u/FreeAd1425

Last year we did branded sunglasses and koozies. They were fine, but... nobody was losing their mind over a koozie with a logo on it lol

This year I’m trying to find stuff people might actually use during summer. Maybe beach towels, nicer water bottles, portable speakers, stuff like that. We’ve got around 80 people and about half are remote, so whatever we pick has to ship well too.

The annoying part is timing. Our event is the first week of June. Most vendors I’ve talked to need 4 to 6 weeks for custom stuff, so I basically need to order now.

What summer swag have you actually used and liked at work?

If anyone knows vendors that do smaller runs without crazy minimums, I’d love recs. Apparently 80 units is “too small” for some places.

Tried a bunch of Shopify help desk options lately and it's been rough. Most are either way too complicated to set up without developer help or just too expensive for a store that's not doing huge volume yet.

What I actually need is pretty simple. AI that helps draft replies, straightforward setup I can do myself, and pricing that makes sense for a smaller store.

Gorgias looks solid but the ticket based pricing scares me when volume picks up. Zendesk feels like it's built for companies with IT departments not solo operators.

Anyone found something that hits that middle ground? Would love to hear what you're actually using.

Started getting negative reviews lately and most of them had nothing to do with the product itself. Just slow replies, unanswered questions, orders I didn't follow up on in time.

Didn't think response time would matter that much but apparently it does. Customers don't separate "bad support" from "bad store" in their heads.

Anyone else gone through this? How did you fix it and what are you using now?