Volt Merchandise

In late 2020 I began investigating the manner in which Volt Europa, the political movement I am part of, works with merchandise, finding the European-level effort for it currently in abeyance. Because I wanted to help improve that situation, I asked the movement's general secretary to support me managing a new merchandise effort for Volt Europa. That was accepted and so I became Volt's "Merchandise Lead".

I researched how the pre-existing shop operated and what other experiences Volt members had managing the production, sale or distribution of merchandise products. Then I made a plan to overhaul the webshop interface, for the execution of which I then got the Tech team involved.

After upgrading the shop's interface together with the tech team and making it accessible on https://voltshop.org/, I assembled a group of visual designers and people interested in said topic to provide input for product designs.

Acknowledging their input and bringing in my own ideas, I then put up new print graphics, and eventually replaced and expanded the entire product assortment. This means that I upgraded the fidelity of the prior print designs, removed products incompatible with updated brand guidelines and added new ones as well.

Working together with my team and the general secretary I learnt a lot about running a merchandise operation and essentials of business planning, which we used to assess further development targets.

We intend to expand our merchandise effort even more, but focus more on sustainability in our supply chain in the future.