Giving Merch Away Well: Seeding Without Wasting It

Every merch programme gives some away. The difference between seeding and waste is whether the garment ends up being worn in front of people who matter to you — which depends almost entirely on decisions made before it was sent.

Who to send to

1. 1**Existing customers who already post.** The most overlooked group and usually the most effective. They already like the brand, their audience trusts them, and they cost nothing to identify.
2. 2**People genuinely inside your community.** Someone embedded in the scene you are selling into carries more weight than a larger account outside it.
3. 3**People who will wear it repeatedly,** rather than photograph it once. Repeated wear is what produces the compounding effect.
4. 4**Staff.** Frequently forgotten, and the most consistent wearers you have.

How to send it

Ask for the size. Sending a large and hoping is the single biggest cause of seeded merch never being worn, and asking also signals that the gift is deliberate rather than a bulk mail-out.

Send it as well as you send a paid order — same packaging, same care card, ideally a short handwritten note. A gift that arrives more carelessly than a purchase communicates exactly the wrong thing.

What to ask for

Be honest about expectations. If you want a post, say so; if there are no strings, say that too. Ambiguity creates awkwardness that makes people less likely to do anything.

And be clear on disclosure: if you gave someone a product in exchange for content, that relationship must be disclosed in the post. This is a consumer protection requirement in the UK and elsewhere, and the obligation sits with the brand as much as the person posting.

Protect the signal

Merch works as a badge of affiliation, and a badge everyone has means nothing. Seeding widely and indiscriminately destroys the thing that made the garment worth having.

Give it for a visible reason — early supporters, a specific contribution, a moment. Earned merch keeps its meaning and produces stories; distributed merch produces stock in drawers.

How to tell whether it worked

Not by counting posts. By whether the garment appears repeatedly over months, whether people ask where it came from, and whether the recipients became customers or advocates.

That takes longer to assess than a campaign report and it is the measure that corresponds to what seeding is actually for. A small number of well-placed garments worn constantly beats a large number photographed once — which is also, conveniently, cheaper.