How to Setup a Company Apparel Store for Employees

Updated in April 2025

Online ordering has completely transformed how we shop. See it, click it, wear it—no more catalogs to flip through or forms to fill out. So why should outfitting your team be any different?

Let’s face it—chasing down employee sizes, juggling manager approvals, and shipping polos to new hires isn’t the best use of your time. That’s where a custom company merchandise store comes in. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set up the best online company store for employees that streamlines uniform management, simplifies swag distribution, and helps your brand stay consistent—whether you’re outfitting a small team or managing fulfillment across a national workforce.

What is an Online Company Store?

An online company store is a custom eCommerce portal where employees can order branded apparel, uniforms, and promotional gear—all in one place. These stores are designed specifically for internal use, giving your teams easy access to approved merchandise that reflects your brand’s identity. From polos and jackets to water bottles and tote bags, everything is curated, organized, and ready to ship—no spreadsheets, no guesswork.

Behind the scenes, a well-built company store includes centralized inventory management, fulfillment, and budget controls. An online company store:

• Streamlines ordering across departments and locations
• Ensures brand consistency
• Saves time with automated approvals
• Controls spending limits
• Manages all aspects of shipping products and apparel to your employees

Whether you’re outfitting new hires or launching a national campaign, an online store makes it simple to scale branded merch without the logistical headaches.

Benefits of a Company Store for Employees

While it takes a little setup with a trusted apparel and swag partner, the long-term payoff is big. Here are some benefits that make it well worth your time:

• Strengthen Employee Engagement and Brand Pride
• Ensure Brand Consistency Across All Locations
  
• Empower Employees with Personal Choice
  
• Stay on Budget with Tiered Product Pricing
  
• Control Spending with Built-In Allowances
  
• Integrate Seamlessly with Your ERP or HR System
  
• Simplify Accounting by Consolidating Vendors
  
• Reward and Recognize Employees with Store Credit
  
• Centralize Fulfillment and Ship Branded Merch Anywhere
  
• Get Expert Guidance from Swag Specialists

#1 – Strengthen Employee Engagement and Brand Pride

When you offer employees well-designed, stylish apparel featuring your logo, you’re doing more than just creating a cohesive look—you’re helping them feel connected to the brand. Giving your team something they’re proud to wear can boost morale, loyalty, and retention.

A company apparel store also empowers employees with choice. When they can select styles that match their personal preferences and comfort, it turns a uniform into a statement of pride and ownership.

Need help choosing what to include? Our 2025 Trend Guide is packed with inspiration—from earthy tones and boxy cuts to tech-enabled gear and 16-hour transitional apparel. Take a look—because when you stay on trend, it shows your team that you care about more than just the logo. You care about how they look, feel, and represent your brand every day.

#2 – Ensure Brand Consistency Across All Locations

Most organizations invest heavily in their brand—logos, colors, tone of voice, and more. But even with solid brand guidelines, it’s easy for things to slip. Regional offices, franchisees, or well-meaning employees often create apparel or swag that misses the mark.

That’s where a centralized company store comes in. It ensures every item—whether it’s a safety vest or a swag box—follows the same brand standards and reflects your company’s identity with consistency.

And if your brand assets need a refresh or a little tightening up? Righteous has you covered. Our full-service creative design team knows branding inside and out. We’ll help you clean up logos, prep production-ready artwork, and even develop brand guidelines if you’re starting from scratch—so every stitch and screen print reflects your brand at its best.

#3 – Empower Employees with Personal Choice

A polo shirt and a water bottle are fine inclusions in any New Hire Welcome Kit, but most people prefer to choose their garments based on lifestyle, age, gender, and personal style.

Company stores empower your team members by allowing them to choose their preferred apparel, select a logo that aligns with their department or role, and even customize how it’s decorated.

This level of personalization helps employees feel more invested and valued—which is exactly what happened when we partnered with Dave & Buster’s. We created a custom store where team members could pick their own shirt style, choose from multiple logo options, and select the placement that worked for them. The result? Huge engagement, expanded product offerings, and employees who actually wanted to wear their uniforms.

#4 – Stay on Budget with Tiered Product Pricing

Providing people with a “good, better, best” range of products allows them to select the items that fit their departmental budget and use. Trade show gear may necessitate a higher-end garment, while a more value-priced garment may suffice for your company’s community charity involvement. Tiered product pricing offers greater flexibility when allocating your budget.

#5 – Control Spending with Built-In Allowances

With a Company Store, you can select from a few tech tools to better manage your budgets. Providing people with spending allowances is a popular way to handle this. The balance is collected on a personal credit card if they go over their allotment. Administrators can choose to replenish wallet funds at predetermined intervals.

If there is a specific product you want your people to order – say, a safety award jacket – you can send them a direct auto-couponing link that allows them to make that purchase only. Many companies use an auto-approval process that routes all corporate orders through an approval process before fulfillment.

#6 – Integrate Seamlessly with Your ERP or HR System

If your team already uses an internal system to get things done—like an HR or purchasing platform—your company store can plug right into it. With single sign-on (SSO), employees don’t need to remember a new login. They just click and shop, right from the tools they’re already using.

You can also set it up so different teams only see the gear that’s relevant to them, and managers can approve orders or keep tabs on spending without jumping between platforms. Behind the scenes, everything stays in sync—orders, inventory, and billing—so it’s one less thing for your team to manage manually.

#7 – Simplify Accounting by Consolidating Vendors

For anyone with an arduous vendor setup, having one platform for your print, apparel, and swag means fewer vendors to maintain, and with EDI invoicing, receiving your bills is seamless and automatic.

#8 – Reward and Recognize Employees with Store Credit

A company store doesn’t just have to be for uniforms—it can also be a smart way to celebrate wins and reward great work. Whether it’s a work anniversary, safety milestone, or a sales incentive contest, you can use your store to offer rewards your people actually want. Load store credit, issue points, or send surprise coupon codes—making recognition feel timely, personal, and appreciated.

Here are some popular ways you can use online store incentives:

• Work anniversaries with unique redemption codes
• Sales contests with leaderboard prizes
• Safety milestones that trigger store credit
• Peer-nominated rewards
• Random acts of recognition with “just because” gear drops

Take Port of Subs, for example. They wanted to encourage employees to complete HR training, so we built them a custom store that synced directly with their training system. When someone finished a module, their points updated automatically—no manual tracking needed and turned routine training into something people actually look forward to now!

#9 – Centralize Fulfillment and Ship Branded Merch Anywhere

If your inventory management system amounts to keeping a stack of promotional swag in a closet or back office with no idea of what you own, how old it is, or how many items you have, outsourcing fulfillment to a partner can streamline your operations while reducing costs.

With a company store, you get fulfillment with live inventory reporting to see how many of those nifty Pop Sockets you have available to ship quickly to your next event. Every regional office shouldn’t need to procure small quantities of branded swag when having a fulfillment partner means getting volume pricing and shipping in more reasonable amounts based on the current needs.

Even better, with Righteous, you don’t have to find the immediate budget or the space to fit the swag you want to have in stock. We hold it for you AND own it for you!

#10 – Get Expert Guidance from Swag Specialists

You may need to find the best pens, power banks, or ball caps. However, a good vendor partner will have established a deep network of reliable and well-respected sub-contractors for every type of swag, promotional product, apparel item, and gear. We leverage vendor relationships on your behalf based on the vendor’s track record of performance and your individual needs.

Company Apparel Stores: How It Works

It’s easy to get started offering professional branded gear for your employees.

1. First, we’ll work closely with you to understand your goals and objectives for the company store, ensuring it aligns with your brand and the unique needs of your teams.
2. Together, we’ll help you choose the right products, apparel, and branding preferences that reflect your company’s identity and resonate with your employees.
3. Our team will handle the technical aspects of setting up your online portal, including adding product images and mockups with your logo. We’ll also make sure it’s easy to navigate.
4. Once the portal is ready, your teams can use it immediately. We’ll provide training and support to ensure a seamless transition.
5. Depending on the scope of your Company Store, we typically have them up and running within 30-60 days of product selections.
6. As your teams begin to shop, we’ll keep you informed about your store’s performance. We’ll monitor trends, analyze data, and provide you with regular reports so you have valuable insights into sales and employee preferences.
   

See How an Online Store Can Work for You
Explorer Our Company Store Solutions 

Not only is it easy, but it’s a great way to provide quick access to all your branded merchandise for your employees. We can build your online store to integrate your brand perfectly. Your store will save you time and money while providing the ultimate convenience for your staff.

Your custom company apparel store can also:

• Perform customer service tasks
• Complete order processing
• Calculate inventory for in-stock options
• Offer “virtual inventory” on non-stock items
• Offer quality products with a quick turnaround time
• Maintain a customer order history
• Create sales reports
• Complete order fulfillment
• Offer secure and private transactions
• And do so much more

See a Sample Store

Righteous is Here to Help You Get Started

Your team deserves to feel good in what they wear, and your brand should always show up looking polished and professional. A custom company store takes the stress out of uniform ordering, swag distribution, and brand management—so you can focus on what really matters.

Whether you’re building a store from scratch or thinking about switching from your current provider, now is the perfect time to make the move. We’ll guide you through every step, from product selection to launch, and help you create a store your employees will actually love to use!

Take the first step toward a simpler, smarter way to manage company apparel.

Schedule a Free Company Store Consultation Today 

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