Every campaign you create starts here. 2. **Campaign-level styling** — your override for a specific campaign. Lives in the campaign's **Styling** tab. Anything you don't override falls back to the account brand kit. Most accounts set up the brand kit once and let campaigns inherit. Override per campaign when a particular send needs its own treatment — a sub-brand, a co-branded send, a one-off event theme. For more on the account-level kit, see [Brand kit](/resources/account/brand-kit). ## What customers do not see A few things never reach the recipient, by design: - **Merch branding** — no Merch logo in the email body, no Merch sender name on emails, no Merch wordmark on the redemption page or tracking page. (Emails are delivered through our infrastructure, so the technical sending address stays on a Merch.com domain — but the visible from-name, subject, and content all show your brand.) - **Internal warehouse names** — recipients see carrier and tracking, not which warehouse the shipment came from. - **Internal status names** — recipients see plain-English shipping updates, not the internal status labels you see in the portal. The recipient experience is your brand and your brand only. Before you send to a big list, click your own invite link end to end — open the email, hit the redemption page, place a test redemption, watch the confirmation arrive. Five minutes catches every branding gap. --- ## Campaign limits Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/campaign-limits Limits keep a campaign from running away from you. They sit in **Settings → Sharing & Permissions** under "Order Limits" and you can change them at any time, even after the campaign is live. ## The four limits **SKU per Order Limit** — the maximum number of distinct items a recipient can choose in one redemption. If you set this to 2, a recipient could pick a hoodie and a hat, but not also a bottle. **SKU Quantity Limit** — the maximum quantity of any one item in a single redemption. If you set this to 1, no recipient can take five hoodies in one redemption. **Order Quantity Limit** — the total number of items in a single redemption, summed across all SKUs. A cap of 3 means a recipient can take three of one item, or one each of three items, but not more. **Orders per Recipient Limit** — how many separate redemptions a single recipient can complete over the life of the campaign. For invite-only campaigns this is naturally 1 per invite, but you can raise it for cases like monthly snack packs or recurring rewards. For public campaigns we identify recipients by their email. Leave any field blank for "no limit". ### A worked example Say you set: - **SKU per Order Limit** — 5 - **SKU Quantity Limit** — 3 - **Order Quantity Limit** — 5 - **Orders per Recipient Limit** — 2 What that means for a recipient: each redemption can include **up to 5 different SKUs**, no more than **3 of any one SKU**, and **no more than 5 items in total**. Each recipient can do **two separate redemptions** over the life of the campaign. So one person could take 3 hoodies + 2 hats today (5 items, 2 SKUs) and one of each of 5 different items in a second redemption — and that's their max. ## Out-of-stock behavior In the same panel you can decide what happens when an item runs out of inventory: - **Hide** — the item disappears from the redemption page entirely. - **Lock** — the item still shows but recipients can't add it to their order. Hiding is cleanest if you don't want recipients to know an item was ever offered. Locking is useful if you want them to know it existed but is currently unavailable. ## How to think about the numbers A few rules of thumb: - For onboarding kits, a single redemption with `Orders per Recipient Limit: 1` and `Order Quantity Limit: 5` typically does the trick. - For ongoing reward programs, leave order quantity loose and cap by `Orders per Recipient Limit` instead. - For public campaigns, always set an `Order Quantity Limit` and an `Orders per Recipient Limit`. A free public link with no limits can drain inventory in a day if it goes viral. ## Hard caps the system enforces Some limits are enforced at the platform level no matter what: - A redemption can't ship items to multiple addresses. One redemption, one ship-to. - An item that's out of stock won't ship even if the limit allows it. - An expiration date overrides any other limit. Once expired, no new redemptions, full stop. Lowering a limit doesn't claw back redemptions that have already been placed. It only affects new redemptions from that point forward. --- ## Campaign budget and link limits Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/campaign-budget-and-link-limits A single campaign can carry up to four caps. They're all optional — set the ones you want and leave the rest blank. Different campaigns need different combinations: a small thank-you campaign might just have a total budget; a prospecting campaign with many senders might cap links per sender; a long-running retention campaign might add a per-recipient cap. ## Total campaign budget A dollar ceiling for the whole campaign across all senders, recipients, and time. Once cumulative spend reaches it, the campaign closes — the landing page renders the existing "campaign closed" copy. This budget doesn't reset; a campaign has a finite life and the budget covers all of it. ## Link count caps Two complementary caps on how many invite links can be generated: - **Total link cap** — across all senders, for this campaign. - **Per-sender link cap** — a ceiling on how many any single sender can generate. These fire at link generation. A breach blocks link creation with a clear error and no recipient is ever involved. Use one, the other, or both. ## Per-recipient cap Anti-over-gifting at the campaign level. Caps total spend on any single recipient inside this specific campaign. When set, it overrides the account-wide per-recipient annual cap for orders here — typically tighter, by design. ## How this stacks with the rest When a new order is placed, Merch evaluates caps in priority order and the first one that fails wins: 1. Account fulfillment credit limit 2. Total campaign budget 3. Team cap 4. User cap 5. Per-recipient cap (campaign-scoped if set, otherwise account-wide annual) So an order can be held for a campaign-cap reason even if the sender has plenty of personal budget left. ## When a cap is hit The order goes on [credit hold](/resources/campaigns/credit-hold-orders). Recipients see no error. Raising the relevant cap immediately re-evaluates held orders against the new ceiling and releases anything that now fits. An Admin can also override a specific held order with a captured reason. --- ## What happens when an order is on credit hold Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/credit-hold-orders When spend controls are on and an order would exceed one of your caps, Merch places it on **credit hold** instead of processing it. The order exists, but inventory hasn't been allocated and fulfillment hasn't started. The recipient sees nothing different — their tracking page renders the normal "processing" copy. ## Why it happens Five possible reasons, evaluated in this order — first failure wins: | Reason | What's at the ceiling | |---|---| | Account fulfillment limit reached | In-flight exposure is at or above your fulfillment credit limit | | Campaign budget reached | Cumulative campaign spend is at or above the campaign budget | | Team spending cap reached | The sender's team has hit its period cap | | User spending cap reached | The sender's personal period cap is hit | | Per-recipient cap reached | A per-recipient annual or campaign-scoped cap is hit | The Spend Controls page and the order's detail-page banner both show the specific reason in plain English. ## Where to see held orders - **Settings → Spend Controls** — the full queue for your account. - **Fulfillment Orders** — filter to held-only. - **Daily digest emails** — Admins get a once-a-day summary of new holds in the last 24 hours. ## How to clear one What works depends on which cap fired. **A campaign, team, user, or per-recipient cap:** - Raise the cap — held orders are re-evaluated immediately, and anything that now fits is released. - Wait for the period to reset — team and user caps reset at the calendar boundary you configured, and Merch retries held orders automatically at the reset. **The fulfillment credit limit:** - Pay outstanding invoices early — exposure drops as soon as payments land. - Wait for the next monthly invoice cycle — same effect, just slower. - Ask your sales rep about a higher limit. **Any reason:** - An Admin (or the team's Manager, for team orders) can override a specific hold with a captured reason — useful for VIP or one-off exceptions. - Cancel the order, if the gift isn't appropriate anymore. Cap counters reverse when a previously committed order is cancelled, so cancellations don't permanently penalize your budgets. ## How auto-release works Held orders re-evaluate automatically whenever something changes: an invoice cycle runs, a period resets, or an Admin raises a cap. A background check on a schedule catches anything the triggers miss. The retry is safe to run repeatedly — orders that still don't fit stay held; orders that now fit clear. ## FAQs **Will recipients get notified that their order is delayed?** No. Delays from credit holds are invisible to recipients. If a recipient asks where their gift is, clear the hold and the order ships on the next cycle — there's nothing for them to see in the meantime. **Do held orders count against my fulfillment exposure?** No. Held orders haven't allocated inventory, so they don't add to in-flight exposure. Only allocated, not-yet-invoiced orders count. **How long can an order stay held?** Indefinitely. The Spend Controls page shows the age of each hold. The order won't ship until the hold clears. --- ## Sending invites Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/sending-invites Invite-only campaigns work by sending each recipient their own private link. This article covers how to load recipients, send the email, and resend if needed. ## Add recipients On the campaign detail page, open the **Invite Links** tab. You have three ways to add recipients: - **Create Invite** — add one recipient at a time with name and email. - **Create Bulk Invites** — generate a batch all at once (with or without contact info). - **Import from a contact list** — pull in contacts you've already saved on your account. Each recipient ends up with a unique invite link tied to their record. You can see all invites in the table, with their status, who they were sent to, and whether they've redeemed. Recipient names, addresses, and phone numbers are collected to send the invite and fulfill the order — handled per our [privacy policy](/privacy-policy) and [data policy](/data-policy). We don't use recipient data for behavioral profiling. ## Send the invite email For any invite that has an email address attached, you can send the invite email directly from the portal: 1. Find the invite in the table. 2. Open the action menu and choose **Send Notification**. 3. We send the email and record the time it went out. If you've already sent an invite and want to nudge again, the same menu offers **Resend Notification**. You can also bulk-send by creating invites with email addresses already attached — many of the bulk creation flows offer to send notifications as part of the import. ## Setting an expiration You can expire invites at two levels: - **Campaign-level** — set an **Expiration** date on the campaign itself (in the create-campaign modal, or by clicking the **Expiration** field on the campaign detail page). When that date hits, the campaign moves to Expired and every outstanding invite stops working. See [Campaign lifecycle](/resources/campaigns/campaign-lifecycle). - **Per-invite** — when creating a single invite, set its **Expiration** to **Never**, **1 Day**, **7 Days**, **30 Days**, or a **Custom** date. The invite stops working at that time even if the campaign is still active. You can also enable a reminder email a chosen number of days before expiration. If both are set, whichever fires first wins — a recipient with a 30-day invite on a campaign that expires in 7 days has 7 days to redeem. ## After you send Once invites go out, you can track each one through every stage of the redemption flow — opens, clicks, page views, checkout, and order completion. See [Invite tracking and funnel](/resources/campaigns/invite-tracking-and-funnel). ## What recipients see The invite email lands from a sender tied to your campaign and contains: - A short greeting - The campaign description - A button to claim their items - A fallback link The button takes them straight to your branded redemption page. They never need a password, and we tie their invite to their email so the link only works for them. ## Skipping the email You can also create invites without email addresses and hand the link out yourself — paste it into a Slack DM, print it on an event card, or include it in your own welcome sequence. From the invite table, click the copy icon to copy any individual invite URL. You can also export a CSV of selected invites with their full URLs. ## Track who's been sent The invite table shows, for every recipient: - **Status** — Used or Unused - **Invite Sent** — the date the email last went out - **Order** — the order number once they've redeemed - **Journey** — how far through the redemption flow they are You can filter by status or by whether the invite has been assigned to a contact. See [Campaign analytics](/resources/campaigns/campaign-analytics) for higher-level numbers. If a recipient says they didn't receive an invite, resend it before troubleshooting. Email gets dropped sometimes, and a resend is the fastest fix. --- ## Invite deliverability Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/invite-deliverability Most invites arrive in a few seconds. When one doesn't, the cause is almost always something on the recipient's email side, not ours. Here's how to chase it down. ## Check the obvious things first 1. **Confirm the email address is right.** Open the invite in the table and verify the spelling. Even one wrong character means the email never had a chance. 2. **Check the "Invite Sent" timestamp.** If the column shows a date, the email left our side. If it's blank, the invite was never sent — open the action menu and choose **Send Notification**. 3. **Ask the recipient to check spam, promotions, and filtered folders.** Invites with a "claim your gift" angle sometimes trip aggressive spam filters. 4. **Search by sender, not subject.** If they're a Gmail user, "from:" search is more reliable than scrolling. ## Resend the invite The simplest fix is almost always to resend. From the invite row, open the action menu and choose **Resend Notification**. The email goes back out and the timestamp updates. If a resend also doesn't arrive, the issue is on the recipient's side. ## Common reasons recipients don't see the email - **Corporate spam filter** quarantined it before it hit the inbox. The recipient's IT team can release it and whitelist our sending domain. - **Personal address mistyped** during invite creation. - **Out-of-office auto-reply** — they got it but haven't checked yet. - **Distribution list (e.g. team@)** silently dropped a one-off email. - **Strict catch-all rules** sending anything not from a known contact straight to archive. ## Hand the link over directly If the email won't get through, hand the link to the recipient directly. From the invite table, click the copy icon next to the URL and paste it into a DM, a personal email, or a chat. The link works the same whether they get it from us or from you. You can also export a CSV of invite links — select the invites you want, open the action menu, and choose **Export CSV**. The CSV has the full URL for every selected invite. ## Make our emails more likely to land next time For campaigns that go to your own staff, ask IT to whitelist our invite sender domain. That one change usually solves deliverability for everyone in the org going forward. Heavy bounce rates across a single campaign usually point to a problem with the list itself — old addresses, internal-only addresses that aren't reachable from outside, or typos in the import. Spot-check a handful of bounced addresses against your source list before assuming it's a deliverability issue on our end. If invites are failing across the board and a resend doesn't fix it, reach out to your account team. See [Working with your account team](/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team). --- ## Invite tracking and funnel Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/invite-tracking-and-funnel Every invite you send is tracked end-to-end — from the moment we send the email to the moment a recipient finishes their order. The portal gives you a stage and a timestamp for each invite individually, and rolls them up into a funnel for the whole campaign. ## The seven funnel stages Each recipient moves through these stages in order. They never skip; they advance as the recipient takes the next action. 1. **Invite Sent** — we sent the invite email to the recipient. 2. **Invite Opened** — the recipient opened the email. 3. **Link Clicked** — the recipient clicked through from the email. 4. **Landing Viewed** — the recipient reached your campaign's redemption page. 5. **Product Viewed** — the recipient clicked into a product. 6. **Checkout Started** — the recipient began the checkout flow. 7. **Order Completed** — the recipient finished their redemption. ## Per-invite tracking Open the campaign and switch to the **Invite Links** tab. Each row shows the invite's current status, who it was sent to, the **Invite Sent** timestamp, the **Order** number once redeemed, and a **Journey** column showing how far through the seven stages they are. An "Active" badge appears next to invites with activity in the last 15 minutes — useful for catching a recipient who's mid-checkout. Click any invite row to open its detail drawer. The drawer has a **Journey Timeline** with every event we recorded for that invite — email opens, link clicks, individual page views, cart adds and removals, checkout start, order completion — each stamped with its time. If a recipient stalls, the timeline tells you exactly where. ## Aggregate funnel for the whole campaign Switch to the **Analytics** tab to see the same seven stages rolled up across every invite. The funnel shows the count and percentage at each stage and the drop-off from the previous stage, plus median timing between stages (Sent → Opened, Opened → Clicked, and so on). See [Campaign analytics](/resources/campaigns/campaign-analytics) for the full breakdown. ## What to do when invites stall The stage where an invite gets stuck usually points to the fix: - **Sent without Opened** — likely a deliverability issue. See [Invite deliverability](/resources/campaigns/invite-deliverability). - **Opened without Clicked** — your subject line landed but the body didn't sell the click. Tighten the email copy. - **Clicked without Landing Viewed** — rare. Usually a transient network issue on the recipient's side. - **Landing Viewed without Checkout Started** — the product mix isn't compelling, or your [campaign limits](/resources/campaigns/campaign-limits) are blocking the recipient from adding what they want. - **Checkout Started without Order Completed** — typically an address-verification gate. See [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). The most common fix for an invite that stalls early is to resend the email. Open the action menu on the invite row and choose **Resend Notification**. ## Exporting invite data Select invites in the table, open the **Actions** menu, and choose **Export CSV** to pull a spreadsheet with each invite's URL, status, and timestamps. Useful for offline analysis or reporting back to a stakeholder. This tracking is tied to the invite token and lets you see where each recipient is in the redemption flow. We don't use it to behaviorally profile recipients beyond your campaign — see our [privacy policy](/privacy-policy) for details. --- ## Sharing and access controls Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/sharing-and-access-controls Every campaign has a small set of access controls that decide who can reach the redemption page and place an order. They live in **Campaign Settings → Sharing & Permissions** and layer on top of each other — turn on as many as you need. ## Private Campaign (Invite Only) When **Private Campaign (Invite Only)** is on, only people you invite by email can redeem. The campaign URL becomes invite-only, and visiting it without an invite link is blocked. This is the default for most account-driven sends — onboarding kits, customer gifting, anywhere your list is known. When the toggle is off, the campaign URL is shareable. Anyone who has the link can reach the redemption page, subject to the controls below. See [Campaign types](/resources/campaigns/campaign-types) for when public vs. private fits best. ## Restrict by Email Domain When the campaign is public (Private is off), you can turn on **Restrict by Email Domain** to require that recipients sign in with an email at one of your **Whitelisted Email Domains**. Add domains as a tag list (for example, `yourcompany.com`, `yourcompany.co.uk`). This is useful for closed audiences served by a public link — a single shared link for an all-hands gift, gated to your own staff; a partner program restricted to verified partner domains; a customer rewards send limited to a specific account's people. ## Password Protection Also available on public campaigns: turn on **Password Protection** and set a password recipients must enter to view the redemption page. You share the password out-of-band — usually in the message where you share the link, or via a separate channel. This is the lightest gate. It's good for time-boxed events, soft launches before a wider rollout, or any send where the link itself might leak but you want one extra step. ## Combining controls Controls layer. Some common combinations: - **Private alone** — the default tight setting; only invited emails can redeem. - **Public + Email Domain** — one shared link, locked to your company's email domains. - **Public + Password** — one shared link with a single password gate. - **Public + both** — a shared link, gated by domain *and* password (strongest of the public configurations). ## What recipients see when they fail a control If a recipient fails any of the gates above — wrong domain, wrong password, no invite link on a private campaign — the redemption page shows a generic "this campaign isn't available" style message rather than naming the specific gate. That's intentional: it avoids advertising what kind of access control is in place. If a recipient is having trouble getting in legitimately, the fastest fix is to verify their email/domain or resend the password directly. Pair access controls with [address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules) to avoid bad-address shipments slipping through. Access controls decide who reaches checkout; address rules decide which addresses are accepted at checkout. --- ## Campaign analytics Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/campaign-analytics Every campaign has a built-in analytics view. Open the campaign and switch to the **Analytics** tab to see how it's performing. This article covers the aggregate view across every invite — for the timeline of a single recipient, see [Invite tracking and funnel](/resources/campaigns/invite-tracking-and-funnel). ## The headline numbers Four cards sit at the top of the analytics view: - **Redemption Rate** — what share of invites turned into orders - **Invite Open Rate** — what share of sent invites were opened - **Click-through Rate** — what share of opened invites had the link clicked - **Active Now** — recipients active on the redemption page in the last 15 minutes Together these tell you whether the campaign is reaching people, holding their attention, and converting. ## The invite journey funnel Below the cards, a funnel shows recipients moving through seven stages — Invite Sent, Invite Opened, Link Clicked, Landing Viewed, Product Viewed, Checkout Started, and Order Completed — with counts and drop-off at each step. For what each stage means, how to read drop-offs, and how to drill into a single recipient's journey, see [Invite tracking and funnel](/resources/campaigns/invite-tracking-and-funnel). ## Journey timing The "Journey Timing" section shows the median time between each step — for example, how long it typically takes a recipient to go from getting the email to opening it. Useful for understanding whether your audience acts in the moment or trickles in over days. ## Engagement summary A small block at the bottom rolls up: - **Total Invites** — the full count of non-removed invite links - **Bounce Rate** — invites that were never opened - **Cart Abandonment** — recipients who started checkout but didn't finish - **End-to-End Time** — the median total time from invite to order ## The campaign dashboard The **Dashboard** tab covers the same ground at a higher level — total invites, redemption rate, orders shipped, days remaining — and surfaces alerts when something needs your attention (like high cart abandonment or an upcoming expiration). Don't read too much into early numbers. Until you have at least 50 invites in the funnel, percentages bounce around. Wait for volume before drawing conclusions. --- ## Pausing and resuming Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/pausing-and-resuming Pause is the off-switch for a campaign you don't want to end. It's there for the moments where you need to stop new redemptions for a few hours or a few weeks without throwing away the setup. ## When to pause instead of end Reach for **Pause** when: - A product runs short and you need a beat to top up inventory. - You spot an issue with your messaging or the redemption page and want to fix it before more people redeem. - An external situation — a holiday, a freeze in your region, a PR moment — makes pausing the right move for a few days. - You want to come back next quarter without rebuilding everything. Reach for **End** when the campaign is genuinely over and you don't expect to reopen it. ## How to pause From the campaign detail page, click the status tag next to the campaign name and choose **Pause**. The status flips to Paused and: - The redemption link returns a "campaign paused" message instead of letting people redeem. - New invite emails are not sent. - Existing invites that recipients haven't used yet are still valid — they just can't redeem until you resume. - Orders that were already placed continue through fulfillment as normal. Pause stops new redemptions, not in-flight shipments. ## What's preserved while paused Everything. Products, branding, recipient list, limits, settings, analytics. When you resume, it's exactly the same campaign you paused. Analytics keep accumulating — recipients can still open the email and click the link, they just can't complete a redemption. That activity still shows up in the funnel. ## How to resume Click the status tag again and choose **Resume**. The campaign goes back to Active and recipients can redeem again. If you paused with a planned reopen date, set the expiration date before you resume so you don't forget about it. ## A note on shipping during a pause Pausing doesn't pause shipping. Anything that was already in motion continues to ship from our warehouse network on its normal schedule. If you specifically need to stop shipments — for example because of a manufacturing issue — contact your account team. See [Working with your account team](/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team). Use pause as a thinking tool. If you're not sure whether to end a campaign, pause it. You can always end a paused campaign later, but you can't bring an ended campaign back. --- ## Campaign shipping Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/campaign-shipping Once a recipient confirms a redemption, the rest is the same machinery as any other order. This article covers what's specific to campaign shipping. ## Where things ship from Each redemption is fulfilled out of our warehouse network. By default we route to the closest warehouse with stock, which keeps transit times and costs low without you doing anything. If you want more control, **Settings → Regions & Routing** lets you set rules — for example, "ship UK orders only from our European warehouse" or "ship Canadian orders from our US warehouse." Useful when you're holding inventory in more than one region. ## Where things ship to The recipient enters their own address at checkout. We verify it before the shipment is created. Your campaign settings control how strict that verification is. By default the campaign inherits your account-level rules; you can switch to custom rules per campaign in **Settings → Address Verification**. For the full breakdown of statuses, toggles, and recommended defaults, see [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## Regions you ship to A campaign is set up for one or more shipping regions (countries). Recipients outside those regions see a message saying the campaign isn't available in their region instead of being able to enter an address. Set this in **Settings → Regions & Routing**. ## What recipients pay for shipping On redemption campaigns, recipients don't pay for shipping or for the items themselves — your account covers both, and the recipient's experience is entirely no-cost. They just choose, confirm, and wait. Other campaign types may differ; check with your account team if you're not sure how a specific campaign is set up. ## Shipping confirmations and tracking Once a recipient's order ships, they get a tracking email with the carrier and tracking number. They can click through to the carrier's tracking page (USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, Royal Mail, DPD, and so on, depending on which carrier we routed it through). You can see every shipment for the campaign too — open the campaign and click into the orders list, then into any individual order. Each shipment is its own fulfillment order with its own status and tracking link. See [Fulfillment orders and tracking](/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking). ## Returns and damaged shipments If a recipient's package arrives damaged or doesn't arrive at all, contact your account team with the order number. The process is the same as for any non-campaign order. Set realistic expectations on your redemption page. If your products take 7-10 business days to ship, say so up front — recipients are more patient when they know the timing. --- ## The recipient experience Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/recipient-experience It helps to know exactly what your recipients see, especially before you send to a big list. This page walks through the recipient's side — what shows up in their inbox, what the redemption page looks like, what they do, and what emails they get afterward. For the mechanics of why no recipient address is needed up front, see [Address on claim](/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim). ## 1. The invite arrives For invite-only campaigns, recipients get an email from a sender tied to your campaign. The subject and body include your campaign name and a clear call to action — usually a button. They click it and they're on the redemption page. For public campaigns, they get the link from you directly — Slack, email, an event card, a tweet — and click it the same way. There's no email from us in that case; they show up at the page from wherever you posted the link. ## 2. The redemption page The page is branded to match what you set up — your logo, your colors, your fonts, your hero message. Recipients see: - A welcome headline - The list of products on offer - A button to start picking items If you've set up password protection or email-domain restriction, they're asked to verify before they get to the products. Otherwise the products are right there. See [Sharing and access controls](/resources/campaigns/sharing-and-access-controls). ## 3. Picking items They click into a product and choose any required options — size, color, the variants you've enabled. They add it to their order, and if your limits allow, they can add more items. If you've configured caps (max items, max distinct SKUs, max quantity per item), the page enforces them as the recipient builds their selection. Items that are out of stock either don't show up or are visible but locked, depending on what you chose. See [Campaign limits](/resources/campaigns/campaign-limits). ## 4. Confirming the order When they're ready, they go to checkout. They enter their name, a phone number for the carrier, and their shipping address. (The address piece is what makes the whole campaign workflow possible — see [Address on claim](/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim).) Then they confirm. There's no payment step. Recipients never see a price and never pay anything. After they confirm, they see a "you're all set" page with their order number. ## 5. The emails that follow After confirmation, the recipient gets: - A **confirmation email** shortly after they place the order. - A **tracking email** when the order ships, with the carrier and tracking number. - A **delivery notification** when the package lands. Every email — and the tracking page they click through to — uses your campaign branding. See [White-labeling and branding](/resources/campaigns/white-labeling-and-branding). ## What recipients don't see - The product cost - Your campaign limits, expressed as numbers (they just see what they can and can't add) - Any internal notes - Other recipients' names or details - Any of your other campaigns The page only shows them what's relevant to their redemption. Run through the redemption page yourself in a private window before activating. Adding to an order, hitting limits, going through checkout — five minutes of self-testing catches every common mistake. --- ## Address on claim Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/address-on-claim You don't need a recipient's address to send them merch. You set up what's on offer, send them a link, and they enter their own shipping address when they claim. The order ships from there. The whole campaign and redemption surface in Merch is built around this — it's how most of our customers send. ## Why this matters The hardest part of sending merch to a group is usually not the merch — it's the addresses. People move, HR systems lag, prospects haven't shared a mailing address, event leads are scribbled on a badge. Asking the recipient to fill in their own address solves all of it at once. Common moments where this is the right shape: - **New hires** — send the welcome kit before HR has the home address on file. - **Event leads** — capture the badge scan, send a follow-up link, and let the lead pick where it goes. - **Customer gifting** — your CRM has emails, not home addresses. Email the link. - **Public campaigns** — a giveaway URL shared on social or in a community where you'll never have a list of addresses in the first place. - **Hybrid teams** — let the recipient decide whether it goes home or to the office that week. ## How it works Three steps. ### 1. You set up the campaign and share a link Pick the products on offer, set any limits, and brand the page. Then choose how to share access — either an **invite-only** campaign where each recipient gets their own private link emailed to them, or a **public link** you can drop into Slack, an email sequence, a landing page, a badge scanner, anywhere. The choice is about *how the link reaches the recipient*, not what they can do once they get there. See [Campaign types](/resources/campaigns/campaign-types) for the comparison. ### 2. The recipient claims it They click the link and land on your branded redemption page. They pick any options you've made available — size, color, the variants you've enabled — and then enter their own shipping address at checkout. Your [address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules) run here. Depending on how you've set them, addresses that come back as Invalid, Needs Review, or Unverified are either blocked from completing the claim or allowed through with a flag. You set where on that spectrum your campaign sits. ### 3. We ship The redemption becomes a fulfillment order. We pull from inventory (or production, if it's a build-to-order campaign), pack it, and hand it to a carrier. The recipient gets a confirmation email, then a tracking email when it ships, then a delivery notification — all branded to your campaign. See [White-labeling and branding](/resources/campaigns/white-labeling-and-branding). ## When the link is private vs. public Both shapes use the same address-on-claim flow. The difference is reach: - **Invite-only links** are tied to a specific email. The link only works for that recipient, and you can set it to one redemption per person. - **Public links** work for anyone who has the URL. Useful when you want to spread broadly or when you don't have an email list. If you want some of both — broad reach plus identity gating — a public link with email-domain restriction is the usual answer. See [Campaign types](/resources/campaigns/campaign-types) for the full decision. ## Address verification on claim Every address a recipient enters runs through verification. The result is a status — Verified, Needs Review, Corrected, Invalid, Unverified, or Overridden. Your campaign's verification rules decide which statuses are allowed to ship. The defaults work for most accounts; tighter rules are common for high-stakes invite lists, looser rules are common for internal recipient lists where you trust the data. See [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules). ## What the recipient sees Everything the recipient touches — the invite email, the redemption page, the confirmation, the tracking email, the delivery email — is branded to your campaign. There is no price visible, no payment step, no sign of any of your other campaigns. The page only shows them what's relevant to their claim. For a walkthrough from their side, see [The recipient experience](/resources/campaigns/recipient-experience). ## If the recipient never claims The link stays open until the campaign expires. If you set an expiration date on the campaign, the link stops working at that point regardless of whether anyone has claimed. Un-claimed invites are visible in your portal — by recipient, with the last touch — so you can see who hasn't opened the email, who opened but didn't redeem, and who's still in flight. See [Invite tracking and funnel](/resources/campaigns/invite-tracking-and-funnel). If the campaign closes with unclaimed invites still outstanding, those links no longer work. You can extend the expiration or duplicate the campaign and re-send if you want to give people another shot. ## If the recipient enters a bad address Depends on your rules. If you've blocked Invalid addresses, the recipient is shown what's wrong and asked to correct it before they can complete the claim. If you've allowed flagged addresses through, the claim completes but the order surfaces in your portal with the address status visible, and your account team can review before it ships. See [Address validation rules](/resources/account/address-validation-rules) for the full set of toggles. For what happens if the recipient's address changes after they've already claimed, see [Cancellation and changes](/resources/orders/cancellation-and-changes). The invite copy does most of the work. Tell recipients what they're getting, give them a clear call to action, set the expiration expectation ("claim by Friday"), and link to your privacy page if you want to. A vague invite gets a thin redemption rate; a specific invite gets a high one. --- ## Closing a campaign Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/closing-a-campaign When a campaign is done — the budget's exhausted, the event is over, the new-hire wave is finished — you close it. That stops new redemptions for good and keeps everything you've collected. ## Three ways a campaign closes **You end it manually.** Open the campaign, click the status tag next to the title, and choose **End**. Confirm. The campaign moves to Expired. **The expiration date hits.** If you set an expiration date when creating the campaign (or later from the detail page), we close the campaign at that date automatically. No action needed. **You delete it.** Available from the actions menu in Draft, Paused, or Expired states. Deletion removes the campaign from your list. Use this only when you're certain you don't need the analytics or order history. ## What happens at the end Once a campaign is Expired: - The redemption link stops working. Recipients who try it see a "campaign closed" message. - New invite emails cannot be sent. - Unused invite links no longer work. - Orders that were already placed keep moving through fulfillment as normal. Closing doesn't cancel anything that was in flight. - All your analytics stay available — funnel, opens, redemptions, items shipped — so you can write up the campaign after the fact. ## What stays editable Almost nothing. Once a campaign is Expired, it's effectively read-only — you can review the data but not relaunch it. To run something similar, **duplicate** it instead. See [Duplicating a campaign](/resources/campaigns/duplicating-a-campaign). ## Ending vs pausing If you might come back to this campaign in a month or a quarter, **pause** instead of end. A paused campaign keeps its products, recipients, settings, and analytics, and you can resume cleanly. An ended campaign can't be brought back. See [Pausing and resuming](/resources/campaigns/pausing-and-resuming). ## A safety net Set an expiration date on every campaign you create, even if you plan to close it manually. It costs nothing and prevents the most common mistake — a forgotten public link that stays live for years and slowly drains inventory. Worst case, you end the campaign earlier than the date. Best case, you forget about it and the system closes it for you. Don't end a campaign mid-event if recipients are still actively redeeming. Pause it instead, fix whatever you need to fix, then resume. Ending kills the link permanently — you can't bring it back. --- ## Duplicating a campaign Source: https://merch.com/resources/campaigns/duplicating-a-campaign When you've found a campaign setup that works — the right products, the right limits, the right branding — you don't have to rebuild it from scratch the next time. Reuse what you already have. ## Start a new campaign and copy what you need Create a new campaign through the standard flow ([Creating a campaign](/resources/campaigns/creating-a-campaign)). Once it's open in Draft, you can pull settings over from any earlier campaign: - **Routing rules** — in **Settings → Regions & Routing**, use the "Copy Routing Rules from Another Campaign" picker to pull the country and warehouse routing from an existing campaign. Pick the source campaign and we copy its regions and rules onto the new campaign. - **Branding** — open the older campaign's **Settings → Styling** in another tab and match the colors, theme, and font on the new one. - **Products** — add the same products you used last time. Variants, decoration, and pricing carry over because they live on the product, not the campaign. - **Limits** — match the SKU per order, quantity, and per-recipient limits on the new campaign's settings panel. ## What carries over from the old campaign Anything that lives on a product (decoration, sizes, colors, base pricing) carries over by definition — it's the same product, available to any new campaign you create. For other settings, the routing copy is the only built-in shortcut. Branding and limits are quick to recreate, and most of the time you want to tweak them anyway. ## What does not carry over These start fresh on every new campaign: - The recipient list (you don't want to invite the same people twice) - Invite links and their statuses - Orders, redemptions, and analytics - Open and click history This is on purpose — a new campaign is a new event, with a new audience and a clean dataset. Mixing the two would break your funnel. ## When to duplicate vs reuse - **Same audience, same offer, regular cadence** — consider keeping a single recurring campaign instead of duplicating. Use the per-recipient limit to control how often someone can redeem. - **Same offer, new audience** — duplicating is the right move. Spin up a new campaign so analytics stay clean for each cohort. - **Slightly different offer, similar setup** — duplicate, then change the products and limits. Keep one "template" campaign in Draft with your standard branding and routing already set up. When you need to launch a new one, copy from that — your starting point is one click closer every time. # Billing Invoices, payment terms, auto-pay, tax exemptions, and account funds. --- ## How billing works Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing Every charge on your Merch account becomes an invoice. The Billing section is where you see them, pay them, and pull receipts and statements. This page is the lay of the land — each topic links to a deeper guide. ## What gets billed Merch bills you in a few different ways depending on what you are doing with us: - **Sales orders** — most orders bill in two pieces. A **deposit invoice** at the start, and a **balance invoice** once the order ships. See [Invoice types](/resources/billing/invoice-types). - **Storage and fulfillment** — if we hold inventory for you, you get a recurring invoice covering storage and any per-shipment fulfillment charges. - **Subscription** — if your plan includes a recurring platform fee, it bills on its own cadence. You will see all of these in one list under **Billing > Invoices**. ## Payment terms Your account has a payment term that controls when an invoice is considered overdue. Common terms are **Due on Receipt** and **Net 30**. The term you see on each invoice is the term that applied at the time it was issued. See [Payment terms](/resources/billing/payment-terms). ## How to pay There are four ways to settle an invoice with us: - **Card** — credit or debit card via Stripe, processed instantly. - **ACH** — connect a bank account through a secure sign-in to your bank. No routing numbers to type. - **Wire transfer** — wire details appear on every invoice. - **Check** — mail it in, referencing the invoice number. Walk through the flow in [Paying an invoice](/resources/billing/paying-an-invoice). ## Auto-pay and account funds If you do not want to pay one invoice at a time, we have two tools: - **Auto-pay** charges a saved payment method on the due date for the categories you opt in to. See [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay). - **Account funds** lets you pre-load a balance and apply it to invoices instantly. See [Account balance and funds](/resources/billing/account-balance-and-funds). ## Tax exemptions If your organization is tax-exempt or you have a resale certificate, you can submit it once and we will stop taxing eligible orders. See [Tax exemptions](/resources/billing/tax-exemptions). ## Records Every paid invoice produces a downloadable PDF and a receipt of payments. For a roll-up across a date range, see [Receipts and statements](/resources/billing/receipts-and-statements). Questions on a charge? Open the invoice, scan the line items, and reach out to your account team with the invoice number. Most billing questions are answered the same day. --- ## Invoice types Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/invoice-types Not every invoice on your account is for the same thing. Knowing which type you are looking at helps you match it back to an order, a shipment, or a recurring service. ## Sales order invoices Most orders bill in two pieces: - **Deposit invoice** — issued near the start of an order. The deposit confirms the order and unlocks production. Specifics around how much is taken as a deposit depend on your account setup. - **Balance invoice** — issued once items are produced and ready to ship. This covers the remaining cost of the order, including any final shipping or sales tax. A small order may bill in a single invoice rather than a deposit-plus-balance pair. Either way, you will see them tied to the order they belong to. ## Storage and fulfillment invoices If we hold inventory for you in our warehouse network, you will see recurring invoices for storage and fulfillment. These typically include: - Storage fees for items sitting on your account - Per-shipment fulfillment fees for orders that ship out of inventory - Any kitting, returns, or international handling that happened during the period These invoices have an **invoice period** — the date range of activity they cover. International shipments incur a **15% international handling fee** applied to the order subtotal, decoration and pick rates, packaging, and shipping. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. ### A worked example Here's what a storage and fulfillment invoice covering a single month might look like for an account with one warehouse and 40 outgoing shipments: | Line item | Amount | | --- | --- | | Fulfillment fees (40 shipments @ $4.50) | $180.00 | | Shipping (carrier charges, pass-through) | $612.40 | | Storage (avg. 12 pallet-days for the period) | $96.00 | | **Invoice total** | **$888.40** | The three categories show up as separate line items so you can match each one back to the activity it covers — fulfillment scales with shipments out, shipping is the carrier cost on those shipments, and storage scales with how much you're holding and for how long. None of these numbers are typical for your account; they exist to show the shape of the invoice. ## Subscription invoices If your plan includes a recurring platform fee or another subscription service, it bills on its own cadence (usually monthly). Subscription invoices show up alongside the rest in **Billing > Invoices** and can be auto-paid separately from the rest. ## Where to find them Open **Billing > Invoices** in the side nav. The list shows every invoice on your account. Open one to see line items, taxes, totals, and the payment record for any payments already applied. The three invoice categories — **Sales Order Invoices**, **Storage & Fulfillment Invoices**, and **Subscription Invoices** — match the three categories you can opt in to for [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay). Many teams auto-pay the recurring categories and pay sales order invoices manually. ## Questions on a charge If a line item does not look right, open the invoice and reach out to your account team with the invoice number. We will walk through it with you. --- ## Payment terms Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/payment-terms Your payment terms control when an invoice is considered overdue. They do not control when you can pay it — you can always pay any invoice whenever you want. ## The terms you may see - **Due on Receipt** — payment is due immediately. The invoice is past due the day after it is issued. - **Net 1** — due the next day. - **Net 15** — due 15 days from the invoice date. - **Net 30** — due 30 days from the invoice date. - **Net 45** — due 45 days from the invoice date. The exact term that applies to your account is set during onboarding. You can see what it is at any time in **Billing > Overview**, in the **Payment Terms** card at the top of the page. ## How terms appear on each invoice Every invoice shows two dates: - **Invoice date** — the day the invoice was issued. - **Due date** — the day payment is expected, calculated from the invoice date plus your term. The invoice list at **Billing > Invoices** sorts by either of these. Open any invoice to see both clearly. ## What happens after the due date If an invoice is not paid by its due date, its status flips and you may see a reminder email. See [Overdue invoices](/resources/billing/overdue-invoices) for what happens next and how to bring an account current. Auto-pay charges your saved payment method on the due date — not the invoice date. So an invoice on Net 30 with auto-pay enabled will be charged 30 days after it is issued, not on day one. ## Changing your terms Payment terms are part of how your account is set up. If you think the term on your account no longer fits — for example, you have grown into larger orders and want longer terms — reach out to your account team. We will look at it with you. ## A note on terms vs. credit Your payment term works alongside your credit settings. Terms decide *when* an invoice is due. Credit decides *how much* can be on the books at once. Merch has two credit concepts that can apply to your account: - **Open-balance credit limit** — caps the total invoiced-but-unpaid amount across all open invoices. See [Credit limits](/resources/billing/credit-limits). - **Fulfillment credit limit** — caps how much in-flight (allocated but not yet invoiced) work your account can carry, on accounts with spend controls enabled. See [Fulfillment credit limit](/resources/billing/credit-limits-and-payment-terms). These two limits are independent of each other and independent of your payment term. --- ## Paying an invoice Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/paying-an-invoice You have four ways to pay any invoice on your account: card, ACH, wire transfer, or check. The first two go through the portal; the second two are off-platform but get reconciled to the same invoice. ## Open the invoice Open **Billing > Invoices** in the side nav and click any unpaid invoice. The detail page shows line items, taxes, totals, and an **Add Payment** action. ## Pay by card Click **Add Payment** and choose a saved card or enter a new one. Cards are processed through Stripe and the charge usually clears instantly. A 3% credit card processing fee applies on card payments. ACH and wire transfers don't carry the fee. The fee is shown at the time of payment so there are no surprises. ## Pay by ACH Choose ACH and pick a connected bank account. If you do not have one yet, link one in seconds by signing into your bank through the secure connect flow — there is no manual routing or account number entry. See [Adding a bank account](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account). ACH payments take 1-3 business days to clear. The invoice stays in Due until clearance is confirmed, then flips to Closed. ## Pay by wire transfer Wire instructions appear directly on the invoice in the terms and conditions section, and on the PDF you download. Send the wire from your bank, reference the invoice number, and we will mark the invoice paid once funds arrive. For more on this, see [Wire transfer instructions](/resources/billing/wire-transfer-instructions). ## Pay by check Mail a check to the remit-to address shown on the invoice. Write the invoice number on the check so we can match it. Once it clears on our side, the invoice is marked paid. ## Pay multiple invoices at once If you have several open invoices, you can pay them in one go from the invoice list. Pick the invoices you want to settle, choose **Add Payment**, and the modal will roll them up into a single transaction. ## Account funds If you have a balance pre-loaded on your account, you can apply it to invoices as another payment option. See [Account balance and funds](/resources/billing/account-balance-and-funds). ## If a charge looks wrong If you think a charge is incorrect, reach out to your account team or support before disputing it with your card issuer. Under the [terms](/terms), initiating a chargeback on a properly authorized charge results in a **$150 chargeback fee** per occurrence and is treated as a material breach of the agreement. We can almost always resolve the underlying question directly and faster than the dispute process. For recurring categories — subscription and storage & fulfillment invoices — turn on [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay) once and stop paying them by hand. --- ## Auto-pay Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/auto-pay Auto-pay charges a saved payment method on each invoice's due date so you do not have to pay one at a time. You pick which categories of invoice it covers and which method to use. ## Where to set it up Open **Billing > Payment Methods**. Auto-pay lives at the top of the page. If you do not have a payment method saved yet, add one first — auto-pay needs at least one card or bank account to run against. ## Turning it on Click **Enable Auto-Pay**. The setup is a four-step wizard: 1. **Pick which invoice types** to cover. 2. **Pick a primary method** — the card or bank account we charge first. 3. **Pick a backup method** (optional, but recommended). 4. **Review, accept the terms, and confirm with your password.** Auto-pay turns on right away. Future invoices in the categories you opted in to are charged on their due dates. ## Invoice categories you can auto-pay Three categories, opt-in independently: - **Sales Order Invoices** — deposits and balances on orders you place. - **Storage & Fulfillment Invoices** — recurring storage and per-shipment fulfillment fees. - **Subscription Invoices** — your monthly platform fee, if your plan includes one. Many teams turn on auto-pay for the recurring two and pay sales order invoices manually so they can review each one. ## What auto-pay does not cover - Invoices already past due when you turn auto-pay on. Pay those manually. - One-off ad hoc invoices outside the three categories above. - Wire and check payments — those are off-platform and never auto-charged. ## Card processing fee A **3% processing fee applies to all card transactions**, including auto-pay charges run against a credit or debit card. ACH and wire transfers don't carry the fee. If you'd rather skip the surcharge, set auto-pay's primary method to a connected bank account. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. ## Backup method If your primary method fails — expired card, insufficient funds, closed account — and you have a backup configured, we try the backup before alerting you. If both fail, the invoice stays open and we email your team. ## Modifying or disabling Open **Billing > Payment Methods** and click **Modify** to change categories or methods, or **Disable Auto-Pay** to turn it off. Changes apply to future invoices. Anything already charged is settled. Both modifying and disabling auto-pay require you to re-enter your password — this is a write action that affects how money leaves your account. If a card on auto-pay expires, the next charge fails. Update the card before its expiration date to keep auto-pay running. Until you do, the invoice stays in Due. --- ## Overdue invoices Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/overdue-invoices An invoice goes overdue when it passes its due date without being paid in full. We try not to surprise you — there are reminders along the way and clear labels in the portal. ## How to spot one Open **Billing > Invoices**. Each invoice shows a status: - Closed — paid in full. - Due — open but not yet past due. - Past Due — recently past its due date. - Over Due — significantly past due. Filter the list by status to see anything that needs attention. ## What happens when an invoice goes past due A few things, in order: 1. **The status flips** in the portal so it is visible to anyone on your team. 2. **A reminder email goes out** to your team. 3. **A late fee accrues at 1.5% per month** on the outstanding balance, calculated from the due date until paid in full (or the maximum rate permitted by applicable law, whichever is lower). 4. **Your account team will reach out** if invoices stay open beyond a normal window — usually a quick email or call to sort out what is happening. If overdue amounts go to collection, the costs of collection — reasonable attorneys' fees, court costs, collection agency fees — are the customer's responsibility under the terms. We may also suspend services or new orders for non-payment. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. ## How to bring an account current Pay the open invoices. The fastest options are card or ACH from the invoice page itself. See [Paying an invoice](/resources/billing/paying-an-invoice) if you need a refresher. If you cannot pay everything at once, partial payments are accepted on most invoices. The invoice stays open until the remaining balance is settled, but each payment reduces the **Open Balance** column you see in the list. ## What it affects While invoices are overdue, a few things may pause: - **New orders on terms** may need a deposit before going into production. See [Credit limits](/resources/billing/credit-limits). - **Auto-pay** keeps trying for invoices that came due during the auto-pay window. If your card or bank account is the issue, those tries keep failing until you fix the method. ## If you think the invoice is wrong If you believe a charge is incorrect, do not just leave it — reach out to your account team with the invoice number. We will look at it with you and adjust if it is our error. Disputes do not need to mean the invoice goes overdue. The cleanest way to never have an overdue invoice is to turn on [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay) for at least the recurring categories — storage and fulfillment, subscription — and keep your card on file current. --- ## Tax exemptions Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/tax-exemptions If your organization is tax-exempt — for example, you have a resale certificate or a non-profit exemption — you can submit the documentation once and we will stop charging sales tax on eligible orders going forward. ## Where to find it Open **Billing > Tax Exemptions** in the side nav. The page lists every exemption on file with its current status. ## Submitting an exemption Click **Add Tax Exemptions** and you will be asked for: - **State** — the state the exemption applies to. Each state we collect tax in is handled separately. - **Document** — your resale or exemption certificate as a PDF or image. Upload the file and submit. The exemption goes in as Pending while we review it. ## Statuses you may see - Pending — submitted, under review. - Approved — accepted. Eligible orders shipping to that state will not be taxed. - Rejected — the document could not be accepted as-is. Open the row to see why and resubmit. You can resubmit a rejected exemption from the actions menu. Use this if your certificate has been updated, or if the rejection asked for a different document. ## What happens once approved After approval, eligible orders shipping into that state will no longer have sales tax added to the invoice. Existing invoices that were already issued with tax are not retroactively adjusted — exemptions apply going forward. If you place an order to a different state, that state needs its own exemption document on file to be tax-exempt there. ## Keeping certificates current Resale and exemption certificates can have expiration dates. If yours expires, the exemption no longer applies, and tax will start being charged again on new invoices. Submit a fresh certificate before the old one lapses to avoid a gap. We do not give tax advice. If you are not sure whether your organization qualifies for an exemption in a given state, check with your accountant or tax advisor before submitting. ## Questions If a tax line on a recent invoice does not look right after your exemption was approved, open the invoice and reach out to your account team with the invoice number. We will reconcile it. --- ## Sales tax basics Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/sales-tax-basics Sales tax on your orders is calculated by where the order ships to, not where you're billed. For a campaign with recipients in twelve states, that means twelve different tax outcomes on one campaign. This page explains how that math works, where it shows up on your invoice, and what to do if you're tax-exempt. ## How tax gets calculated Tax is calculated per shipment, based on: - **The ship-to address** — the recipient's state, city, and sometimes ZIP-level rates. - **Whether we collect tax in that state** — we're registered to collect in the states where we have nexus. In other states we typically don't collect; the buyer may have a use-tax obligation, but that's between the buyer and the state. - **What's being shipped** — most product categories are taxable; some (rare) categories have state-specific exemptions. - **Your tax-exempt status** — if you have an approved exemption certificate on file for the destination state, eligible items skip tax. See [Tax exemptions](/resources/billing/tax-exemptions). The calculation happens when the order or fulfillment is priced — not at checkout for the recipient (recipients never see a price). Tax shows on your invoice, not theirs. ## Why tax can vary across recipients in a campaign A single campaign that ships to a hundred recipients in different states can produce a hundred different tax outcomes. Each shipment is taxed based on its destination: - A shipment to a state where we collect tax and you don't have an exemption: tax applies at that state's rate. - A shipment to a state where we don't collect: no tax line for that shipment. - A shipment to a state where you have an approved exemption: no tax line for that shipment. This is why a campaign invoice often has a different tax outcome per recipient. The breakdown on the invoice shows the tax per fulfillment, not a single rolled-up tax line. ## Where tax shows on your invoice Tax appears as its own line on each invoice it applies to. For a campaign or multi-recipient order, you'll see it broken down per fulfillment so you can see exactly which shipments contributed. If a shipment is to a state where we don't collect, that fulfillment shows no tax line — not a $0 line, just nothing. If a shipment is to a state where you have an approved exemption certificate, same thing: no tax line, with a note that the exemption applied. For the full anatomy of what a Merch invoice looks like, see [Invoice types](/resources/billing/invoice-types). ## What changes the tax outcome A few things move whether tax applies: - **Where it ships.** The single biggest factor. Same product to two different states can be taxed differently. - **Whether you have an exemption certificate** for the destination state. See [Tax exemptions](/resources/billing/tax-exemptions). - **Whether the destination is residential or commercial.** Some states have small variations; most don't differentiate for the product categories we ship. - **Whether shipping itself is taxed.** Some states tax the shipping line; some don't. Where it's taxed, you'll see it included in the tax line. We don't move tax rates manually — they come from the official rate by jurisdiction. If a rate is wrong on a specific invoice, ask your account team and we'll reconcile. ## Tax-exempt orders If your organization is tax-exempt — a resale certificate, a non-profit exemption — you can submit the documentation once and we'll stop charging sales tax on eligible orders to the states the exemption covers. The flow: 1. Upload the certificate under **Billing > Tax Exemptions**. 2. We review and approve it. 3. Going forward, orders shipping to that state skip the tax line. Each state needs its own certificate. An exemption approved for one state doesn't apply to others — you'll need separate documentation for each state where you want to be exempt. Existing invoices that issued with tax before approval aren't retroactively adjusted; exemptions apply forward. See [Tax exemptions](/resources/billing/tax-exemptions). ## International orders and cross-border When merch ships outside the US, the tax picture changes: - **VAT, GST, and import duties** apply in many regions (UK, EU, Canada, Australia, others). - **Who pays and where it's collected** depends on the shipping arrangement — DDP (we cover duties and import taxes), DDU (the recipient covers them at delivery), or something in between. - **Some regions require us to collect VAT/GST at order time** instead of at the border. The right shape depends on the destination, the order value, and what experience you want the recipient to have. Your account team will walk you through the options when an international campaign or order is on the table. If you're shipping internationally regularly, it's worth having the tax conversation up front rather than per-order — getting the framework set once means every subsequent shipment lands cleanly. We don't give tax advice. If you're not sure whether you should be charged tax somewhere, whether you qualify for an exemption, or how to handle international tax obligations on your side, check with your accountant or tax advisor. We can tell you what we charged and why; we can't tell you what your tax position should be. For submitting an exemption, see [Tax exemptions](/resources/billing/tax-exemptions). For how the tax line fits with the rest of what's on an invoice, see [Invoice types](/resources/billing/invoice-types). --- ## Wire transfer instructions Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/wire-transfer-instructions Wire transfer is one of four ways to pay an invoice with us — alongside card, ACH, and check. It is a common choice for larger invoices and for international customers. ## Where to find your wire details Wire instructions are printed on every invoice we send you. Two places to look: - **In the portal** — open **Billing > Invoices**, click the invoice, and scroll to the terms and conditions section at the bottom. The bank name, address, account, routing, and SWIFT/BIC details are listed there. - **On the invoice PDF** — click **Download** at the top of the invoice. The same details print on the PDF, which is what most accounts payable teams want for their records. We do not publish wire details outside the invoice itself. This protects you from spoofing — if a payment instruction shows up by email and does not match what is on the actual invoice in the portal, do not act on it. ## Sending the wire Give your bank the details from the invoice and include the **invoice number** in the wire memo or reference field. The invoice number is the single most useful thing for matching the payment back on our side — without it, manual reconciliation is slower. If you are paying multiple invoices in a single wire, list every invoice number in the reference field if your bank's character limit allows. If not, send a quick email to your account team with the wire date, amount, and which invoices you intended to cover. ## When the invoice gets marked paid Wires usually arrive within 1-3 business days for domestic transfers, longer for international. Once the funds clear on our side, we apply them to the invoice and the status flips to Closed. You will see the payment in the invoice's payment history. ## International wires International wires generally need the SWIFT/BIC code in addition to account and routing numbers. All of that is on the invoice. Your bank may charge an outgoing wire fee and a foreign exchange spread — those are between you and your bank. Always confirm wire details against the invoice in your Merch portal before sending. If anything in an email or attachment does not match, contact your account team before wiring funds. ## Faster alternatives If wire timing is a problem, ACH from a connected bank account through the portal is usually faster and has no wire fee. Card is instant. See [Paying an invoice](/resources/billing/paying-an-invoice). --- ## Credit limits Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/credit-limits Merch has two related but different credit concepts. This page covers the **open-balance credit limit** — how much can be outstanding (invoiced but unpaid) on your account at one time. If you're looking for the **fulfillment credit limit** — the in-flight ceiling that gates new orders before they invoice — see [Fulfillment credit limit](/resources/billing/credit-limits-and-payment-terms). These are independent settings, and an account can have either, both, or neither. Your open-balance credit limit works alongside your payment terms to keep orders moving without surprises on either side. ## What it means in practice Most accounts have an open-balance credit limit set when the account is opened. It governs the **total open balance** across all your unpaid invoices on terms — not any single invoice or order on its own. If a new order would push the total open balance past your limit, it does not block you from placing the order — it just changes how the order bills. You may be asked to: - **Pay a deposit upfront** that brings the open balance back inside your limit, or - **Settle a previous invoice** before the new order kicks off. Either way, the order itself goes ahead. ## Where to see your limit Open **Billing > Overview** for a quick read on what is currently open on your account. If you want the exact number for your open-balance credit limit, your account team can share it with you — it is not currently displayed as its own field in the portal. ## How a limit is decided Open-balance credit limits are set when your account is created and may be reviewed as your buying patterns change. The factors involved are between you and your account team. If you think your limit no longer fits — for example, you are placing larger orders than when your account was set up — reach out to your account team. We will look at it with you. ## Limits, terms, and overdue invoices Three pieces work together: - **Payment terms** — when each invoice is due. See [Payment terms](/resources/billing/payment-terms). - **Open-balance credit limit** — how much can be unpaid at a time. - **Overdue invoices** — what happens when something stays past its due date. See [Overdue invoices](/resources/billing/overdue-invoices). If you have overdue invoices, your effective credit may be reduced until they are settled. Bringing the overdue invoices current usually restores normal flow on new orders. The smoothest way to keep new orders moving is to keep open balances current and turn on [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay) for the recurring categories. That way storage and subscription invoices never sit and eat into your available credit. ## Open-balance vs. fulfillment credit It's worth saying once more, because the names are similar: - **Open-balance credit limit** (this page) caps how much can be **invoiced but unpaid** at one time. It's an accounts-receivable concept. - **Fulfillment credit limit** caps how much can be **allocated but not yet invoiced** at one time — in-flight work. It's a pre-invoice concept and applies to accounts with spend controls enabled. The two move independently. You can be well inside one and at the edge of the other. See [Fulfillment credit limit](/resources/billing/credit-limits-and-payment-terms) for the other side of the story. ## Questions If a deposit request on a new order does not match what you expected, reach out to your account team. We will walk through where the math came from and confirm what is needed to move forward. --- ## Fulfillment credit limit Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/credit-limits-and-payment-terms Merch has two related but different credit concepts. This page covers the **fulfillment credit limit** — a ceiling on how much in-flight (allocated but not yet invoiced) work your account can carry at any moment. For the open-balance credit limit (invoiced-but-unpaid ceiling), see [Credit limits](/resources/billing/credit-limits). ## What it is A single dollar number set by your Merch sales rep. Your in-flight exposure is the sum of projected totals across orders that have been accepted but haven't reached an invoice yet. Your headroom is the limit minus that exposure — the headroom number is what tells you how much new gifting you can launch right now. It's continuous capacity, not a periodic budget. It doesn't reset on a calendar. Exposure goes up as orders are accepted, and goes down naturally as the regular monthly invoice cycle moves them to invoiced. ## What it isn't - Not a hard spend ceiling. You can spend any amount over time; you just can't have more than the limit in motion at once. - Not tied to a calendar period. - Not directly affected by past-due invoices, though a pattern of overdue invoices may cause your sales rep to decline a raise until those clear. ## Defaults Brand-new accounts start small; accounts with established fulfillment history start higher. At migration, Merch sets the limit comfortably above your current in-flight exposure so you don't get capped on day one. Your sales rep adjusts it upward over time based on payment history and relationship. ## How exposure frees up The natural rhythm is the monthly invoice cycle. When orders move to invoiced, exposure drops and any orders sitting on credit hold are automatically re-evaluated against the new headroom — they clear without manual intervention. ## Hitting the limit New orders are still accepted (the recipient sees nothing wrong) but go on credit hold until headroom clears. Your options: wait for the next invoice cycle, pay outstanding invoices early to free exposure now, ask your sales rep for a higher limit, or override specific holds manually from Spend Controls. See [Orders on credit hold](/resources/campaigns/credit-hold-orders) for the full picture. ## Requesting a change Talk to your Merch sales rep. They consider your monthly volume and trend, upcoming campaigns, outstanding invoice status, and length of relationship. You can't change the limit yourself from the portal. ## Payment terms Separate from this limit. Your account is either on net terms (the invoice is due a set number of days after it's generated — Net 30 is common; yours may differ) or due immediately on receipt. Net terms don't affect the credit limit directly, but a pattern of overdue invoices may shrink it. See [Payment terms](/resources/billing/payment-terms). --- ## Account balance and funds Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/account-balance-and-funds Account funds is a pre-paid balance on your Merch account. Send us money in advance, and that balance is available instantly to apply to any invoice — no card swipe, no ACH wait. ## Why teams use it - **Speed** — when you place a fast-turn order, there is no payment to clear before production starts. The deposit pulls from your existing balance. - **Predictability** — the balance is one number. You always know what is sitting on the account and ready to spend. - **Fewer transactions** — wire once and cover dozens of invoices over the following weeks. Easier on your accounts payable team and easier on ours. - **Skip card processing fees** — funds applied from your balance are not run through Stripe, so there is nothing to surcharge. ## Adding funds There are two common ways: - **Wire transfer** — use the wire details on any invoice (or get them from your account team) and reference your account number in the wire memo. Once funds land on our side, your balance updates in the portal. - **ACH** — pay any open invoice for more than its amount, or send an ACH directly through your account team. The overage credits to your balance. For card-funded balances, talk to your account team — card has processing limits and fees that may make a different path better. ## Where to see your balance Open **Billing > Overview**. Your current account funds balance is shown alongside open invoices and payment terms. ## Spending funds When you pay an invoice, account funds appears as a payment option whenever your balance is greater than zero. Pick **Pay with account funds** and the invoice is settled instantly. Partial application is fine — if your balance does not cover the full invoice, apply what you have and pay the remainder by card, ACH, wire, or check. ## What account funds does and does not cover Account funds can be applied to any open invoice on your account — sales orders, storage and fulfillment, subscription. The mechanism is the same. It does not auto-apply itself to invoices on its own. If you want every invoice to draw from your balance first, talk to your account team about whether that fits your billing setup, or use auto-pay against a card and keep funds for ad hoc deposits. ## Refunds The funds you pre-load are still your money. If you want to drain the balance back, contact your account team and we will return it to the bank account or card it came from. ## What the terms say about account funds Under the [terms](/terms), account funds are **non-refundable** as a default and **don't expire** — they remain available on your account as long as it exists. We may also apply your available balance to offset any outstanding or overdue amounts before charging your card or bank account on file. The day-to-day practice above (return on request, instant application to invoices) sits inside that framework. For storage-related charges that flow through your balance, see [Storage and inventory policy](/resources/billing/storage-and-inventory-policy). Account funds and [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay) are independent features. You can use one, the other, or both. Many teams keep a balance on hand for fast-turn deposits and run auto-pay against a card or bank for the recurring categories. --- ## Storage and inventory policy Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/storage-and-inventory-policy Most accounts hold inventory with us indefinitely. The platform is built around ongoing drop-ship from stock — you stage inventory once and ship it out over weeks, months, or years as orders and campaigns come in. This article covers the policy underneath that day-to-day flexibility, including the cases where we may ask you to remove inventory. ## How storage works day-to-day When stock arrives at one of our warehouses, it gets received against your inventory and becomes available for fulfillment orders and campaigns. Storage is billed monthly, based on the average quantity and days in storage for each sku. The rates that apply to you appear on your monthly invoice and on your account; if you are not sure what your rates are, your account team can tell you. There is no built-in expiration on inventory. We don't apply automatic storage triggers for inactive stock, and there's no stated period after which inventory is automatically flagged. ## Our right to require removal Per the terms, we may require you to remove some or all of your inventory from our warehouses on **30 days' written notice**. This right isn't tied to inactivity, non-payment, or any specific triggering event — it's at our discretion. In practice we use it rarely and only when something material has changed (operational constraints, account standing, business reasons on our side). Most accounts never see it. ## What happens if removal is required If we send a removal notice, you choose what happens to the inventory: - **Ship it back** to your address. - **Ship it elsewhere** — to another warehouse, a different fulfillment partner, or any address you provide. - **Have us dispose of it** — donation, destruction, or scrap. For any option, the standard fulfillment and shipping fees apply to the outbound move (per-order fee, pick rates, shipping charges, and any applicable international handling). Your account team will help you pick the right path and route the work. If you need more than 30 days because of the volume involved, you can request an extension in writing. Per the terms, we may grant or deny it at our discretion. ## Insurance We carry commercially reasonable warehouse insurance covering goods in our care against common perils — fire, flood, theft, structural failure. If a covered loss happens, we process the claim and pass the recovery through to you, up to the lesser of replacement cost or the original product cost you paid us. Losses outside that coverage — your own commercial risks, in-transit casualties after carrier handoff, events that fall outside the policy — are not covered by our warehouse insurance. Customers typically maintain their own property and casualty coverage for inventory. Talk to your account team about specifics for your situation. Risk of loss on a shipment transfers from us to you when the carrier picks it up. Once a package is in transit, in-transit damage or loss is a carrier matter — see [Fulfillment orders and tracking](/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking) for how that plays out. ## Long-term storage For most teams, inventory just sits with us until it ships. There is no expiration, no automatic drawdown, and no stated period that triggers a forced removal. What is flagged is at-our-discretion per the terms — and we exercise that sparingly. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language on storage and inventory. --- ## Receipts and statements Source: https://merch.com/resources/billing/receipts-and-statements Every invoice on your account produces records you can download for accounting, expense reports, and reimbursement. Here is where each lives. ## Invoice PDFs Every invoice — paid or unpaid — has a downloadable PDF. 1. Open **Billing > Invoices**. 2. Click the invoice. 3. Click **Download** at the top of the page. The PDF includes: - Your company info and our company info - Line items, taxes, shipping, and totals - Invoice date and due date - Payment record (for paid invoices), including the payment date and method - Wire and remit-to details for paying Use the PDF for accounts payable submissions and for matching against your own bookkeeping. ## Receipts For invoices that are Closed, the same PDF doubles as a receipt — it shows the invoice details plus the payment record. There is no separate "receipt" document; everything you need is on the invoice once it is paid. If you need a payment record by itself — for example, you reimbursed yourself by card and need to show the card charge — open the invoice and look at the **Payments** section. Each payment lists the amount, date, method, and a payment number you can reference. ## Statements A statement is a roll-up of activity over a date range — useful at month end, quarter end, or year end for reconciling against your books. We do not yet have self-serve statement downloads in the portal. To pull one: 1. Reach out to your account team. 2. Tell us the date range and what you need it for (audit, year-end close, etc.). 3. We will send a PDF or CSV that totals invoices, payments, and any open balance for the period. We turn statement requests around quickly — usually the same business day. ## Bulk-downloading invoices If you want all your invoices in one go, use the **Billing > Invoices** filters to narrow to the date range you want, then download each PDF. For very large date ranges, ask your account team and we will send them as a zip. The fastest way to find a specific invoice is by **invoice number** — every email, every link, and every PDF references it. If your accountant is asking about a specific charge, ask them for the invoice number first. ## Tax records For year-end tax records, the invoice PDFs are what most teams need — they show what you paid, when, and to whom. If you need a more formal letter or specific tax document for your jurisdiction, reach out to your account team. # Payment methods Add, remove, and prioritize the cards and bank accounts on your account. --- ## Payment methods overview Source: https://merch.com/resources/payment-methods Your payment methods are the cards and bank accounts saved to your account. You can add as many as you need, mark one as your default, and let auto-pay use them when invoices come due. ## What we support - **Credit and debit cards** — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover. - **Bank accounts (ACH)** — US bank accounts, connected through your online banking login. We also accept wire transfer and check for one-off invoice payments. Those do not get saved as reusable payment methods — see your invoice page for instructions. ## Where to manage them Open **Billing** in the side nav and choose **Payment Methods**. From there you can: - Add a new card or bank account - Set a default - Configure auto-pay (primary method, optional backup) - Delete a method you no longer use ## Security Card numbers and bank account numbers are tokenized by Stripe, our payment processor. Merch never sees or stores the raw numbers — we only see the last four digits, the brand (for cards), and what is needed to charge the method. ACH is the better choice for larger invoices. Cards have processing fees and lower transaction limits than a typical merch order. ## Dig deeper - [Adding a card](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-card) - [Adding a bank account](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account) - [Primary and backup methods](/resources/payment-methods/primary-and-backup-methods) - [Removing a payment method](/resources/payment-methods/removing-a-payment-method) For the higher-level summary across billing and payment, see [Payment methods](/resources/account/payment-methods) in the Account section. --- ## Adding a card Source: https://merch.com/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-card Saving a card lets you pay invoices in two clicks and turn on auto-pay so eligible invoices clear automatically. ## Where to add a card Open **Billing** in the side nav and choose **Payment Methods**. Click **Add Payment Method**, then pick **Card**. ## What we collect You will enter: - **Name on card** — exactly as it appears on the card. - **Card details** — number, expiration, CVC. The card field is hosted directly by Stripe inside our page, so the raw numbers never touch our systems. - **Billing address** — line 1, line 2 (optional), city, state, postal code, country. This must match what your bank has on file or the card may decline. When you save, Stripe runs a small authorization to confirm the card is real and the details match. It is not a real charge — it falls off your statement automatically. ## What we save vs. what we do not - We save: the brand (Visa, Mastercard, etc.), the last four digits, the expiration month and year, the name on the card, and the billing address. - We do not save: the full card number or CVC. Those are tokenized by Stripe. ## Card processing fee A **3% processing fee applies to all card transactions**, including one-off invoice payments and auto-pay charges. ACH and wire transfers don't carry the fee — for larger invoices, a bank account is usually the cheaper path. See the [terms](/terms) for the binding language. ## After it is saved Your card appears in **Your Payment Methods** with the brand logo and last four digits. From there you can: - **Set as Default** — make it the first method offered when you pay an invoice. - Use it on any invoice from the invoice page. - Use it for auto-pay. See [Primary and backup methods](/resources/payment-methods/primary-and-backup-methods). If your card expires or is replaced, add the new card before the old one expires. Auto-pay will fail on an expired card. ## Common reasons a card fails to save - The billing address does not match what your bank has on file. - The card is restricted to certain countries or merchants. - The CVC was mistyped. If the same card keeps failing, try a different card or use a [bank account](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account) instead. ACH avoids most of these issues and is better for larger invoices. --- ## Adding a bank account Source: https://merch.com/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account Connecting a bank account lets you pay invoices via ACH. ACH is the right choice for larger orders — fees are lower and transaction limits are higher than most cards. ## Where to add a bank account Open **Billing** in the side nav and choose **Payment Methods**. Click **Add Payment Method**, then pick **ACH**. ## How the connection works Enter the **Account Name** (the name on your bank account), then click **Link Bank Account**. A secure window opens where you sign into your bank with your normal online banking credentials. The account is verified on the spot — usually in a few seconds — and a verified token is returned to us. There is no manual routing or account number entry. We never see your bank login. Authentication happens inside the secure connect flow, and only the account holder name, the bank name, and the last four digits of the account come back to us. ## What we save vs. what we do not - We save: the bank name, the account holder name, and the last four digits of the account number. - We do not save: your routing or account numbers in full, and never your online banking login. ## What you need - Online banking access at your bank (most US banks are supported). - Account holder name that matches the name on the bank account. ## After it is saved Your bank account appears in **Your Payment Methods** with the last four digits. From there you can: - **Set as Default** — make it the first method offered when you pay. - Use it on any invoice. - Use it for auto-pay. See [Primary and backup methods](/resources/payment-methods/primary-and-backup-methods). ACH payments take 1-3 business days to clear. The invoice stays Unpaid until clearance is confirmed. Plan accordingly if a deposit is gating production. ## If you only have one method You will need at least one payment method on file to enable auto-pay. If your bank is not supported by the connect flow, save a card for now and reach out to your account team — we can work out an alternative. --- ## Primary and backup methods Source: https://merch.com/resources/payment-methods/primary-and-backup-methods When you have more than one payment method on file, you can choose which is used by default and which steps in if the first one fails. ## Default vs. auto-pay primary There are two related, but separate, settings: - **Default** — the method offered first when you click pay on any invoice. You can always pick a different one at checkout. - **Auto-pay primary** — the method that auto-pay charges automatically when an eligible invoice comes due. Most accounts set the same method as both, but you can split them if you want, for example, an ACH primary for auto-pay (low fees) but a card as the default for one-off manual payments. ## Setting a default On any saved method in **Billing -> Payment Methods**, click **Set as Default**. We will confirm and switch it. There is always exactly one default — promoting a new one demotes the old one. ## Auto-pay: primary and backup When you turn on auto-pay, the setup wizard asks you to pick a primary method and an optional backup — see [Auto-pay](/resources/billing/auto-pay) for the full flow. If the primary method fails on an auto-pay run, we automatically retry on the backup. If the backup also fails — or you did not set one — the invoice stays Unpaid and we email your team so someone can fix the method or pay manually. Pick a backup that is on a different rail than your primary. If your primary is a card, set a bank account as the backup, and vice versa. That way, a single bank-side issue cannot fail both. ## Switching the primary Open **Billing -> Payment Methods** and choose **Modify** on the auto-pay panel. Walk through the wizard again, pick a different primary or backup, and confirm with your password. Auto-pay updates right away. ## What if I only have one method? You can still use auto-pay, but there is no backup, so a single failed charge leaves the invoice Unpaid. We recommend keeping at least two methods on file. ## See also - [Adding a card](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-card) - [Adding a bank account](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account) - [Auto-pay and account funds](/resources/account/auto-pay-and-account-funds) --- ## Removing a payment method Source: https://merch.com/resources/payment-methods/removing-a-payment-method If a card has expired, a bank account is closed, or you just want to clean up the list, you can remove a saved payment method at any time. ## How to remove Open **Billing** in the side nav and choose **Payment Methods**. On the method you want to remove, click **Delete** and confirm. ## What happens to past payments Removing a method does not affect payments that have already cleared. Receipts, invoices, and history all stay intact — the method is just no longer available for future payments. ## If the method is your default or used by auto-pay We warn you before letting you delete a method that is currently in use: - **It is the default** — you will need to set a different method as default first, or pick one during the confirmation. - **It is the auto-pay primary or backup** — auto-pay will be disrupted. The dialog will say so explicitly and ask you to confirm. - **It is your only payment method** — auto-pay cannot run with no method on file. We strongly recommend adding a replacement before deleting. Deleting the only payment method while auto-pay is on does not turn auto-pay off. The next eligible invoice will fail and stay Unpaid until you add a new method or pay it manually. ## A safer order of operations When you are switching off an old card or bank account: 1. **Add the new method** first. See [Adding a card](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-card) or [Adding a bank account](/resources/payment-methods/adding-a-bank-account). 2. **Set the new method as default**, and update auto-pay if the old one was the primary or backup. See [Primary and backup methods](/resources/payment-methods/primary-and-backup-methods). 3. **Then delete the old method**. The dialog should no longer warn you about auto-pay. That sequence avoids any gap where an invoice could fail because there was no valid method on file. ## Reach out if you are stuck If a method will not delete or you suspect a charge ran on a removed method, contact your account team with the last four digits and approximate date. We can pull the audit trail and sort it out. # Products Find, price, and request the right products for your brand. --- ## Working with products Source: https://merch.com/resources/products The Products section of your portal is where you find what to buy and learn what it costs. Most customers spend more time here than in any other area of the platform — picking items for a campaign, reordering a hero product, exploring something new. This page is a map of the articles that cover it. ## Where products live - [**My Products vs the Product Catalog**](/resources/products/my-products-vs-product-catalog) — the distinction matters. **My Products** is the curated set we've already dialed in for your brand (your colors, decoration, sizing). The **Product Catalog** is the full library; anything in it can be added to My Products on request. - [**Requesting new products**](/resources/products/requesting-new-products) — most product work starts with a quick note to your account rep, not a form. What to include and what happens next. ## Variants, decoration, and customization - [**Product variants and options**](/resources/products/product-variants-and-options) — sizes, colors, and configurations explained. - [**Customization and decoration**](/resources/products/customization-and-decoration) — embroidery, screen print, sublimation, engraving, debossing, patches — what each method is good at and where its limits are. ## Pricing - [**Understanding your pricing**](/resources/products/understanding-your-pricing) — how to read a price breakdown — quantity tiers, decoration setup fees, per-piece charges, customization charges. - [**Why pricing might vary**](/resources/products/why-pricing-might-vary) — what moves the price up or down between two quotes for similar items. ## Timing and proofing - [**Lead times**](/resources/products/lead-times) — how long products take from order to in-hands, and what changes that. - [**Samples**](/resources/products/samples) — get one in your hands before you commit to a larger run. If you're not sure where to start, message your account rep with what you have in mind ("a soft tee for a 50-person send," "a co-branded notebook for an event") and they'll bring you a curated set of options. That tends to be faster than browsing the catalog cold. See [Working with your account team](/resources/account/working-with-your-account-team). --- ## My Products vs the Product Catalog Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/my-products-vs-product-catalog Two product views live side by side in your portal. They look similar at first glance but serve very different jobs. ## My Products **My Products** is your account's short-list of ready-to-order items. Each one has your colors, decoration, and sizing already locked in — so when you reorder, you do not have to rebuild the spec from scratch. Use My Products when you want to: - Reorder a familiar item in one or two clicks - Send something to a campaign without rebuilding artwork - Show your team only the items they are approved to order Your account team curates this list with you. As your program grows, items move in and out so the list stays focused on what you actually use. ## Product Catalog **Product Catalog** is the full universe of items available to you. It is much larger and intentionally broader — apparel, drinkware, bags, tech, office, gifts, and so on — without your branding applied. Use the catalog when you want to: - Explore options for a new launch or campaign - Compare similar items side by side - Find a category you have not ordered before You cannot order directly from the catalog. The catalog is for browsing and inspiration; My Products is for ordering. ## How items get into My Products Two paths lead to the same place — a finished, priced product in your My Products list. ### From the Product Catalog You browse the catalog, see something you like, and tell your account team. They dial in your colors, decoration method, and sizing on the catalog SKU, get the design priced, and add the result to **My Products** as a ready-to-order item. This is the path most customers start on. The catalog gives you a known starting point, and your account team does the configuration work. ### From a custom design When the catalog doesn't have what you need, your account team works with the design team to source or build something fresh — a product that doesn't exist as a SKU yet. They get the design priced, get your sign-off, and add the result to **My Products** the same way a catalog item would land there. This path takes a little longer than picking from the catalog, but the destination is the same. Once the item lives in My Products, it's orderable just like any other product on your account. Not sure if something is the right fit? Request a sample first. See [Samples](/resources/products/samples). ## The relationship in one line Product Catalog is what exists. My Products is what is ready for you. Whether the starting point is a catalog SKU or a fresh idea, your account team handles the configuration and dropping it into My Products. For the request flow, see [Requesting new products](/resources/products/requesting-new-products). --- ## Requesting new products Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/requesting-new-products The most common way customers start a design is by messaging their account team directly — sometimes from a catalog item they want set up for their brand, sometimes from a totally fresh idea that isn't in the catalog at all. There's no form to fill out. Just send a note. This is the same path that gets a finished product into your account: idea → priced design → item in **My Products** → orderable. ## How to send the request Reach out to your account team through the portal, by email, or in a chat thread you already have going. The more context you give in your first message, the fewer back-and-forth replies it takes to get to a real answer. ## What to include A good request comes with a few key details up front. The more of these you can answer, the faster we can come back with a recommendation. - **Intended use** — Is this for a hiring kit, a customer gift, an event, an internal milestone? Use shapes the choice. - **Branding direction** — Logo, colors, any guidelines we should follow. If you already have artwork, attach it. - **Decoration ideas** — Embroidery on the chest, screen print on the back, engraved logo on a tumbler. We can also recommend. - **Target quantity** — A rough number is enough. It helps us scope and price the right way. - **In-hands date** — When you need them in your hands, not when you want to place the order. - **Budget guidance** — Optional, but it helps us steer toward the right tier of product. If you're picking from the Product Catalog, send the catalog link or product name. That removes ambiguity right away. ## What happens next Your account team reviews the request and works through it with the design team where needed. They come back with options — usually a recommended product, decoration plan, and indicative pricing. Once you approve, the item gets added to **My Products** with your spec dialed in, ready to order. ## When to request a sample If you have not seen the product in person, ask for a sample before committing to a larger run. See [Samples](/resources/products/samples). ## Items not in the catalog Have something specific in mind that isn't in our catalog? Ask anyway. The design team sources new products regularly and can often track down what you need — or build something custom. --- ## Product variants and options Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/product-variants-and-options Most products come in more than one flavor. A tee is offered in multiple sizes and colors. A hoodie can be unisex or fitted. A tumbler can be 12oz or 20oz. We organize all of this with two simple ideas: **variants** and **options**. ## Variants A **variant** is a specific configuration of a base product. Same item, different version. A unisex tee in **Black, size Large** is one variant. The same tee in **Heather Grey, size Medium** is another. Each variant has its own stock, its own decoration setup, and its own price. You will see variants any time a product comes in more than one of something — color, size, fit, capacity, finish. ## Options **Options** are the choices that make up a variant. Think of them as the dropdowns you pick from when you are configuring an order. A tee might have two option groups: - **Size** — XS, S, M, L, XL, 2XL - **Color** — Black, White, Heather Grey, Navy You pick one from each group, and the combination resolves to a specific variant. ## How variants show up on an order When you place an order, you select the quantity per variant. For apparel, that usually means a size run — for example, 5 Smalls, 10 Mediums, 10 Larges, 5 XLs of the same color. Each line on the order represents one variant. Total quantity matters for pricing breaks across most items. Splitting an order into many variants of the same product usually still counts as one combined run for quantity tiers. ## Mixing variants in a campaign For campaigns where recipients pick their own size or color, you do not have to commit to a size run up front. Recipients choose their variant during redemption, and the order builds itself based on what they pick. ## Availability Not every variant is in stock at every moment. If a specific color or size is unavailable, your account team will flag it before you place the order and suggest the closest match. ## Decoration across variants Decoration usually applies the same way across every variant of a product — for example, a left-chest embroidery on the tee in every color. If you need decoration to change between variants (different thread color on different shirt colors, say), call that out when you set the product up. See [Customization and decoration](/resources/products/customization-and-decoration). --- ## Understanding your pricing Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/understanding-your-pricing When you look at a quote or a product page, the total price is usually a stack of a few line items rather than a single number. Knowing what each line is makes it easy to compare options and spot what you can adjust to land where you want. ## The components of a price Most quotes break down along these lines: ### Unit price The per-piece price of the product itself, before decoration. This is what scales with quantity. Order more, and the unit price drops. ### Quantity tiers (price breaks) Most products are priced in tiers based on how many you order — for example, one price for 25–49 pieces and a lower price for 50–99. Crossing a tier threshold can drop your unit price meaningfully, which is why we will sometimes suggest ordering a few more pieces to clear the next break. ### Decoration setup fees A one-time charge that covers preparing your artwork for production — building screens, digitizing for embroidery, setting up an engraving file. You pay this the first time you decorate a given design. Reorders of the exact same design typically do not incur it again. ### Decoration per-piece charges What it costs to actually apply your design to each item. This varies by method (embroidery, screen print, engraving) and by complexity (number of colors, stitch count, art size). ### Customization fees Beyond standard decoration, anything that is bespoke for you — custom Pantone color matching, special pack-out, custom sizing or cuts, branded packaging — shows up as its own line. ### Packaging fees If your order needs more than the default packaging — gift boxes, tissue paper, branded mailers, individual poly bags — those land here. ### Rush fees When a tighter timeline requires us to bump a project ahead, we add a rush charge. The fee scales with how aggressive the timeline is. ## Where to read this on a quote Every formal quote we send shows these as separate lines so you can see what is driving the total. If something looks off or unexpected, ask your account team to walk through it line by line. The fastest lever for lowering total price is usually quantity. Ask your account team where the next price break sits before you finalize the order. ## Taxes and shipping Sales tax (where applicable) and shipping are calculated separately and shown on your quote and invoice. If your organization is tax-exempt, send your resale or exemption certificate to your account team and we will apply it to eligible orders going forward. ## Prices on the product page vs your final quote Prices shown on a product page are indicative — they assume a standard configuration and a typical quantity. Your final quote is built around the actual specs and quantity you are ordering. For why two quotes for similar items might land at different numbers, see [Why pricing might vary](/resources/products/why-pricing-might-vary). --- ## Why pricing might vary Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/why-pricing-might-vary You order the "same" tee twice and the per-unit number is different. Or two products that look nearly identical quote out hundreds of dollars apart. That is almost always because one of these levers moved between the two quotes. ## Quantity The single biggest lever. Most products are priced in tiers — order more, and the per-unit price drops as you cross each tier. A run of 50 will land at a different unit price than a run of 250 of the exact same item. If two quotes are close on quantity but on different sides of a price break, the difference can be sharp. Ask your account team where the breaks sit. ## Decoration method How you decorate the product matters as much as what you order. **Embroidery** runs differently than **screen print**, which runs differently than **sublimation** or **engraving**. Each method has its own setup, per-piece charge, and complexity profile. If a quote came back higher than you expected, the decoration method is often the reason. Sometimes a small change — print instead of embroidery on a tee, for example — shifts the total meaningfully. ## Decoration complexity Within the same method, complexity drives price too: - **Number of colors** in a screen print - **Stitch count and size** of an embroidered design - **Number of decoration locations** on one item (front, back, sleeve) - **Size of the art** — bigger imprints cost more to apply A one-color chest hit and a four-color back-and-front print are not in the same neighborhood, even on the same shirt. ## Customization Anything bespoke costs more than standard. Custom Pantone color matches, custom sizing, custom cuts or fits, custom packaging, custom kitting — each adds a line. Standard configurations are always the most economical path. ## Lead time and rush Tight timelines cost more. If we have to push a project ahead of the normal queue to hit your in-hands date, that shows up as a rush fee. Building in normal lead time is usually the cheapest way to get exactly what you want. See [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times). ## Item availability When a specific color, size, or product is constrained — limited inventory, a discontinued run, or a seasonal item — pricing can shift. Your account team will flag this before quoting so there are no surprises. ## Product tier Products live across a wide quality range, from value-priced basics to premium brands. Two tees that look similar can come from very different price tiers. If price matters, ask your account team to show you alternatives at a different tier. If a quote looks unexpectedly high, ask for a side-by-side. We can usually show you 2–3 versions of the same idea at different price points by adjusting quantity, decoration, or product tier. ## What does **not** typically change pricing Once a quote is locked and the order is placed, your price holds. We do not adjust it after the fact unless you change the spec. If you ask to change something mid-order — quantity, decoration, ship date — we will requote and confirm with you before charging anything. --- ## Customization and decoration Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/customization-and-decoration Decoration is what turns a stock product into your product — your logo, your colors, your design applied to a tee, a mug, a notebook, a bag. The right method depends on the item, the artwork, and how the finished piece needs to look and hold up. Each method below has its own article with the details that matter when you are picking one. ## Choose a method | Method | Best for | Typical lead-time impact | |---|---|---| | [Screen printing](/resources/products/screen-printing) | Tees, sweatshirts, totes, anything flat with a small number of solid colors | Standard | | [Embroidery](/resources/products/embroidery) | Caps, polos, jackets, fleece, bags | Standard | | [DTG (direct-to-garment)](/resources/products/dtg-printing) | Photo-style or many-color art on cotton apparel, especially short runs | Standard | | [Sublimation](/resources/products/sublimation) | All-over prints, performance apparel, drinkware | Adds time | | [Laser engraving](/resources/products/laser-engraving) | Drinkware, tools, wood, leather, metal gifts | Standard | | [UV printing](/resources/products/uv-printing) | Hard goods (drinkware, tech, plastic, wood, metal) with full-color art | Standard | | [Heat transfer vinyl](/resources/products/heat-transfer-vinyl) | Small runs, names and numbers, single-color graphics on apparel | Fast for small runs | Most products support more than one method. If you are not sure which to pick, share the product and the artwork with your account team — picking the method is the easy part once they see both. ## What to send us For most methods we want **vector artwork** (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) with fonts converted to outlines. For photo-style decoration — DTG, sublimation, UV — high-resolution raster files (`.png`, `.tif`, `.jpg` at 300 DPI at print size) also work. Include any specific brand colors as Pantone values where you have them. The per-method articles call out the specifics for each one. If you do not have art ready, the design team can help you prepare files from a logo, a brand guide, or a rough idea. ## How decoration affects pricing and lead time Decoration is a meaningful share of what you pay. The main drivers are the number of colors, the imprint size, the number of decoration locations, and the method itself. Some methods carry one-time setup work for each new design or color. See [Understanding your pricing](/resources/products/understanding-your-pricing) for how a quote is built, and [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times) for how method choice affects the timeline. ## Decoration locations Most apparel and bags support multiple decoration locations — left chest, full back, sleeve, hat front, hat side. Each location is its own setup, so each one adds to the price. Many programs go with a single location to keep things clean and economical. ## Approving the look Before production runs, you approve a digital proof showing how the decoration will appear. For higher-stakes runs, request a [physical sample](/resources/products/samples) so you can see and feel it in person. Not sure which method is right? Tell your account team what you are trying to do — the product, the artwork, the quantity, and where the finished items are going — and we will recommend the method that gives you the best result at your target quantity. --- ## Screen printing Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/screen-printing Screen printing pushes ink through a fine mesh screen onto the surface of a product. One screen is made for each color in the design, and each color is laid down in its own pass. It is the most common way to decorate apparel, and at the right quantity it is one of the most economical methods we offer. ## What it's best for Screen printing shines on flat, woven fabric where you want bold, solid color. Think tees, sweatshirts, hoodies, tote bags, bandanas, and similar. It is the workhorse method for event tees, team apparel, giveaways, and any program where you are printing the same simple design on a lot of pieces. ## What it doesn't do well Each color in your design needs its own screen, so designs with many colors or smooth gradients get expensive quickly and lose definition. Tiny text, hair-thin lines, and photographic detail are not the right fit. Screen printing also needs a relatively flat printable area, so it does not work well on pockets, seams, or sharply curved products. ## Artwork requirements Send vector art (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) with fonts converted to outlines. Designs should be set up with each color as its own layer or spot color, and any specific brand colors called out as Pantone values so we can match the inks. Raster art can work if it is clean, high-contrast, and high-resolution, but vector is faster to prep and prints more crisply. Maximum print size depends on the product — most adult tees support a print up to about 14 by 16 inches on the chest or back. ## Lead-time impact Screen printing on a stock blank is one of the faster decoration methods we offer. It runs on a similar timeline to embroidery for typical apparel orders. Bigger color counts, multiple print locations, or specialty inks (metallic, puff, glow) add some setup time, but it stays in the standard range. See [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times) for the rough windows. ## When to choose this vs. DTG Choose **screen printing** when your design is one to about six solid colors and the run is larger — the per-piece cost drops quickly with quantity. Choose [**DTG**](/resources/products/dtg-printing) when the design is photo-style, has many colors or gradients, or when the run is small enough that setting up screens is not worth it. ## When to choose this vs. heat transfer vinyl For runs in the hundreds and up, screen printing is almost always the better answer — cleaner finish, better hand-feel, more durable across washes. [Heat transfer vinyl](/resources/products/heat-transfer-vinyl) is better when you have a very small run or you need each piece personalized (different names, different numbers). If your design has more than four or five colors, send it over before you finalize. The design team can often simplify it into fewer screens without anyone noticing, which keeps the per-piece price down. --- ## Embroidery Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/embroidery Embroidery stitches your design directly into the fabric using colored thread. Each design is converted into a stitch pattern — a process called digitizing — and a machine sews that pattern onto the product. The result is a textured, dimensional logo that holds up wash after wash and feels at home on premium apparel. ## What it's best for Embroidery is the go-to method for caps, polos, fleece, button-downs, jackets, beanies, and structured bags. It is the look most people associate with corporate apparel for a reason — it photographs well, it lasts, and it reads as premium even on inexpensive blanks. Small to medium logos on the left chest or hat front are the most common application. ## What it doesn't do well Embroidery is built from stitches, so fine detail does not translate. Very thin fonts, small text under about 4mm tall, gradients, photographic art, and hair-line strokes will lose legibility. Large designs (full-back logos, oversized art) run up the stitch count fast, which pushes the per-piece price into territory where another method is usually a better fit. Stretch fabrics and lightweight performance materials can also pucker around dense stitching. ## Artwork requirements Send vector art (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) with fonts converted to outlines. Keep designs simple — solid shapes, readable type, clear color separation. Each color in the design becomes a thread color, matched against a standard thread library. Matching is close to a specified brand color but not exact, because thread comes from a fixed palette. The design team will share a thread-color mock for you to approve before stitching starts. Typical maximum sizes are around 4 by 4 inches on a left chest or hat front, and up to 10 by 10 inches for a back location, depending on the garment. ## Lead-time impact Embroidery on stock apparel runs on a standard timeline. The one-time digitizing step adds a small amount of setup time the first time we run a given logo; reorders of the same design move faster because the stitch file is already on hand. Very high stitch counts (large or dense designs) run slower on the machines, so big full-back logos take longer than left-chest logos. ## When to choose this vs. screen printing Choose **embroidery** for caps, polos, fleece, and any apparel where you want a premium, structured feel. Choose [**screen printing**](/resources/products/screen-printing) for tees, sweatshirts, and totes where you want vibrant color or larger designs at a lower per-piece cost. ## When to choose this vs. DTG Embroidery is the better answer when you want texture and a premium hand-feel. [DTG](/resources/products/dtg-printing) is the better answer when your design is photo-style or has many colors that thread cannot replicate. If your logo has fine detail or very thin lines, ask the design team for an embroidery-friendly version before approving. A small tweak to line weight at this stage prevents a lot of "that doesn't look right" moments when the first hat ships. --- ## DTG (direct-to-garment) printing Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/dtg-printing DTG — direct-to-garment — is essentially an inkjet printer for fabric. Specialty water-based inks are sprayed directly onto the garment, then cured with heat. Because nothing has to be set up per-color, DTG handles full-color, photo-style designs without the cost climbing with color count. ## What it's best for DTG is the right fit for short runs of cotton apparel, photo-realistic designs, art with lots of colors or gradients, and one-off pieces. If your design would need eight screens to reproduce in screen printing, DTG often becomes the cheaper option. It is also the standard method for any program where each piece can be a different design — DTG has no per-color setup, so a run of fifty different prints costs about the same as a run of fifty matching prints. ## What it doesn't do well DTG works best on light-colored, 100% cotton garments. Dark garments are possible but require a white underbase, which adds a step and changes the feel of the print. The ink sits on the fibers rather than soaking deeply into them, so very large solid color blocks can feel slightly stiffer than screen-printed equivalents and may show more wear over many washes. Synthetic fabrics, blends, and performance materials are generally not good DTG candidates — for those, [sublimation](/resources/products/sublimation) is usually the answer. ## Artwork requirements Send high-resolution raster art (`.png` or `.tif` at 300 DPI at the final print size) with a transparent background. Vector files work too and are often cleaner. DTG can reproduce gradients, soft edges, and photographic detail that other methods cannot, so there is no need to simplify the design for color count. There is no Pantone match in the strict sense — colors are reproduced in CMYK — but the design team will share a digital proof so you can confirm the look before printing. Maximum print size depends on the garment; most adult tees support around 14 by 16 inches on the chest or back. ## Lead-time impact DTG runs on a standard timeline for typical orders. Because there are no screens to make and no thread to digitize, setup is minimal, which makes DTG one of the faster methods to start for a brand-new design. Very large quantities run slower than screen print at the same volume because DTG prints one piece at a time. ## When to choose this vs. screen printing Choose **DTG** when your design has many colors, gradients, or photo-style detail, or when the run is small enough that setting up screens does not pay off. Choose [**screen printing**](/resources/products/screen-printing) for larger runs of simpler designs — bigger color blocks, fewer colors, and a hand-feel that wears in well over time. ## When to choose this vs. sublimation DTG is for cotton apparel. [Sublimation](/resources/products/sublimation) is for polyester-rich, light-colored apparel and is the right call for all-over prints or any case where you want the design to feel like part of the fabric. For dark garments, ask for a sample with the white underbase included. The underbase changes how the colors render — usually subtly — and you want to know what it looks like on the actual product before you commit to a run. --- ## Sublimation Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/sublimation Sublimation uses heat and pressure to turn special dyes into a gas that bonds with the fibers of a polyester fabric — or a polymer coating on hard goods. The dye becomes part of the material rather than sitting on top of it. The result is a full-color print that does not crack, peel, or fade, and that does not change the hand-feel of the fabric. ## What it's best for Sublimation is the right method for all-over prints on apparel — designs that go edge to edge, across seams, onto sleeves. It is also the standard way to print full-color photo-style art onto performance polyester (jerseys, athletic shirts, lightweight tees) and onto polymer-coated drinkware, mugs, and similar hard goods. If you want a print that feels like part of the garment instead of a layer applied on top, sublimation is the answer. ## What it doesn't do well Sublimation only works on polyester or polyester-rich fabrics, and only on light-colored bases. The dye is translucent, so a white or near-white background is required for colors to render correctly. Cotton, cotton-rich blends, and dark garments are not candidates — those should go to [DTG](/resources/products/dtg-printing) or [screen printing](/resources/products/screen-printing). On hard goods, the surface needs a sublimation-ready coating; not every product has one. ## Artwork requirements Send high-resolution raster files (`.png` or `.tif` at 300 DPI at final print size) or vector files. For all-over prints, ask the design team for the cut-and-sew template — designs need to be laid out across the pattern pieces of the garment so the art lines up across seams after the pieces are sewn together. Colors are reproduced in CMYK; the design team will share a digital proof for approval before printing. ## Lead-time impact Sublimation generally takes longer than screen print, embroidery, or DTG. All-over prints in particular require cut-and-sew production — the fabric is printed flat, then cut into pattern pieces and sewn into the finished garment — which adds meaningful time compared to printing on a pre-made blank. Sublimated drinkware and other hard goods sit closer to the standard range. See [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times) for the rough windows. ## When to choose this vs. DTG Choose **sublimation** for polyester apparel, all-over prints, or hard goods with a sublimation coating. Choose [**DTG**](/resources/products/dtg-printing) for cotton apparel with full-color art. ## When to choose this vs. UV printing For hard goods, both can produce full-color art. **Sublimation** gives the most durable, fade-resistant finish and is the standard for drinkware that gets washed regularly. [**UV printing**](/resources/products/uv-printing) is more flexible across materials — it does not require a special coating and works on a wider range of substrates. For all-over prints, always request a pre-production sample before approving the full run. Color, seam alignment, and how the print sits across the body are hard to evaluate from a flat digital proof alone. --- ## Laser engraving Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/laser-engraving Laser engraving uses a focused beam to burn or etch your design into the surface of an item. The result is permanent, precise, and visible as a contrast in the natural color of the material — darker on wood and leather, lighter on coated metals, frosted on glass. There is no ink, no thread, and no coating to wear off. ## What it's best for Engraving is the natural choice for hard goods where you want a refined, understated finish — stainless drinkware, pens, leather journals, wooden gifts, metal tools, glassware, and similar items. It reads as premium without being loud. It is also the most durable decoration method we offer; an engraved logo will outlast the product itself. ## What it doesn't do well Engraving is monotone. You get the natural contrast of the etched material — one tone, no color — so it does not work for designs that rely on multiple colors or gradients. Very fine line weights, small text, and tight detail need to be tested on the actual substrate before committing to a run, because how cleanly the laser cuts depends on the material. Some plastics and synthetic materials are not engraving candidates at all; for those, [UV printing](/resources/products/uv-printing) is usually the answer. ## Artwork requirements Send vector art (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) with fonts converted to outlines. Designs should be high-contrast and treated as a single color — think of it as a stencil. Avoid gradients, drop shadows, and effects that depend on color blending. Imprint size depends on the product; the design team will confirm a maximum engraving area when you specify the item. ## Lead-time impact Engraving on stock products runs on a standard timeline. It is generally comparable to embroidery or screen print for typical orders. Engraving on multiple locations of the same product, or on a product that needs to be set up in a custom fixture, adds some setup time but stays in the standard range. ## When to choose this vs. UV printing Both methods work on hard goods. Choose **engraving** when you want the most premium, permanent finish and the design is monotone — a single logo or wordmark on a stainless tumbler, a wooden coaster, a leather journal. Choose [**UV printing**](/resources/products/uv-printing) when you need full-color art, when the surface does not engrave well, or when you want a different look for the same product. ## When to choose this vs. sublimation Engraving is for the natural, etched-in-the-material look. [Sublimation](/resources/products/sublimation) is for full-color, photo-style art on drinkware and hard goods with a sublimation coating. Request a sample for any engraving project on a new material. How a given alloy, wood grain, or leather hide takes the engraving varies enough that the design team always wants to see one before running the full quantity. --- ## UV printing Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/uv-printing UV printing deposits ink directly onto the surface of a product and cures it instantly with ultraviolet light. The ink hardens on contact, which means it sits on top of the material rather than soaking in. It prints in full color, including white, and it works across a remarkably wide range of substrates — drinkware, plastic, wood, metal, leather, glass, and most tech accessories. ## What it's best for UV printing is the most flexible method we offer for hard goods. It handles full-color logos, photo-style art, and dense designs on items that other methods cannot touch — molded plastics, tech accessories, slim metal items, glass, and surfaces that do not take a sublimation coating. It is also the standard answer when you want the same design on a mixed collection of hard goods (a tumbler, a notebook cover, a power bank) and you want them to match. ## What it doesn't do well Because UV ink sits on top of the surface, very slick or non-porous materials can affect adhesion if the surface is not pre-treated; the production team handles this, but it is worth noting that durability varies by substrate. UV-printed drinkware should generally be hand-washed rather than run through a dishwasher. UV printing also is not the right method for apparel — for fabric, choose [screen printing](/resources/products/screen-printing), [DTG](/resources/products/dtg-printing), or [sublimation](/resources/products/sublimation) instead. ## Artwork requirements Send vector art (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) with fonts converted to outlines, or high-resolution raster files (300 DPI at final print size). UV can reproduce gradients, soft edges, and small text well, and it can print white as a true color — useful when you are printing onto a dark or transparent surface. The design team will confirm the maximum imprint area for your specific product. ## Lead-time impact UV printing runs on a standard timeline for typical orders. Setup is minimal — there are no screens, no thread, and no per-color setup. For products that need a custom fixture to hold them in position under the printer, the first run takes a bit longer; reorders move faster. ## When to choose this vs. laser engraving Choose **UV printing** when you need full color, when the surface does not engrave cleanly, or when you want a vibrant, photographic look. Choose [**laser engraving**](/resources/products/laser-engraving) when you want the most premium, monotone, permanent finish on materials that take an etch well (stainless, wood, leather). ## When to choose this vs. sublimation Both work on drinkware and hard goods. **UV printing** is more flexible — it works on a wider range of materials and does not require a special coating. [**Sublimation**](/resources/products/sublimation) gives a more durable, fade-resistant finish and is the standard for drinkware that gets washed regularly. Ask for a sample of any UV-printed drinkware before approving the run. How the ink sits on a given finish (matte, gloss, soft-touch) varies, and seeing it in hand is the fastest way to confirm the look. --- ## Heat transfer vinyl Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/heat-transfer-vinyl Heat transfer vinyl — HTV — is a thin colored film that gets cut into the shape of your design, then applied to fabric with heat and pressure. The vinyl bonds to the surface of the garment and forms a smooth, slightly raised graphic. It is the standard method for team jerseys with names and numbers, and a useful option whenever you need a short run or per-piece personalization on apparel. ## What it's best for HTV is the right method for small runs, one-offs, and any program where each piece needs different text — team rosters, employee names, recipient initials. It is also a good fit for simple single-color graphics on apparel when the quantity is too low to justify setting up screens. The finished look is clean and crisp, and the vinyl comes in a wide range of solid colors and finishes (matte, gloss, metallic). ## What it doesn't do well HTV is best for solid color shapes and text. It does not reproduce gradients, photographic detail, or fine multi-color art well. Layering many colors of vinyl on a single design adds bulk to the print and weight to the garment; for designs with more than two or three colors, [screen printing](/resources/products/screen-printing) or [DTG](/resources/products/dtg-printing) is usually a better answer. Vinyl can also crack or peel over many washes if the garment is washed hot or run through a dryer aggressively, so it is not the most durable method available. ## Artwork requirements Send vector art (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) with fonts converted to outlines. Designs should be treated as solid color shapes — think of it as a stencil. Each color in the design becomes a separate piece of vinyl. For names-and-numbers programs, the design team will set up a template and you provide the roster (name and size for each piece). ## Lead-time impact For small runs, HTV is one of the fastest methods we offer — there are no screens to make and minimal setup. For large runs it is slower than screen printing, because each piece is decorated individually rather than printed in a press. The point where one overtakes the other depends on the design. ## When to choose this vs. screen printing Choose **HTV** for small runs (typically under a hundred pieces), names and numbers, or any project where each piece needs different content. Choose [**screen printing**](/resources/products/screen-printing) for larger matching runs — cleaner finish, better hand-feel, and more durable across washes. ## When to choose this vs. DTG Both handle short runs of apparel well. **HTV** is the right call for solid-color graphics, names, and numbers. [**DTG**](/resources/products/dtg-printing) is the right call for photo-style art, many colors, or anything where you want the ink to live in the fabric rather than sit on top of it. For team apparel, get one finished piece in hand before approving the full roster. Vinyl placement, size, and color all read differently in person than they do on a flat proof, and confirming on one shirt is much easier than fixing twenty. --- ## Setup charges Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/setup-charges A **setup charge** is a one-time fee that covers the prep work a decoration method needs before the first piece can be produced. It pays for the physical and digital things we have to make — a screen, a die, a digitized stitch file — that are reused across the whole run. It is separate from the per-piece price of the product. ## Why setup charges exist Most decoration methods don't run directly from your artwork. There is a step in between where your file is converted into something the machine can use. That step has real cost — a person's time, materials, sometimes a piece of tooling that gets stored after the run. A few examples of what a setup charge actually covers: - **Screen printing** — burning a screen for each color in the design. A two-color design needs two screens. - **Embroidery** — digitizing your logo into a stitch file the embroidery machine reads. Different sizes and placements may need their own files. - **Foil stamping and debossing/embossing** — cutting a metal die in the shape of your design. - **Pad printing** — making a printing plate. - **Laser engraving and DTG** — usually no setup charge; the machine runs from your file directly. The work happens once per design, per method, per placement. The per-piece price covers what it costs to apply that prep to each unit. ## Where setup charges show up Setup charges appear as their own line on your quote, separate from the per-piece product price and any per-piece decoration charges. The quote will show: - What the charge is for (which method, which design, which placement) - The amount - Whether it's one-time or recurring If a single order has multiple designs or multiple methods, you'll see a setup line per design × method × placement. We don't bundle them into the per-piece price — keeping them separate makes the reorder math honest later. ## Which methods incur them As a rough guide: - **Screen print, embroidery, foil, pad print, debossing/embossing** — yes, almost always. - **DTG, sublimation, laser engraving, heat transfer** — usually no, or a very small one if any. - **Stickers, labels, sourced items** — varies; depends on the supplier and the substrate. Exact charges depend on the product, the decoration, the number of colors, and the complexity of the artwork. Your quote will spell them out. If a setup charge looks high, ask your account team — there's often a simpler version of the art that brings it down. ## What happens on a reorder This is where setup charges earn their keep. The first time you run a design, we pay for the screen, the digitized file, or the die. We keep those assets. The next time you reorder the same item with the same decoration, the setup work is already done. - **Identical reorder (same design, same method, same placement, same product)** — setup charges are typically **waived or substantially reduced**. You're paying for ink, time, and the piece, not the prep. - **Same design, new product or new placement** — there is usually a reduced setup fee to adapt the existing assets to the new application. - **New design** — full setup fee, like the first time. We hold setup assets on file as long as your account is active. If a screen or die needs to be remade — physical wear, a long enough gap between runs — you'll see a new setup line on the reorder quote, and we'll explain why. ## What this means for your quote Setup charges weigh on small runs more than large ones. A $X setup fee spread across 25 pieces hits the per-piece cost harder than the same fee spread across 250. If you're early in deciding on quantity, ask for both — a 25-piece and a 250-piece quote — to see how the math shifts. Setup charges cover the actual prep work the method needs — making screens, digitizing, plates, dies. If you ever want to know what a specific charge is for, ask — we can break down what gets made on the first run and why. For how to read the whole quote alongside setup, see [Understanding your pricing](/resources/products/understanding-your-pricing). For how setups carry between runs, see [Reordering](/resources/products/reordering). --- ## Rush and expedited orders Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/rush-and-expedited-orders A **rush** order compresses production. **Expedited shipping** speeds up the transit step. They are separate levers, and you can pull one without the other. If your in-hands date is close, you almost always need both. ## What "rush" actually means In merch, rush isn't about shipping fast — it's about producing fast. The bulk of the lead time on most orders is the production step: blanks moving from a supplier into our network, decoration setup, the actual run on the machines, packing. A rush order means we reorder production to push your run ahead in the queue and tighten every step that's tightenable. Rush is a production decision. Expedited shipping is a carrier decision. They happen at different points in the timeline. ## What is and isn't possible Some methods compress better than others. - **Faster to rush** — DTG, laser engraving, heat transfer, sublimation, stickers, sourced items. The setup is fast and the machines are quick. - **Harder to rush** — screen print and embroidery. Setup is real (screens, digitizing) and per-piece time is meaningful, especially for high stitch counts or many ink colors. - **Hardest to rush** — anything sourced from a new factory, anything with custom packaging, anything with a non-standard decoration method, anything in apparel sizes that aren't already in our network. Every method has a floor — a minimum time it takes regardless of how much we push. Rush gets you to the floor faster; it doesn't move the floor. For the standard timelines by method, see [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times). ## What rush costs A rush order typically carries: - A **rush fee** on the production side. The amount depends on how much we're compressing and what overtime, expedited setup, or queue-jumping it takes. Your account team will share a number on the quote. - Possibly **per-piece premiums** on the decoration if we're paying for faster turnaround at the decoration step. - **Expedited shipping** on top, if the in-hands date demands it. We don't quote rush fees from a flat table — they depend on the specific order and what we have to do to land it. The honest answer comes back on the quote. ## Expedited shipping as a separate lever Even when production is on a normal timeline, you can choose a faster shipping method to compress the transit step. Standard ground vs. 2-day vs. overnight is the usual ladder. Faster shipping costs more — sometimes substantially more, especially for heavy or oversized boxes — and the carrier sets the actual transit time. For campaigns where every recipient gets their own shipment, expedited shipping multiplies fast. A campaign of 500 recipients shipping overnight will be very different on the invoice than the same campaign shipping ground. If only some recipients are time-sensitive, you can mix — most ship standard, the urgent ones ship overnight. ## What to do if your in-hands date is tight The earlier the conversation, the more options on the table. A few practical moves: - **Tell your account team the actual in-hands date** at the very first conversation, not after you've already picked the product. Some products won't make tight dates at all and we can steer you to ones that will. - **Pick a method that rushes well.** If the date is tight and you have flexibility on decoration, DTG on a stock blank will land faster than a multi-color screen print on a sourced premium tee. - **Reorders are faster than new products.** If you've run the item before, setup is done, art is on file. The whole rush floor is lower. - **Drop-ship from inventory.** If you have items already in our warehouse network, you can skip production entirely and just ship. - **Split the run.** Ship the urgent portion now from rushed production and the rest on a normal timeline. ## When rush is not the right answer If the in-hands date is below the production floor for every reasonable method, no amount of rush fees will land it. We'll tell you that directly rather than take the order and miss. The alternative is usually a different product (something that rushes well), a partial ship (rush the priority recipients), or moving the date. Expedited shipping is not a substitute for production lead time. A 2-day shipping label only helps once the items are made. Always start the timeline math from when production can realistically finish. For the standard production timelines by method, see [Lead times](/resources/products/lead-times). For exact rush quoting on a specific order, talk to your account team. --- ## Kitting and assembly Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/kitting-and-assembly A **kit** is a group of items packed together and shipped to a recipient as one unit. Instead of three separate boxes from three separate items, the recipient gets one branded package with everything inside, often with a printed insert and custom packaging. Kitting is the assembly step that gets you there. ## When kitting is the right shape Kits show up in a few recurring places: - **New-hire welcome kits** — a tee, a notebook, a sticker pack, and a welcome card in a branded box. - **Event boxes** — pre-event ship-to-home for hybrid conferences or board offsites, or post-event reward sends. - **Customer gift assemblies** — a curated set that arrives as a single experience rather than a pile of separate shipments. - **Sales prospecting boxes** — high-touch direct mail with a few coordinated items and a personalized note. - **Holiday and milestone sends** — anniversaries, work-iversaries, end-of-year gifts. If you've found yourself describing a "send" as "we want the recipient to open one box and find X, Y, and Z," that's a kit. ## What can go in a kit Kits are flexible. A typical kit can include: - **Your own decorated items** — anything from your My Products list. - **Sourced items we don't normally carry** — your account team can bring in third-party items (chocolates, branded drinkware from another supplier, a specific notebook, a tech accessory) and route them through the kitting flow. - **Non-merch inserts** — printed cards, handwritten notes, sample packs, instructional one-pagers, a thank-you letter from your team. - **Custom packaging** — branded boxes, tissue, ribbon, crinkle paper, custom labels. Each component has its own sourcing path, its own lead time, and its own per-unit cost. The kit holds them together as a single shippable unit. ## From simple to over-the-top Kits run the full spectrum, and both ends are valid: - **Simple and fast** — a tee, a notebook, and a sticker sheet in a branded mailer. Quick to source, quick to assemble, easy on the budget. - **Premium corporate gift boxes** — rigid gift boxes, magnetic closures, custom-printed interiors, curated premium items. - **Edible items** — custom chocolate with your logo, snacks, coffee — routed through food-safe sourcing. - **Show-stoppers** — kits with a **built-in video screen** that plays your brand video when the box is opened (video brochures), unusual materials, custom-molded inserts, one-of-a-kind unboxing experiences. The same goes for individual items: bags, hats, and apparel can be a fast, simple decorated run or a fully custom build. If you have a budget target, tell your account team — part of the job is **budget engineering**: recommending the item, decoration method, and quantity break that gets the most impact for the number you need to hit. ## Where kits are assembled and shipped from Kitting and fulfillment run out of our own warehouse network — Los Angeles for North America, Scotland for the UK, and the Netherlands for the EU — and we're regularly adding locations. Kits drop-ship to recipients from whichever warehouse is closest, which keeps transit short and avoids customs surprises. For special projects in other countries, ask your account team what's possible — see [Global warehousing and fulfillment](/resources/orders/global-warehousing-and-fulfillment). ## How kits are priced A kit's price is the sum of: - **The component costs** — each item, decorated or sourced. - **A per-kit assembly fee** — the hands-on time it takes to pack each kit. More components mean more time; a 3-item kit is faster to assemble than an 8-item kit with delicate tissue and a custom insert. - **Custom packaging cost** — branded boxes, inserts, tissue, if applicable. - **Storage** — if components are held in inventory waiting to be kitted, normal storage applies until they ship. - **Shipping** — one shipment per recipient, sized to the kit. The breakdown shows on your quote so you can see what's driving the kit price and what would change if you swapped a component. ## How kits ship Each kit becomes a single fulfillment order with one tracking number. The recipient gets the same tracking and delivery emails they'd get for any other shipment — see [Fulfillment orders and tracking](/resources/orders/fulfillment-orders-and-tracking). If you're running a campaign where each recipient gets a kit, the campaign produces one kit per redemption. The recipient enters their address at claim time, we assemble their kit, and ship. ## Inventory implications Most kits draw from inventory at assembly time. That means the components need to already be in your inventory in our network. If a kit has eight components, all eight need to be on hand (or in production with timelines that match) when assembly starts. A single backordered component can stall the whole kit. A few practical patterns: - **Pre-assembled kits** — assemble a batch of kits up front and hold them as a single kit SKU. Faster to ship later; trades some flexibility for speed. - **On-demand assembly** — keep components in inventory and assemble each kit at fulfillment time. Slower per shipment, but you can change kit contents over time without throwing away pre-built kits. Your account team will help you pick the shape that fits the use case. ## Lead-time considerations Kits take longer to ship than single-item orders. The components have to land in our network first (each on its own lead time), then assembly time has to be added on top. For a typical kit with three to five components, plan a couple of weeks beyond the longest component's lead time. Custom packaging adds more. For tight deadlines, see [Rush and expedited orders](/resources/products/rush-and-expedited-orders) — kits can be rushed, but every component has to rush, and the assembly step has its own floor. Mock up the kit before you commit to a run. Order one sample assembly — the actual box, with the actual items, packed the way it'll ship — and look at it. Things you can't see on a spec sheet (the way two items fit in the box, whether the insert reads the way you want, what the unboxing feels like) become obvious in person. To start a kit, message your account team with the use case, the items you have in mind, and the timeline. They'll walk you through component sourcing, packaging options, and assembly mechanics. --- ## Co-branding and dual-logo products Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/co-branding-and-dual-logo A **co-branded** product carries two logos — yours and a partner's. The product itself is the same as any other order; the wrinkle is the second brand, the second approval, and the IP work that comes with it. ## When co-branding is common A handful of recurring shapes: - **Partner events** — a conference where two companies are co-presenting and want a shared tee or notebook. - **Joint campaigns** — a co-marketing push where the giveaway is branded for both sides. - **Channel partner programs** — co-branded gear for resellers or system integrators. - **Employer-of-record kits** — a welcome kit for staff at a portfolio company where the parent and the operating company are both branded. - **Sponsorships** — an event or community where the sponsor's logo sits next to the organizer's. The merch itself is unchanged. What's different is the artwork, the approval chain, and the IP framework around the second brand. ## The IP angle Putting a partner's logo on a product means we need a clear answer to one question: *do you have permission to use it?* Permission can be implicit or explicit. A formal co-marketing agreement, a signed sponsorship, or written approval from the partner's marketing team — any of these are clear. A handshake email, a "they said it was fine," or an assumption is not. We'll ask you to confirm permission before we produce, and for co-branding involving a brand we don't know is yours by default, we'll ask for documentation. This is not us being difficult. It's that producing a few hundred items with another company's logo without permission is the kind of mistake that takes a lot of effort to undo. The check up front saves the cleanup later. For the broader framework, see [Intellectual property and artwork](/resources/account/intellectual-property-and-artwork). ## How layouts work A co-branded design has to coordinate two logos on the same product. The decisions are: - **Placement** — side by side, stacked, opposite corners, left chest + right chest, front + back. - **Size** — equal weight, one dominant, one accent. Logos with very different proportions (a wordmark vs. a square mark) often need to be scaled by visual weight rather than literal dimensions. - **Method** — usually one method per design, but the two logos can be different sizes / placements within the same method. - **Colors** — both logos need to read on the chosen product color. Sometimes one logo has to switch to a white or black variant to work. The design team will mock both placements before production. Get the partner's design team in the loop early — they'll have brand guidelines (logo lockups, minimum sizes, clear space rules) that need to be respected, and catching those before the mock saves a round of revisions. ## Approvals work differently A co-branded run has two approvers, not one. Both sides should review and sign off on the proof before production starts. The portal approval flow only captures your side; the partner's approval happens out-of-band — email confirmation, a signed PDF, whatever the partnership uses. Practical pattern: ask your account team to share the proof with the partner's marketing or brand team, give both sides a chance to comment, and once both are approved, mark it approved in the portal. Production starts from there. ## Setup charges and reorders Co-branding means two logos worth of art prep on the first run. For methods with setup charges — screen print, embroidery, foil — you're paying for setup for each color in each logo. A two-color primary logo + two-color partner logo on a screen-printed tee means four screens. See [Setup charges](/resources/products/setup-charges) for how those are calculated. Reorders work the same as any reorder if everything stays the same. Where co-branded reorders get tricky: the partnership may have changed. A logo update on either side, a different partner the next time, or a partnership that has wound down — any of these mean the previous setup assets are no longer the right ones. Confirm with the partner that the lockup hasn't changed before reordering. ## What to send us When kicking off a co-branded design, send your account team: - **Both logos** — yours and the partner's, in vector format (`.ai`, `.eps`, `.pdf`, `.svg`) - **Brand guidelines from the partner** — if they have a lockup, minimum size, or clear-space rule, the design team needs it - **Confirmation of permission** — a sentence describing the partnership and how you're authorized to use the partner's mark, plus the partner contact who can approve the proof - **Placement and size intent** — even if rough; tells the design team where to start The partner's marketing team will often have already produced co-branded merch for a previous partnership. Ask if they have artwork files or a lockup from a past run — starting from an existing approved lockup is faster than designing from scratch. For the IP framework — what you can decorate, who owns artwork files, and how we handle third-party marks — see [Intellectual property and artwork](/resources/account/intellectual-property-and-artwork). --- ## Reordering Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/reordering Reordering a product you've already run is the fastest path to a new shipment of the same thing. The art is on file, the decoration is set, the supplier knows the spec. Most reorders move from request to placed order in a few clicks. ## The basic flow 1. **Find the product or the past order.** From **My Products**, open the item you want to reorder. From **Orders**, open a past order with the same item and reorder from there. 2. **Click reorder.** The product loads with the same decoration, the same variants, and the same artwork pre-filled. 3. **Adjust the quantity.** Bump it up or down for what you need now. 4. **Confirm the destination.** Same bulk shipping address, a new one, a campaign, or "hold in inventory." 5. **Approve.** Once the quote refreshes for the new quantity, approve and we move into production. Most reorders skip a proof step because the artwork and decoration haven't changed. If you've tweaked anything — a new color, a different placement, a swap to a similar product — you'll get a new proof to approve. ## What carries over When you reorder, these come along by default: - **The artwork file** — the same logo, the same colors, the same decoration setup. - **The decoration method and placement** — screen print on the left chest, embroidery on the cap front, etc. - **The size and variant breakdown** — though you can edit this on the new order. - **The product spec** — same blank, same color, same supplier. These are the things that take real prep time on a first run, which is why a reorder is so much faster than a new product. The setup work is already done. ## What doesn't carry over automatically A few things to verify before approving the reorder: - **Pricing tier** — running 250 pieces when you previously ran 50 puts you in a different quantity tier. The per-piece price moves accordingly. See [Understanding your pricing](/resources/products/understanding-your-pricing). - **Lead time** — production capacity changes over time. A reorder doesn't always take the same number of days as the last run. The current lead time shows on the new quote. - **Stock and availability** — if the underlying blank is out of stock with the supplier, the reorder lead time will jump. We'll flag it on the quote. - **Decoration setup retention** — for most methods, we hold the screen, the digitized stitch file, or the die between runs. Occasionally a physical setup wears out or expires and needs to be remade. If so, you'll see a setup charge on the reorder quote with a note explaining why. See [Setup charges](/resources/products/setup-charges). ## Reorders vs. drawing from held inventory If you're holding inventory of the product in our warehouse network, the question is usually not "reorder" — it's "ship from stock." Drawing from existing inventory is faster (no production), and you only reorder when stock is low enough to justify another run. The flow: - **Stock is healthy** — ship from inventory. The order is a fulfillment, not a production run. - **Stock is low and you have time** — place a reorder now, ship from incoming production once it lands. - **Stock is depleted and the date is tight** — reorder with a rush, or see [Rush and expedited orders](/resources/products/rush-and-expedited-orders). For most My Products items, your account team can see your on-hand quantities and recommend whether you need to reorder or just draw down. ## When to talk to your account team first A simple reorder doesn't need a conversation. But a few situations are worth flagging before clicking through: - **Significant scale change** — going from 50 to 5,000 isn't just a quantity tier shift; it may change which supplier or which decoration method makes sense. - **Decoration tweak** — adding a back hit, moving the front placement, changing colors. That's a new product run with a proof, not a clean reorder. - **Product change** — same logo, new blank (a different tee, a softer hoodie). Setup carries over partially; expect a new mock and possibly a partial setup fee. - **Long gap since the last run** — if it's been a while, the original blank may be discontinued or the supplier's color shifted. Worth confirming before approving. - **A different partner or co-branded variant** — see [Co-branding and dual-logo products](/resources/products/co-branding-and-dual-logo). ## Closed orders and reorders Even after an order moves to Closed, you can reorder from it. The closed order stays in your history; opening it and clicking reorder starts a fresh order using the closed order's spec. Reorders are the cleanest moment to consolidate runs. If you have three or four campaigns coming up that will all need the same tee, one larger reorder now (held in inventory) is usually cheaper per piece than four smaller production runs spread across the quarter. For the price math behind reorders, see [Understanding your pricing](/resources/products/understanding-your-pricing). For how setup charges shift on reorders, see [Setup charges](/resources/products/setup-charges). --- ## Lead times Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/lead-times Lead time is the time from when you approve an order to when items arrive at their destination. Your account team confirms exact dates on every quote — the ranges in this article are illustrative planning guidance, not the contract. It is not a single number; it depends on the product, the decoration, and a few other factors that are worth understanding up front. ## The rough ranges Use these as planning guidance only — your quote will have the actual dates. - **In-stock items with simple decoration** — typically 2 to 3 weeks in-hands - **Standard apparel with embroidery or screen print** — typically 3 to 4 weeks - **Complex decoration (multi-location, sublimation, custom packaging)** — typically 4 to 6 weeks - **Made-to-order or custom products** — 6 weeks and up, depending on the item - **Overseas custom production** — 8 to 12 weeks, sometimes longer These ranges include production *and* shipping to your destination. ## What pushes lead time up or down ### Product type Off-the-shelf products that we (or our partners) keep in stock move fastest. Made-to-order items — anything woven, dyed, or built specifically for you — take longer because production has to start from scratch. ### Quantity Bigger runs take longer to produce, but the difference between 100 and 500 of a standard item is usually less than you would expect. Where quantity *really* matters is at the top end — runs in the thousands push timelines noticeably. ### Decoration method Embroidery and screen print on common products run quickly. Sublimation, all-over prints, multi-location decoration, and custom packaging all add time. Engraving sits in the middle. ### Stock vs. made-to-order If your spec needs a specific blank in a specific color and that blank is in stock, we move fast. If it has to be ordered in or made to spec, the clock starts later. ### Time of year Lead times stretch around peak seasons — Q4 (holiday gifts), back-to-school, and big trade-show windows. If your in-hands date lands in a peak window, build in extra buffer. ### Approvals on your end The clock pauses while we wait for you to approve the proof or the order. Quick approvals keep things on track; multi-day delays push the in-hands date back. ## Rush options If a normal lead time will not work, ask. We can often expedite by: - Choosing a faster product or decoration method - Bumping the project up the production queue (rush fee applies) - Upgrading to faster shipping at the end The earlier we know about a tight deadline, the more options we have. See [Why pricing might vary](/resources/products/why-pricing-might-vary) for how rush affects price. ## Plan around the in-hands date, not the order date When you talk to your account team about a project, lead with **when you need the items in your hands**. We work backward from there to set the order date, the proof approval, and production. Working forward from "I want to order today" almost always leads to surprises. For events, drops, or any hard deadline, we recommend approving the order at least one full lead-time cycle before the date you need it. That gives a real buffer for proofs, weather, carrier delays, and the small things that always come up. --- ## Samples Source: https://merch.com/resources/products/samples A sample is a single physical unit of a product we send you to inspect before you place a full order. Pictures are good; holding the actual item is better. For anything you have not ordered before — or any time the decoration is ambitious — request a sample first. ## Why samples are worth it A sample lets you check the things that do not always come through on a screen: - Fit and feel of the fabric - Actual color in real light vs. how it renders on a monitor - How a logo or design looks at the real size on the real product - Weight, finish, and overall quality - Whether the packaging matches your brand A 30-second look at a physical sample has saved hundreds of orders from going sideways. ## How to request a sample Reach out to your account team. Tell them: - The product (a Product Catalog link or My Products name works) - The variant you want — color, size, configuration - Whether you need it **plain** (the blank product) or **decorated** (with your art applied) - Where to ship it - Your timeline — when you want it in hand Plain samples are faster. Decorated samples take longer because we have to set up your art and run a single piece, but they are the most accurate preview of the finished product. ## What gets sent Samples are typically: - **One unit** of the product in the variant you specified - Decorated with your design if requested, or plain if not - Shipped to the address you give us If you are weighing a few options, we can send a small set of samples side by side so you can compare in person. ## Lead time for samples Plain samples usually ship within a few business days, depending on stock. Decorated samples take longer because they go through art setup and production — typically a week or two, sometimes more for complex decoration. Your account team will confirm a target date when you place the request. A sample is a real production run of one. The setup work it takes to make it is the same as the setup for a full order, which is why decorated samples are not instant. ## Cost Sample costs depend on the product, the decoration, and the shipping speed you need. Some samples are complimentary; others have a fee. Your account team can confirm sample fees when you make the request. ## After the sample Once you have looked at the sample and you are happy, give the green light and we move into the full run. If something is off — fit, color, decoration size — tell us. Adjustments now are faster and cheaper than fixes after a full production run. See [Customization and decoration](/resources/products/customization-and-decoration) for what is adjustable. # Developers Build with the Merch REST API and webhooks. --- ## Building with the Merch API Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers The Merch REST API lets you read and write orders, products, inventory, campaigns, and contacts from your own systems, and subscribe to webhooks for event-driven updates. ## Who this is for You are integrating Merch into another application — a CRM, an HR onboarding flow, an internal store, a fulfillment dashboard, or a custom tool. If you are managing orders by hand in the customer portal, the customer-facing categories are a better fit. The articles here assume you are writing code. ## What you can do - **Orders** — list, fetch, create, and cancel fulfillment orders. Pick a warehouse to route from. Track shipment status. - **Products** — list active product variants and their SKUs, dimensions, weights, and minimum order quantities. - **Inventory** — read on-hand, available, allocated, and inbound stock per warehouse, plus the underlying inventory event log. - **Campaigns** — list the campaigns on your account. Order creation and invites both reference a `campaignId`. - **Invites and contacts** — add contacts to a campaign and send personalized invites by email or with a redemption URL. - **Webhooks** — subscribe to event notifications for order and invite lifecycle changes. Each delivery is signed with HMAC-SHA256 so you can verify it came from Merch. ## How requests work The base URL is `https://api.merch.com`. All routes are mounted under `/v1`. Every request needs a `Authorization: Bearer ` header. Request and response bodies are JSON. ## Testing your integration There is no sandbox or test environment today — you'll integrate against production. We recommend creating a separate test API key, marking test orders clearly (a `notes` value or a recipient name pattern you can filter on), and using `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/test` to validate webhook delivery before going live. See [Webhooks reference](/resources/developers/webhooks-reference) for the test endpoint details. ## Where to start - [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys) — generate a key and send it on every request. - [API reference overview](/resources/developers/api-reference-overview) — base URL, error shape, status codes, pagination. - [Rate limits](/resources/developers/rate-limits) — 1,000 requests per 24-hour window per IP. - [Errors and status codes](/resources/developers/errors-and-status-codes) — what to expect and how to handle each one. - [Orders API](/resources/developers/orders-api) — list, fetch, create, cancel. - [Campaigns API](/resources/developers/campaigns-api) — list campaigns to feed into order creation. - [Products API](/resources/developers/products-api) — list variants and SKUs. - [Inventory API](/resources/developers/inventory-api) — stock levels and movements. - [Invites and contacts API](/resources/developers/invites-and-contacts-api) — campaign-scoped contact and invite management. - [Webhooks reference](/resources/developers/webhooks-reference) — subscribe, verify, and test event deliveries. --- ## Authentication and API keys Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/auth-and-keys Every request to the Merch API authenticates with a bearer token in the `Authorization` header. Get a key from the customer portal, send it on every call, and rotate it when needed. ## Where to get a key Open the customer portal, go to **Settings → API Keys**, and create a key. The full key is shown to you once on creation — copy it into a secrets manager immediately. The portal stores only a hashed reference, so a lost key cannot be recovered. Create a new one if you lose access. For the customer-facing walkthrough supported by your account team (creating, naming, and revoking keys in the portal), see [API keys and integrations](/resources/account/api-keys-and-integrations). ## Sending the key Send the key as a bearer token on every request: ```bash Authorization: Bearer ``` Keys are exactly 96 characters. The auth middleware checks the length before it does anything else — if the value you send is shorter or longer, the request is rejected with `401 Unauthorized` and a plain-text body of `Unauthorized` (not JSON, not a structured error). ## Reasons you'll see a 401 - The `Authorization` header is missing entirely. - The scheme is not `Bearer` (for example, `Basic` or `Token`). - The header is present but the key portion is empty. - The key is not 96 characters. - The key is well-formed but not recognized — either it was never issued, was revoked, or belongs to a deactivated account. In every case the response body is the literal text `Unauthorized`. ## Rotation Rotate keys periodically — and immediately if you suspect one has leaked. Create the new key first, deploy it to the systems that need it, then revoke the old key in the portal. Revocation takes effect on the next request: any in-flight call already accepted by the gateway will complete, but the next call with the old key returns `401`. If you have several keys for the same integration (for example, one per environment), name them descriptively so you can revoke the right one without breaking unrelated traffic. ## Sanity-check your key The `/v1/auth` endpoint exists for exactly one purpose: confirming your key is being parsed and accepted. It accepts any HTTP method and returns your account id on success. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/auth' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ```json { "account_id": "", "message": "Authentication successful" } ``` If you get `Unauthorized` back instead, walk through the 401 reasons above before debugging further. Most issues are header formatting. --- ## API reference overview Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/api-reference-overview The Merch API is REST over HTTPS, JSON in and JSON out, versioned in the path, and authenticated with a bearer token. ## Base URL ``` https://api.merch.com ``` All routes are mounted under `/v1`, so a full URL looks like: ``` https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/list ``` ## Versioning The current version is `v1`. There is one production deployment. If a future version ever ships, we will publish a deprecation notice with a migration window before retiring `v1` — there is no header-based version negotiation today, and no `v0` or `v2` to pin against. ## Content type Send `Content-Type: application/json` on requests with a body. Responses are always JSON unless explicitly noted (the only exception is the `401 Unauthorized` plain-text body — see [Errors and status codes](/resources/developers/errors-and-status-codes)). ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/contacts/create' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "campaignId": "", "firstName": "Alex", "lastName": "Lee", "email": "alex@example.com" }' ``` ## Error shape Most errors return: ```json { "message": "" } ``` `400 Bad Request` responses for routes with body validation also include an `errors` array of issue messages from the validator: ```json { "message": "Invalid request body", "errors": ["shipTo.email: Invalid email", "products: Array must contain at least 1 element(s)"] } ``` `401 Unauthorized` is the one exception — it returns plain text `Unauthorized`, not JSON. Code your client to read `message` from JSON responses and to fall back to the raw body on `401`. For the full breakdown, see [Errors and status codes](/resources/developers/errors-and-status-codes). ## Common status codes | Code | Meaning | | --- | --- | | `200 OK` | Successful read or update. | | `201 Created` | Successful create. Some routes also return `201` on cancel — read the per-resource article. | | `400 Bad Request` | Validation failed, malformed body, or the operation isn't allowed in the current state. | | `401 Unauthorized` | Missing, malformed, or invalid API key. Plain-text body. | | `404 Not Found` | The resource id wasn't found. Currently emitted only by `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}`. | | `429 Too Many Requests` | You've exceeded the [rate limit](/resources/developers/rate-limits). | | `500 Internal Server Error` | Something went wrong on our side. Safe to retry idempotent reads; see notes in [Errors and status codes](/resources/developers/errors-and-status-codes) before retrying writes. | ## Pagination Pagination conventions differ by resource. Read the per-resource article for the parameters that endpoint accepts. **Orders, products, and contacts** use offset pagination: | Param | Default | | --- | --- | | `limit` | `20` | | `offset` | `0` | ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/list?limit=50&offset=100' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` **Inventory** uses page pagination — note the different parameter names: | Param | Default | Max | | --- | --- | --- | | `page` | `1` | — | | `page_size` | `20` | `100` | ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/inventory/list?page=2&page_size=50' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` The inventory response includes a `pagination` object with `total_count`, `page`, `page_size`, and `has_more`. Other list endpoints return a JSON array directly. ## Field naming Most resources use `camelCase` keys (`orderNumber`, `firstName`, `trackingNumber`). Inventory is the exception — it returns `snake_case` (`product_name`, `on_hand`, `inventory_events`). The per-resource articles call this out where it matters; don't normalize keys silently in your client. ## Next - [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys) for the `Authorization` header contract. - [Rate limits](/resources/developers/rate-limits) for the per-IP request budget and headers you'll see on every response. - [Errors and status codes](/resources/developers/errors-and-status-codes) for full handling guidance. --- ## Rate limits Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/rate-limits Each client IP is allowed 1,000 requests per rolling 24-hour window. Every response includes headers telling you how much of that budget is left. ## The window - **Limit:** 1,000 requests - **Window:** 24 hours, rolling - **Scope:** per IP The window slides — there is no fixed midnight reset. If you fire 1,000 requests in the first hour, you have to wait until those start rolling out 24 hours later before more capacity opens up. If your integration needs more, contact your account team to request a higher tier. We can raise the limit when there's a real need. ## Response headers Every response includes the standard draft-7 `RateLimit-*` headers: ``` RateLimit-Limit: 1000 RateLimit-Remaining: 873 RateLimit-Reset: 76234 ``` `RateLimit-Reset` is the number of seconds until your oldest tracked request rolls out of the window. The same information is also returned in legacy headers for older clients: ``` X-RateLimit-Limit: 1000 X-RateLimit-Remaining: 873 X-RateLimit-Reset: 1715212800 ``` If you're writing a new client, read the standard `RateLimit-*` headers. The legacy `X-RateLimit-*` set is provided for compatibility. ## When you hit the ceiling Once you exceed 1,000 requests in a 24-hour window, every request returns `429 Too Many Requests` until enough requests roll out of the window to free capacity. The `RateLimit-Reset` header on the `429` tells you how long until that happens. ```bash curl -i -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/list' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ``` HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests RateLimit-Limit: 1000 RateLimit-Remaining: 0 RateLimit-Reset: 41892 ``` ## Best practices - **Batch when you can.** Listing 100 orders in a single paged request is one call against the budget; polling for one at a time isn't. - **Cache.** If your app reads the campaign list or the warehouse list on every order create, cache them. Those don't change often. - **Subscribe instead of poll.** If you want to know when an order ships, subscribe to the `order.shipped` webhook rather than polling `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}` on a timer. See [Webhooks reference](/resources/developers/webhooks-reference). - **Back off on `429`.** Wait at least `RateLimit-Reset` seconds before the next request, or use exponential backoff with jitter so a fleet of clients doesn't all retry at the same instant. - **Watch `RateLimit-Remaining`.** If you're approaching zero with hours left in the window, slow down before you hit `429`. ## What doesn't count against the limit Webhook deliveries are sent from Merch to your endpoint and do not consume any of your request budget. Only outbound calls from your client to `api.merch.com` count. --- ## Errors and status codes Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/errors-and-status-codes Errors come back as JSON with a `message` field. Validation errors add an `errors` array. The `401 Unauthorized` response is plain text — code your client to handle that one specially. ## Standard error shape ```json { "message": "" } ``` That's the shape returned by `400`, `404`, and `500` responses across every route. `400 Bad Request` responses on routes with body validation also include an `errors` array of validator issue messages, one per failed field: ```json { "message": "Invalid request body", "errors": [ "shipTo.email: Invalid email", "shipTo.zip: String must contain at least 1 character(s)", "products: Array must contain at least 1 element(s)" ] } ``` The `errors` array is missing on `400` responses that aren't body-validation failures (for example, "order already shipped" on cancel). ## Status code reference | Code | Meaning | | --- | --- | | `200 OK` | Successful read or update. | | `201 Created` | Successful create. Note: `POST /v1/orders/cancel` also returns `201` today even though it's a state change rather than a creation. Don't read too much into the code — read `message`. | | `400 Bad Request` | Validation failed, malformed body, or the operation isn't allowed in the current state of the resource. | | `401 Unauthorized` | Missing, malformed, or invalid API key. **Plain-text body**, not JSON. | | `404 Not Found` | The requested resource id doesn't exist on your account. Currently emitted only by `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}`. | | `429 Too Many Requests` | You've exceeded the request budget. See [Rate limits](/resources/developers/rate-limits). | | `500 Internal Server Error` | An unhandled error on our side. The `message` is short and may vary in capitalization (`Internal server error`, `Internal Server Error`, or `Request failed`) — read `message` regardless. | ## 401 specifics The `401` body is the literal string `Unauthorized`, not JSON: ``` HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Unauthorized ``` If your JSON parser throws on this response, you're hitting auth, not a malformed payload. The auth middleware short-circuits before any handler runs, so the consistent response shape used elsewhere doesn't apply. The trigger is one of: - The `Authorization` header is missing. - The scheme is not `Bearer`. - The key portion is empty. - The key is not 96 characters. - The key is well-formed but not recognized. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys) for full guidance. ## 404 specifics The only route that emits `404` is `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}`. List endpoints return an empty array (or empty `items` for inventory) rather than a `404` when nothing matches. ```json { "message": "Order not found" } ``` ## 500 specifics The capitalization of the `message` on `500` responses varies — your client should not pattern-match on the exact string. Always read `message` regardless of case, or fall back to the status code for branching logic. ## Idempotency The API does NOT currently support an `Idempotency-Key` header. If a request times out, retrying may create duplicate records. That has a real consequence on `POST /v1/orders/create` and `POST /v1/contacts/create`: if you retry a request because of a network timeout or a `500`, and the original attempt actually succeeded server-side, you can end up with two orders or two contacts. Recommended pattern: track a client-side request id for every write and check whether the resource already exists before retrying. Specifically: - Generate a client-side request id and store it before the call. - On a timeout or `500`, retry with backoff for transient errors **only after** checking whether the resource was created. For orders, `GET /v1/orders/list` filtered by `campaignId` and the recipient's email is enough to detect a duplicate before re-sending. - Treat `400` and `401` as terminal — retrying won't help, the request is broken. - Treat `429` as a wait, not a retry — wait `RateLimit-Reset` seconds before the next call. We're tracking idempotency support as a roadmap item. --- ## Orders API Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/orders-api Read, create, and cancel fulfillment orders. Orders are always created against a campaign, so a `campaignId` is required on create. ## Endpoints - `GET /v1/orders/list` — list fulfillment orders on the account. - `GET /v1/orders/warehouses` — list warehouses you can route to. - `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}` — get one order by id. - `POST /v1/orders/create` — create a fulfillment order from a campaign. - `POST /v1/orders/cancel` — cancel a fulfillment order. ## Authentication Standard Bearer auth — see [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). ## List orders `GET /v1/orders/list` Query parameters: - `limit` (integer, default `20`) — page size. - `offset` (integer, default `0`) — number of records to skip. - `campaignId` (string, optional) — filter to orders for a single campaign. - `orderStatus` (string, optional) — `AWAITING_SHIPMENT`, `SHIPPED`, `CANCELLED`, or `RETURNED`. Returns an array of order objects. Each element has the shape documented under [Get one order](#get-one-order) below. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/list?limit=20&offset=0' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Get one order `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}` Path parameter: - `orderId` (string, required) — the order's id. Returns `404 { "message": "Order not found" }` if no order exists for the id. Response shape: ```json { "id": "", "orderNumber": "ORD-12345", "sourceOrderNumber": null, "status": "AWAITING_SHIPMENT", "paymentStatus": "PAID", "allocationStatus": "ALLOCATED", "orderSource": "MANUAL_ORDER", "orderDate": "2026-05-01T14:22:00.000Z", "shipDate": null, "deliveredAt": null, "estimatedDelivery": null, "lastTrackingUpdate": null, "deliveryLocation": null, "deliveryDescription": null, "trackingNumber": null, "carrierCode": null, "campaignId": "", "warehouse": "", "recipient": { "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "phone": null, "street1": "1 Infinite Loop", "city": "Cupertino", "state": "CA", "postalCode": "95014", "country": "US" }, "companyName": null, "notes": null, "products": [ { "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "title": "Logo Tee", "quantity": 1 } ], "addressVerificationStatus": "VERIFIED" } ``` `warehouse` is the warehouse alias, not its id. Heads up: the API returns raw enum values (e.g., `AWAITING_SHIPMENT`) that differ from the portal labels (`Awaiting Shipment`). The [order lifecycle and statuses](/resources/orders/order-lifecycle-and-statuses) article maps each enum to its UI label. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Create an order `POST /v1/orders/create` Creates a fulfillment order against a campaign and a recipient. Body: ```json { "campaignId": "", "shipTo": { "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "phone": "+1-555-0100", "street1": "1 Infinite Loop", "street2": null, "city": "Cupertino", "state": "CA", "zip": "95014" }, "products": [ { "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "quantity": 1 } ], "warehouseId": "", "createContactRecord": false } ``` Field rules (validated server-side): - `campaignId` — required. - `shipTo.firstName`, `shipTo.lastName` — required, 1-100 chars. - `shipTo.email` — required, valid email, max 254 chars. - `shipTo.phone` — optional, max 30 chars. - `shipTo.street1` — required, 1-200 chars. - `shipTo.street2` — optional, max 200 chars. - `shipTo.city`, `shipTo.state` — required, 1-100 chars. - `shipTo.zip` — required, 1-20 chars. - `products` — array of at least one `{ sku, quantity }`. The `sku` must match a SKU returned by [`GET /v1/products/list`](/resources/developers/products-api). - `warehouseId` — optional. Use one of the ids returned by [`GET /v1/orders/warehouses`](#list-warehouses). If omitted, routing is decided server-side. - `createContactRecord` — optional, default `false`. Set `true` to also create a contact on the campaign for this recipient. The country is hard-coded to `US` server-side today — there is no `country` field in `shipTo`. Recipients outside the US are not currently supported through this endpoint. Success returns `201`: ```json { "orderId": "", "status": "AWAITING_SHIPMENT" } ``` `400 Bad Request` if validation fails. The body includes the list of failing fields: ```json { "message": "Invalid request body", "errors": ["Required", "Invalid email"] } ``` ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/create' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "campaignId": "", "shipTo": { "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "street1": "1 Infinite Loop", "city": "Cupertino", "state": "CA", "zip": "95014" }, "products": [{ "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "quantity": 1 }] }' ``` There is no idempotency key on order create today. If a request times out and you retry, you may end up with two orders. Track a client-side request id and de-duplicate on your side before retrying. ## Cancel an order `POST /v1/orders/cancel` Body: ```json { "orderId": "" } ``` Returns `201` on success (yes, `201`, not `200`): ```json { "message": "Order cancelled successfully" } ``` `400 Bad Request` if the order is already cancelled, shipped, or delivered. ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/cancel' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "orderId": "" }' ``` ## List warehouses `GET /v1/orders/warehouses` No parameters. Returns the warehouses your account can route to. Use `id` from this response as the `warehouseId` on `POST /v1/orders/create`. ```json [ { "id": "", "name": "US East", "alias": "us-east" } ] ``` ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/orders/warehouses' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Status enums The following enum values appear in order responses. Document them as-is — they are returned verbatim by the API. ### `status` — order lifecycle | Value | Meaning | | --- | --- | | `AWAITING_SHIPMENT` | Order accepted, not yet handed to a carrier. | | `SHIPPED` | Order has left the warehouse. | | `DELIVERED` | Carrier has confirmed delivery. | | `CANCELLED` | Order was cancelled before shipment. | | `RETURNED` | Carrier reported the package as returned. | ### `orderSource` — how the order was placed | Value | Meaning | | --- | --- | | `REDEEM_PAGE` | Recipient redeemed an invite. | | `CSV_IMPORT` | Bulk uploaded from a CSV. | | `LANDING_PAGE` | Submitted through a campaign landing page. | | `MANUAL_ORDER` | Created by hand in the customer portal. | | `STANDALONE_ORDER` | One-off order outside a normal campaign flow. | | `SHOPIFY_STORE` | Came from a connected Shopify store. | | `EXTERNAL` | Created via this API. | ### `addressVerificationStatus` — recipient address check `VERIFIED` | `CORRECTED` | `OVERRIDDEN` | `NEEDS_REVIEW` | `INVALID` | `UNVERIFIED` | `null` `null` means the order has not been through address verification yet. ### `paymentStatus` — billing state `UNPAID` | `PAID` | `null` `null` means the order is not subject to a separate payment record (for example, when billing rolls up to a parent invoice). ### `allocationStatus` — whether stock has been reserved for the shipment `UNALLOCATED` | `ALLOCATED` | `RESTOCKED` | `null` `ALLOCATED` means inventory has been reserved against the order. `RESTOCKED` means a previously-allocated shipment has been returned to stock. ## Errors - `400 Bad Request` — validation failure on create (`Invalid request body` with an `errors` array) or attempting to cancel an order that is already cancelled, shipped, or delivered. - `401 Unauthorized` — missing, malformed, or invalid bearer token. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). - `404 Not Found` — `GET /v1/orders/{orderId}` only. Returned when the order does not exist or does not belong to your account. - `500 Internal Server Error` — unexpected error. Body is a `{ "message": "..." }` string. Retry after a short delay; if the failure persists, contact support. --- ## Campaigns API Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/campaigns-api List the campaigns on your account. Order creation requires a `campaignId`, so this is usually the first call you make when wiring up an integration. ## Endpoints - `GET /v1/campaigns/list` — list all campaigns owned by the authenticated account. ## Authentication Standard Bearer auth — see [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). ## List campaigns `GET /v1/campaigns/list` No parameters. Returns every campaign on the account. Response shape: ```json [ { "id": "", "name": "Q2 Onboarding Kit", "expiration": "2026-09-30T00:00:00.000Z", "products": [ { "id": "", "title": "Logo Tee", "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "minimumOrderQuantity": 1, "productionTime": 7, "imageUrl": "https://cdn.merch.com/", "piecesPerCarton": 24, "cartonHeight": 12, "cartonLength": 18, "cartonWidth": 14, "weight": 0.4, "packageHeight": 1, "packageLength": 10, "packageWidth": 8, "packageWeight": 0.5 } ], "status": "Active", "allowOutOfStockOrders": false } ] ``` Field notes: - `id` — pass this as `campaignId` on `POST /v1/orders/create` and other campaign-scoped endpoints. - `name` — display name set in the customer portal. - `expiration` — the campaign's expiration date as an ISO 8601 string. See the callout below. - `products` — the variants attached to this campaign, in the same shape as [`GET /v1/products/list`](/resources/developers/products-api). One row per active variant. - `status` — display string. Typical values: `Draft`, `Active`, `Paused`, `Expired`. - `allowOutOfStockOrders` — `true` if the campaign permits orders to be placed when inventory is exhausted. `expiration` is either an ISO 8601 date string or the literal string `"No Expiration"` when the campaign has no expiration set. Parse defensively — don't assume the value is always a date. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/campaigns/list' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## How this connects to creating orders `POST /v1/orders/create` requires a `campaignId`. Most integrations call `GET /v1/campaigns/list` once at startup, cache the campaign ids they care about, and reuse them on each create. See the [Orders API](/resources/developers/orders-api) for the full create flow. ## Errors - `401 Unauthorized` — missing, malformed, or invalid bearer token. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). - `500 Internal Server Error` — unexpected error. Body is a `{ "message": "..." }` string. Retry after a short delay. --- ## Products API Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/products-api List the products on your account. The response is one row per active variant — the SKU you'll use when creating orders is on the variant row, not the product. ## Endpoints - `GET /v1/products/list` — list active variants on the authenticated account. ## Authentication Standard Bearer auth — see [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). ## List products `GET /v1/products/list` Query parameters: - `limit` (integer, default `20`) — page size. - `offset` (integer, default `0`) — number of records to skip. The response is one row per **active variant**, not one row per product. Multiple rows can share the same `id` — that's the parent product id. Use `sku` to identify a specific variant. Inactive variants are filtered out. Response shape: ```json [ { "id": "", "title": "Logo Tee", "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "minimumOrderQuantity": 1, "productionTime": 7, "imageUrl": "https://cdn.merch.com/", "piecesPerCarton": 24, "cartonHeight": 12, "cartonLength": 18, "cartonWidth": 14, "weight": 0.4, "packageHeight": 1, "packageLength": 10, "packageWidth": 8, "packageWeight": 0.5 } ] ``` Field-by-field: - `id` — the parent product id. Several variants can share this value. - `title` — the product title. - `sku` — the variant SKU. Unique per row in this response. Pass this on `products[].sku` when creating an order. - `minimumOrderQuantity` — the smallest quantity you can order. Taken from the first pricing tier of the first variant on the parent product. - `productionTime` — production lead time in days. - `imageUrl` — a CDN URL for the variant image, or `null` if the variant has no image attached. - `piecesPerCarton` — units per shipping carton, or `null` if not configured. - `cartonHeight`, `cartonLength`, `cartonWidth` — carton dimensions, or `null`. Units follow the values configured on the product. - `weight` — per-unit weight, or `null`. - `packageHeight`, `packageLength`, `packageWidth`, `packageWeight` — single-unit package dimensions and weight, or `null`. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/products/list?limit=20&offset=0' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` To page through everything, increment `offset` by `limit` until you get a short page back. ## How SKUs flow into orders The `sku` returned here is exactly what you pass on `products[].sku` when calling [`POST /v1/orders/create`](/resources/developers/orders-api#create-an-order). The parent `id` is informational — order creation matches on `sku`. A typical integration flow: 1. Call `GET /v1/products/list` and cache `{ sku, id, title }` for each row. 2. Call [`GET /v1/campaigns/list`](/resources/developers/campaigns-api) and cache the `campaignId` you want to order against. 3. On a recipient signal (new hire, deal closed, redemption), call `POST /v1/orders/create` with the cached `campaignId` and the chosen `sku` plus quantity. ## Errors - `401 Unauthorized` — missing, malformed, or invalid bearer token. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). - `500 Internal Server Error` — unexpected error. Body is a `{ "message": "..." }` string. Retry after a short delay. --- ## Inventory API Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/inventory-api Read inventory levels and the underlying stock movements for the products on your account. One row per product variant, optionally scoped to a single warehouse. ## Endpoints - `GET /v1/inventory/list` — list inventory items with paging and filters. ## Authentication Standard Bearer auth — see [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). ## List inventory `GET /v1/inventory/list` Query parameters: - `page` (integer, default `1`) — page number, 1-indexed. - `page_size` (integer, default `20`, max `100`) — items per page. - `sort_by` (string, default `createdAt`) — field to sort by. - `sort_direction` (string, default `ASC`) — `ASC` or `DESC`. - `warehouse_id` (string, optional) — restrict results to a single warehouse. - `product_name` (string, optional) — partial-match filter on product title. - `sku` (string, optional) — partial-match filter on variant SKU. - `status` (string, optional) — `IN_STOCK`, `LOW_STOCK`, or `OUT_OF_STOCK`. Note: the filter takes uppercase values, but the value returned in each item's `status` field is lowercase. See the callout below. Pagination on this endpoint is `page` + `page_size`. The `orders` and `products` endpoints use `limit` + `offset`. They are not interchangeable — passing `limit` here is silently ignored, and passing `page` to the orders endpoint is silently ignored. Pick the right pair for the resource you're calling. ### Response shape ```json { "items": [ { "...": "see below" } ], "pagination": { "total_count": 142, "page": 1, "page_size": 20, "has_more": true } } ``` This endpoint returns `snake_case` keys (`product_id`, `on_hand`, `inventory_events`, etc.) while the rest of the API returns `camelCase`. Don't normalize keys in your client — read what the API actually returns. The inconsistency is real, and silently re-casing will break against future fields. ### Item fields Each entry in `items` has: - `id` — the inventory row id (one per variant, per account). - `product_id` — the product id this variant belongs to. - `product_name` — the product title. - `sku` — the variant SKU. - `account` — `{ id, company, status, customer_type }` — the account that owns the inventory. - `status` — **lowercase** string: `in_stock`, `low_stock`, or `out_of_stock`. Note the case: the query filter accepts `IN_STOCK` etc. (uppercase), but the value emitted on each item is lowercase. - `on_hand` — total physical units in the warehouse. - `available` — units that can be allocated to a new order (`on_hand` minus reservations). - `allocated` — units already reserved against open orders. - `inbound` — units expected to arrive at the warehouse. - `warehouse` — `{ warehouse_id, warehouse_name, quantity }`. Optional — omitted when the row is not scoped to a single warehouse. - `inventory_events` — array of stock movements that affected this row. See below. ### `inventory_events` Each event is a row from the stock-movement ledger: - `id` — event id. - `product_id` — product the event applies to. - `event_type` — what kind of movement (lowercase string, e.g. shipment, adjustment, return). - `quantity` — signed integer; positive means stock went up, negative means stock went down. - `timestamp` — ISO 8601 timestamp. - `description` — optional human-readable note. - `order_id` — optional. Set when the movement was driven by an order. - `account_id` — optional. The account that triggered the movement. - `variant_sku` — optional. The variant the event applied to. - `attributes` — optional `{ color, size, material, style }` describing the variant. - `warehouse_id` — optional. The warehouse the movement affected. - `order_number` — optional. Set when `order_id` is set. ## Errors - `401 Unauthorized` — missing, malformed, or invalid bearer token. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). - `500 Internal Server Error` — unexpected error. Body is `{ "message": "..." }`. ## Example Request: ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/inventory/list?page=1&page_size=20&status=LOW_STOCK' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` Response: ```json { "items": [ { "id": "", "product_id": "", "product_name": "Logo Tee", "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "account": { "id": "", "company": "Acme Inc", "status": "active", "customer_type": "merch_account" }, "status": "low_stock", "on_hand": 18, "available": 12, "allocated": 6, "inbound": 200, "warehouse": { "warehouse_id": "", "warehouse_name": "US East", "quantity": 18 }, "inventory_events": [ { "id": "", "product_id": "", "event_type": "shipment", "quantity": -1, "timestamp": "2026-05-07T17:14:22.000Z", "description": "Shipped to recipient", "order_id": "", "order_number": "ORD-12345", "account_id": "", "variant_sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "attributes": { "color": "Black", "size": "M" }, "warehouse_id": "" } ] } ], "pagination": { "total_count": 142, "page": 1, "page_size": 20, "has_more": true } } ``` --- ## Invites and contacts API Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/invites-and-contacts-api Add people to a campaign as contacts, and create personal redemption invites for those campaigns. Both resources are scoped to a single campaign — you'll always pass a `campaignId`. ## Endpoints - `POST /v1/invites/create` — create a campaign invite, optionally emailing it. - `GET /v1/contacts/list` — list contacts on a campaign. - `POST /v1/contacts/create` — create a contact tied to a campaign. ## Authentication Standard Bearer auth — see [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). ## How invites and contacts relate A **contact** is a person on a campaign — name, email, address, tags, order history. They live in the campaign's contact list and can be reused across orders. An **invite** is a personal redemption token for a campaign. Each invite has a unique `slug` and an `inviteUrl` you can send to a recipient. Invites may include recipient details (name, email, company), but they aren't required to be tied to a contact record. You can create an invite for someone who isn't on the contact list, and you can have a contact who has never been invited. If you want a person on a campaign **and** a redemption link to send them, you typically create the contact first, then create the invite separately — the two resources don't auto-link. ## Create an invite `POST /v1/invites/create` Body: ```json { "campaignId": "", "sendEmailNotification": true, "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "companyName": "Analytical Engines", "expiresAt": "2026-12-31T23:59:59.000Z" } ``` Field rules: - `campaignId` — required. - `sendEmailNotification` — required, boolean. When `true`, the API emails the invite to the recipient. When `false`, the invite is created but not delivered — you'll get an `inviteUrl` back to send yourself. - `firstName`, `lastName` — optional, max 100 chars. - `email` — optional, valid email, max 254 chars. **Required when `sendEmailNotification` is `true`** — `400 Bad Request` if missing. - `companyName` — optional, max 200 chars. - `expiresAt` — optional ISO 8601 timestamp. After this, the invite cannot be redeemed. Success returns `200`: ```json { "invite": { "_id": "", "slug": "abc123def456", "inviteNumber": "000123", "status": "UNUSED", "email": "ada@example.com", "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "companyName": "Analytical Engines", "expiresAt": "2026-12-31T23:59:59.000Z", "emailNotificationSent": true, "createdAt": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z" }, "inviteUrl": "https://redeem.merch.com/i/abc123def456" } ``` This response uses `_id` (with a leading underscore), not `id`. Most of the API uses `id`. Read what the response actually returns — don't normalize the key on your end. `status` is one of: | Value | Meaning | | --- | --- | | `UNUSED` | Invite has not yet been redeemed. | | `USED` | Recipient completed redemption. | ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/invites/create' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "campaignId": "", "sendEmailNotification": true, "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com" }' ``` ## List contacts `GET /v1/contacts/list` Query parameters: - `campaignId` (string, **required**) — `400 Bad Request` if missing. - `searchText` (string, optional) — match against contact names or emails. - `tags` (array of strings, optional) — filter to contacts with any of these tags. - `inviteStatusFilter` (string, optional) — `invited` or `not_invited`. - `orderCountFilter` (integer, optional) — exact match on number of orders placed by the contact. The response sets `Cache-Control: no-store` — clients should not cache these results. Returns an array of contact objects: ```json [ { "id": "", "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "tags": ["engineering", "vip"], "campaignId": "", "street1": "1 Infinite Loop", "street2": "", "city": "Cupertino", "state": "CA", "country": "US", "zip": "95014", "dateOfBirth": "1815-12-10", "hireDate": "2024-01-15", "phone": "+1-555-0100", "shirtSize": "M", "orderCount": 2 } ] ``` Optional string fields default to `""` rather than `null` when unset. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/contacts/list?campaignId=&inviteStatusFilter=not_invited' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Create a contact `POST /v1/contacts/create` Body: ```json { "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "campaignId": "", "phone": "+1-555-0100", "companyName": "Analytical Engines", "street1": "1 Infinite Loop", "street2": "", "city": "Cupertino", "state": "CA", "zip": "95014", "country": "US", "dateOfBirth": "1815-12-10", "hireDate": "2024-01-15", "shirtSize": "M", "tags": ["engineering"], "profilePicture": "https://example.com/avatar.png" } ``` Field rules: - `firstName`, `lastName` — required, 1-100 chars. - `email` — required, valid email, max 254 chars. - `campaignId` — required. - `phone` — optional, max 30 chars. - `companyName` — optional, max 200 chars. - `street1`, `street2` — optional, max 200 chars. - `city`, `state`, `country` — optional, max 100 chars. - `zip` — optional, max 20 chars. - `dateOfBirth`, `hireDate` — optional strings. - `shirtSize` — optional, max 20 chars. - `tags` — optional, array of strings. - `profilePicture` — optional, string (URL or path). Success returns `200`: ```json { "contactId": "" } ``` ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/contacts/create' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "firstName": "Ada", "lastName": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "campaignId": "" }' ``` ## Errors - `400 Bad Request` — validation failure. Body shape is `{ "message": "Invalid request body", "errors": [...] }` for Zod-validated routes, or `{ "message": "..." }` for missing required parameters (e.g. `campaignId is required`, `email is required when sendEmailNotification is enabled`, `Campaign ID is required`). - `401 Unauthorized` — missing, malformed, or invalid bearer token. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). - `500 Internal Server Error` — unexpected error. Body is `{ "message": "..." }`. --- ## Webhooks reference Source: https://merch.com/resources/developers/webhooks-reference Webhooks let you receive event notifications instead of polling. You register an HTTPS URL, subscribe to one or more event types, and we POST a JSON payload to that URL when an event fires. Each delivery is signed with HMAC-SHA256 so you can verify it came from us. ## What webhooks are A webhook is a one-way HTTP POST from us to a URL you control. When something happens on your account — an order ships, an invite is redeemed — we serialize the event as JSON and POST it to your subscribed URL. You verify the signature, parse the body, and act on it. Delivery is **fire-and-forget**: we send once, with a 10-second timeout, and we don't retry. Plan for that — see [Delivery transport](#delivery-transport) below. ## Subscribable events Eight event types are subscribable. | Event | When it fires | | --- | --- | | `order.created` | A new fulfillment order is created — by campaign redemption, by `POST /v1/orders/create`, or by a sync job that imports new orders from a fulfillment provider. | | `order.shipped` | An order's status transitions to `SHIPPED`. | | `order.delivered` | Delivery is confirmed for an order. | | `order.cancelled` | An order is cancelled. | | `order.returned` | A return is detected for an order. | | `invite.viewed` | An invite recipient lands on the redemption page. | | `invite.cart_updated` | An invite recipient adds, updates, or removes a cart item on the redemption page. The specific action is in `eventDetails.eventType` (`CART_ADD`, `CART_UPDATE`, `CART_REMOVE`). | | `invite.redeemed` | An invite recipient completes their order. | There is also a `webhook.test` event, but you cannot subscribe to it. It is emitted only by `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/test` (see [Testing](#testing) below) and is sent to that single webhook regardless of its subscribed event list. Use it to verify your endpoint setup. ## Subscription management endpoints | Method | Path | Description | | --- | --- | --- | | `GET` | `/v1/webhooks/events` | List the eight subscribable event types with descriptions. | | `GET` | `/v1/webhooks` | List the account's webhook subscriptions. Secrets are not returned. | | `POST` | `/v1/webhooks` | Create a subscription. Returns the signing secret (shown once). | | `PUT` | `/v1/webhooks/{id}` | Update `url`, `events`, or `active`. | | `DELETE` | `/v1/webhooks/{id}` | Permanently delete a subscription. | | `POST` | `/v1/webhooks/{id}/test` | Send a `webhook.test` event to the subscription's URL. | | `POST` | `/v1/webhooks/{id}/rotate-secret` | Generate a new signing secret. The previous secret is invalidated immediately. | ## Authentication Standard Bearer auth — see [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). ## URL requirements The URL you register on `POST /v1/webhooks` and `PUT /v1/webhooks/{id}` is validated server-side. It must: - Be a syntactically valid URL. - Use **HTTPS**. `http://` is rejected. - Not be `localhost`, `127.0.0.1`, `0.0.0.0`, or `::1`. - Not be in private/internal IP space: `10.0.0.0/8`, `172.16.0.0/12` (i.e. `172.16` through `172.31`), `192.168.0.0/16`, or link-local `169.254.0.0/16`. A URL that fails validation returns `400 Bad Request` with the message `Webhook URL must use HTTPS and cannot point to localhost or internal/private addresses`. ## Listing event types `GET /v1/webhooks/events` Returns the catalog of subscribable events with descriptions and category. No account-scoped data — the response is the same for every caller. ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks/events' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Subscribing `POST /v1/webhooks` Body: ```json { "url": "https://example.com/webhooks/merch", "events": ["order.created", "order.shipped"] } ``` Both fields are required. `events` must be a non-empty array of valid event names. Success returns `201`: ```json { "id": "", "url": "https://example.com/webhooks/merch", "events": ["order.created", "order.shipped"], "active": true, "secret": "", "createdAt": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z", "updatedAt": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z" } ``` The `secret` is returned **only on this response and on rotate-secret**. Subsequent `GET /v1/webhooks` calls will not include it. Persist it to your secrets manager immediately. If you lose it, your only recovery is `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/rotate-secret`, which generates a new value and invalidates the old one. ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "url": "https://example.com/webhooks/merch", "events": ["order.created", "order.shipped"] }' ``` ## Listing subscriptions `GET /v1/webhooks` Returns all active and inactive subscriptions on the account. Secrets are **not** included. ```json { "webhooks": [ { "id": "", "url": "https://example.com/webhooks/merch", "events": ["order.created", "order.shipped"], "active": true, "createdAt": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z", "updatedAt": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z" } ] } ``` ```bash curl -X GET 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Updating `PUT /v1/webhooks/{id}` Body accepts any subset of `url`, `events`, and `active`. Fields you omit are unchanged. ```json { "url": "https://example.com/webhooks/merch-v2", "events": ["order.created", "order.shipped", "order.delivered"], "active": true } ``` Returns `200` with the updated subscription (without `secret`). ```bash curl -X PUT 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks/' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "active": false }' ``` ## Deleting `DELETE /v1/webhooks/{id}` Permanently removes the subscription. There is no soft-delete and no recovery — create a new subscription if you need it back. Returns `200`: ```json { "message": "Webhook deleted successfully" } ``` ```bash curl -X DELETE 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks/' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Testing `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/test` Sends a `webhook.test` event to the subscription's URL with a valid HMAC signature. Use this to validate your endpoint setup before going live, and as a quick smoke test after rotating a secret. The webhook must be `active`. The body of the test delivery is documented under [Payload — `webhook.test`](#payload-webhooktest). Returns `200` with a delivery summary: ```json { "success": true, "statusCode": 200, "error": null } ``` `success` reflects whether your endpoint accepted the request. If it returned a non-2xx, `success` is `false`, `statusCode` is the HTTP status your server returned (or `null` if the request never reached your server), and `error` is a short string describing the failure. ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks//test' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` This is the only inspection surface for delivery — there is no separate logs API and no replay endpoint. If you want to confirm a real event was processed correctly, send a test event, observe your server-side logs, and compare against the live delivery's `X-Webhook-Event` header. ## Rotating the secret `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/rotate-secret` Generates a new HMAC signing secret. The previous secret is invalidated **immediately** — there is no overlap window. Plan a brief switchover: rotate, capture the new secret from the response, deploy it to your verifier, and confirm with a test event. Returns `200` with the subscription **including** the new `secret` (the only other place a secret is returned). ```bash curl -X POST 'https://api.merch.com/v1/webhooks//rotate-secret' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer ' ``` ## Delivery transport - **Method:** `POST` to your subscribed URL. - **Content-Type:** `application/json`. - **Timeout:** 10 seconds per attempt. - **Retries:** **None.** Delivery is fire-and-forget. If your endpoint is down, slow, or returns a non-2xx, the event is dropped. Failures are logged on our side but no retry is attempted. - **Ordering:** No ordering guarantees. When an event fires for an account with multiple matching subscriptions, deliveries fan out in parallel and may complete in any order. Because there are no retries, your subscriber should: 1. Acknowledge fast — return a 2xx as soon as you've durably enqueued the payload, then process asynchronously. 2. Make processing idempotent. The same `orderId` may appear in multiple events (`order.created`, then `order.shipped`); the same event may legitimately re-fire after some operations. 3. Treat webhooks as best-effort notifications. For state you must not lose (e.g. final order status), re-fetch via the REST API after a webhook tells you something interesting happened, or run a periodic reconciliation. ## Headers on every delivery ```text Content-Type: application/json X-Webhook-Signature: sha256= X-Webhook-Timestamp: X-Webhook-Event: ``` ## Signature verification Every delivery is signed with HMAC-SHA256 using your subscription's `secret`. - **Algorithm:** HMAC-SHA256. - **Signed content:** `${timestamp}.${rawBody}` — the value of `X-Webhook-Timestamp`, then a literal period, then the **raw request body** as we sent it. Re-serializing the JSON on your end will not match — verify against the bytes you actually received. - **Header value:** literal prefix `sha256=` followed by the hex digest. Example: `X-Webhook-Signature: sha256=abc123def456...`. Verification recipe: ```text signed_content = X-Webhook-Timestamp + "." + raw_request_body expected = "sha256=" + hex( hmac_sha256(secret, signed_content) ) constant_time_compare(expected, X-Webhook-Signature) ``` Use a constant-time comparison to defeat timing attacks — most languages provide one (`hmac.compare_digest`, `crypto.timingSafeEqual`, etc.). We also recommend rejecting requests whose `X-Webhook-Timestamp` is more than **five minutes** in the past or future. The server does not enforce this — it's your replay protection. Five minutes is a reasonable default; tighten if your clocks are well-synced. A bash equivalent for one-off verification at the command line: ```bash SECRET="" TIMESTAMP="$(printf '%s' "$X_WEBHOOK_TIMESTAMP")" BODY="$(cat raw_body.json)" EXPECTED="sha256=$(printf '%s.%s' "$TIMESTAMP" "$BODY" \ | openssl dgst -sha256 -hmac "$SECRET" -hex \ | awk '{print $2}')" echo "expected: $EXPECTED" echo "actual: $X_WEBHOOK_SIGNATURE" ``` If `expected` and `actual` differ, drop the request — do not process the body. Never log signing secrets, never embed them in client-side code, and never share them in support tickets. Treat them like API keys. If you suspect leakage, call `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/rotate-secret` immediately. ## Payload — order events Body for `order.created`, `order.shipped`, `order.delivered`, `order.cancelled`, and `order.returned`: ```json { "event": "order.shipped", "data": { "orderId": "", "orderNumber": "ORD-12345", "status": "SHIPPED", "campaignId": "", "trackingNumber": "1Z999AA10123456784", "carrierCode": "ups", "shipDate": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z", "products": [ { "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "quantity": 1 } ] } } ``` `trackingNumber`, `carrierCode`, and `shipDate` are `null` for events that fire before shipment (e.g. `order.created`, `order.cancelled`). ## Payload — invite events Body for `invite.viewed`, `invite.cart_updated`, and `invite.redeemed`: ```json { "event": "invite.cart_updated", "data": { "inviteId": "", "inviteNumber": "000123", "email": "ada@example.com", "campaignId": "", "campaignTitle": null, "eventDetails": { "eventType": "CART_ADD", "page": "redemption", "cartItems": [ { "sku": "TEE-BLK-M", "quantity": 1 } ] } } } ``` Notes: - `campaignTitle` is currently always `null` in dispatched payloads. Don't depend on a value here. - `eventDetails` shape varies by event: - `invite.viewed` — typically `null` or contains the page identifier. - `invite.cart_updated` — `eventType` is `CART_ADD`, `CART_UPDATE`, or `CART_REMOVE`. Includes `page` and `cartItems`. - `invite.redeemed` — `eventType` is `ORDER_COMPLETE`. May include `cartItems` for the completed order. `inviteNumber` and `email` may be `null` for invites that don't have those fields populated. ## Payload — `webhook.test` Body for the `webhook.test` event, which is sent only by `POST /v1/webhooks/{id}/test`: ```json { "event": "webhook.test", "data": { "message": "This is a test webhook event. If you received this, your endpoint is configured correctly.", "timestamp": "2026-05-08T16:42:00.000Z" } } ``` The headers and signing are identical to live events — your verifier should accept `webhook.test` deliveries the same way it accepts the rest. ## Errors on management endpoints The management endpoints (subscribe, list, update, delete, test, rotate) emit: - `400 Bad Request` — invalid URL (validation failure), invalid event name, duplicate URL on the account, or missing required fields on create. The body is `{ "message": "..." }`. - `401 Unauthorized` — missing, malformed, or invalid bearer token. See [Authentication and API keys](/resources/developers/auth-and-keys). - `500 Internal Server Error` — unexpected error not surfaced as `400`. Body is `{ "message": "Internal server error" }`. The webhook routes use `400` (not `500`) for upstream errors, which differs from most other API endpoints. If you see a `400` from a webhook route with a generic `Request failed` message, it's likely an upstream issue rather than something wrong with your request body — retry after a short delay before assuming a permanent client-side problem.