No room for excuses: here’s how Merchery can help you nail that client merch with style

Merchery has been up to a few things since we last spoke to them. The corporate merch service, with a strong commitment to making beautiful products, is a one-stop shop for brands and studios looking to make thoughtful objects for their customers and clients. Whether it be a straw tumbler, a beeswax candle, or even a tennis ball, Merchery crafts gifting objects that customers “will actually keep.”

Over the years, they’ve strengthened their offering in many ways – sharpening their laser focus on quality, and continuously challenging themselves to redefine what’s possible with thoughtfully crafted merchandise. They’ve expanded beyond Europe, launching a customisation tool on their US website, allowing clients to customise products online in real-time, and introduced a new catalogue of US-based products and partnerships. “Our expansion plans also extend to the UK, where we intend to collaborate with local partners. We’ve already taken the initiative to register in the UK last year, aiming to spare our customers from exorbitant customs fees,” says Partnerships Manager Frédéric Jonsson.

Fighting the good fight against “shit merch,” the team continues to help brands create products that spark joy. Whether they’re responding to briefs from a brand, or are collaborating with a creative agency to make something special for a commissioned project, Merchery chooses to do things a bit differently, helping their clients craft merch with an edge.

Full throttle on sustainability

Embracing a ‘less is more’ approach, Merchery carefully selects its materials and production techniques, ensuring the utmost transparency of its processes and their impact. “Every product featured on our webstore undergoes meticulous scrutiny. Our team painstakingly evaluates each item, considering various factors before deciding to onboard it,” says Jonsson.

When it comes to onboarding products, the team is on a constant lookout for objects that stand out due to their innovative use of materials. Take, for example, the cycling bottles they crafted for Lacoste and Essentiel Antwerp. Stamped with the logos of the company, in both cases, the bottles flaunt a simple, compact form. “These bottles, produced in Germany from biopolymers, are biocompatible with the environment,” Jonsson tells us.

The team also highlights that taking an earth-forward approach need not mean you’d have to compromise on good looks. “Different aspects come into play when we evaluate our products. We’re always asking ourselves, is this product beautiful to look at?” notes Jonsson. “A good example of this is the Rains backpack we curated for Cohere after their rebrand with Pentagram. Rains, known for making rain protection stylish with sleek Danish design, exemplifies the kind of quality we aim for in our products. Working with renowned brands like Pangaia, Rains, and Alessi, or selecting items with unique features, ensures the cool factor for our users.”

Always maintaining transparency with their suppliers, the team also values working with local suppliers who are “producing within our customers’ markets,” he explains. “Supporting local production ranges from collaborating with small workshops like La Biscuiterie Namuroise and Savonneries Bruxelloises, to established brands like Sigg, Secrid, and Prodir. Our preference leans towards suppliers with a social mission, exemplified by brands like Oxious, which exclusively employs isolated women in Turkey, for their recycled towels.”

Exactly what you want, the way you want it

When you’re working with Merchery, the team leaves no room for excuses. To ensure a level of precision that’s hard to spot in the industry, they launched the Merchery Club two years ago, providing the design community with a frictionless process to make high-quality products for their clients. “The Merchery Club was born as a response to many design studios turning to us to make products for their client projects,” shares Jonsson. “Recognising the distinct needs of these intermediary clients, who act as the bridge between their clients and us, we observed common challenges such as quality issues, unreliable suppliers, tight deadlines, and highly specific or bespoke requests.”

To address this, the team established a dedicated unit – supported by the entire Merchery family – to consolidate their expertise in meeting the high expectations of design studios, and enhance their responsiveness and flexibility. “When urgency arises, such as the in case of pianist Sofiane Pamart who required T-shirts in just 48 hours for guest singers on his tour, our workshop prioritises requests from Merchery Club members, following a simple directive – ‘If it’s from a Club member, don’t hesitate, just do it’,” says Jonsson.

To add to that, the team also offers product research, acknowledging the fact that “creatives often seek options beyond our existing catalogue,” he says. For more tailored productions, they also create products from scratch, delivering objects that are crafted to meet a client’s exacting expectations, while also making space for moments of surprise. ”Not too long ago, we were collaborating with Red Antler for a project with a client whose identity has the symbol of a rabbit; they wanted this symbol to be printed throughout a notebook,” says Jonsson. “So the studio did just that, and added an animation; you see the rabbit jumping as you flip through the pages.”

Capture the unexpected 

There’s something to be said about merch that goes beyond the roomy tote or a T-shirt into a more conceptual, challenging space. When it comes to left-of-centre gifting, Merchery has a few ideas. “The most exciting feature we offer is in cosmetics. We collaborate with a lab in the south of France that produces base products for major brands; with them, we can create candles, soap, balms, oils, and more,” says Jonsson. “What sets these products apart is the lab’s expertise in fragrances, enabling us to match scents to concepts. They can go even further by creating new brand smells, aligning with a brand’s identity based on the creative concept provided.”

Always keen to go the extra mile and capture the unexpected, Merchery brings this dedication to each of its projects. When a French agency organised an event with influencers, they asked them to send pictures that ‘matched’ certain keywords, like “innocence” and “happiness.” “During this event, the influencers would receive gift boxes that distilled the “feeling” of their picture,” says Jonsson. “When they’d open the box, they’d be hit with a smell related to that feeling, coming from a candle we made for them.”

Make that dream merch with Merchery