How to create your student union's merch in 3 minutes?

To create your student union's merch, open an online store in the association's colours: logo, collection, prices, then share the pre-order link with your class. Everyone pays for their own garment; when pre-sales close, everything goes into a single production run, at volume prices, with no upfront cash and no stock.

The essentials in 7 points:

• The student union's Store is created in 3 minutes and opening it costs the association nothing.
• Pre-orders replace the spreadsheet: everyone picks their size and pays online before the end date shown on the countdown.
• If a garment misses its threshold, we switch it to another technique where we can, at an unchanged price, or else its reservations are refunded in full: the association's cash is never at risk.
• Even if everyone orders on their own, everything goes into a single production run at closing: the class gets the volume prices of a big order.
• The margin on each garment goes back to the student union. The real example on the tknp.io Store page: 100 screen-printed Creator 2.0 t-shirts sold at €19.90 each, VAT included, give €790 in the pot (online payment fees deducted, figure from 30 September 2026, as an indication), enough to fund part of the integration weekend.
• After the start of the year, the Store can stay open all year with garments sold individually: a permanent income for the association.
• At handover, the Store is passed on as an asset of the association: the next committee doesn't start from scratch.

Congratulations, you've been elected. And with the mandate comes the mission every student union (BDE, the "bureau des étudiants" of French schools and universities) discovers in September: getting the merch out. The class sweatshirt, the association hoodie, the freshers' t-shirt. The whole school is waiting for it, nobody knows where to start, and the first instinct is often the wrong one: opening a spreadsheet.

Good news: creating your student union's merch has never been simpler. The modern method fits in one sentence: an online store in the union's colours, generated in 3 minutes, where everyone orders their size and pays directly. No cash advance from the association's budget, no stock in the union office, no evenings spent chasing people. And the best of both worlds on price: everyone orders individually, but everything goes into a single production run when pre-sales close, so the class gets the volume prices of a big order.

This guide walks through the whole journey: what to sell, the traps that catch committees every year, the step-by-step method, and how merch becomes a source of income to fund the integration weekend (WEI) and the year's events.

What exactly is student union merch

Let's start with the scope, because "doing the merch" actually covers several moments of the year for a student association: custom clothing in the school's colours, rolled out event after event.

• The custom class sweatshirt, the flagship garment: the one you wear for three years and keep for ten. We dedicated a complete guide to it, from budget to distribution.
• The student union hoodie and t-shirt, the association's permanent collection, in the school's colours. A safe bet for the hoodie: the Heavy Blend Hoodie, the best value for money to kit out a whole class.
• Event garments: the freshers' t-shirt, the integration weekend merch, the gala merch.
• Accessories that complete the range: embroidered cap, tote bag, water bottle.

Two rules apply to the rest of this guide. One: quality comes first. A poorly cut bargain sweatshirt will end up at the back of a wardrobe, and the committee's image with it. Aim for good value for money, in cotton, something students could have bought in a shop. Two: student union merch is lifestyle clothing. It gets worn in lecture halls, at parties, around town, not just on the day of the event. That's what gives it value: every outing is visibility for the association.

The 3 traps that catch committees every year

Every new committee discovers these headaches thinking it's the first to live through them. In reality, the classes before them fell into exactly the same traps. Here they are, so you can avoid them from the start.

The size spreadsheet

The classic method: a Google Form or a shared spreadsheet, sizes on one side, and payments arriving any which way, cash, bank transfers, promises. Then everything has to be cross-checked by hand, latecomers chased in the class group chat, the last payments hunted down until the day before the order. Managing a group order is counted in evenings, and it's always the same committee member who sacrifices them.

The cash advance

In the classic circuit, the student union takes the orders then fronts the full amount to place the overall order. Several thousand euros leave the association's budget before the students have paid. For a student treasury, that's huge: the money is missing for the start-of-year events, and if some orders drop out along the way, the committee is left with the difference. Add the unsold garments ordered "just in case", and the union office turns into a warehouse of XS sizes nobody claims.

The handover that wipes everything

The sneakiest trap, because you pay for it a year later. The outgoing committee managed everything on its own spreadsheet and account: at handover, the files get lost, the supplier changes, the logo gets reinvented, and the new committee starts from scratch. Result: every class pays the full learning cost again, every year.

The method below eliminates all three at once.

How to create your student union's merch, step by step

A student union Store is the official online store of the student association: a page in its colours where students order and pay for their merch directly, on pre-order or individually. The principle: instead of organising the order, you open the Store, and it does the work. The process, step by step:

1. Create the student union's Store

It costs nothing, there's no paperwork and no quote to wait for: you create the Store online, in 3 minutes flat. Compare that with the evenings a group order put together by hand costs you. And to picture it, browse custom clothing for schools and campuses.

2. Upload the student union's logo

A clean file is enough, the designer handles the rendering on each garment. Just check that the association holds the rights to its artwork (the school's crest can't be used without permission), and be wary of overly detailed logos, which don't translate well to embroidery. If the logo still needs designing or simplifying, follow our guide to creating a student union logo that reads well on a sweatshirt.

3. Fine-tune the suggested collection

Once your logo is in place, a collection is generated. Remove, add and change colours freely. For a back-to-school launch, keep it tight: the class sweatshirt, an affordable t-shirt, a cap. A short collection focuses orders on few references, which lowers the cost of each garment through quantity tiers.

4. Choose your selling prices

The student union freely sets its selling prices, above the production cost, and the difference goes back to the association on every garment sold. What the association receives is the pot: the gap between the price students pay and our price at the volume reached, paid by bank transfer after delivery. A useful benchmark: between 25 and 40 euros depending on the quality of the garment, bearing in mind that a few extra euros make the difference between a forgotten sweatshirt and a real keepsake that lasts. Still plan one affordable garment, around 20 euros, so nobody is left out.

5. Open the pre-order and share the link

Set an end date, about 2 weeks out: the countdown shows on the Store. Then share the link wherever the class lives: WhatsApp group, Instagram story, QR code at the societies fair. Everyone orders their size and pays immediately. No more spreadsheet, no more cash box, no more chasing people one by one: the link does it all. Our guide to gathering the whole class's sizes without mistakes goes into the details. And the treasurer's question has its answer in black and white: if a garment falls short of its threshold, it moves to another technique for the same price where feasible, otherwise those who reserved it are refunded in full: the association takes no risk.

6. Receive and hand out

At closing, production starts on the exact number of garments ordered, and delivery arrives grouped. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for the full circuit: launched at the start-of-year societies fair, the merch arrives within the first semester, and the pot, paid after delivery, covers part of the integration weekend or funds the next events. Hand it out at an event and photograph the kitted-out class: it's your best advert for the next drop.

The back-to-school schedule, in plain terms:

Merch that funds the integration weekend (instead of costing the budget)

It's the most profitable shift in perspective for a committee: merch isn't an expense to balance, it's a source of income.

The mechanism: the margin on each garment sold goes back to the student union. The tknp.io Store page publishes a real example: if the screen-printed Creator 2.0 t-shirt sells at €19.90, VAT included, the total pot reaches €311 with 50 reservations and €790 with 100, online payment fees deducted (worked out with our price grid on 30 September 2026; as an indication, these amounts may change). For a class of 100 students, do the maths: the back-to-school collection can fund part of the integration weekend with no collection tin or grant, without asking students for more than the price of a t-shirt they would have bought anyway. It is the same principle as a t-shirt sale that funds an association.

And don't count only on your own class. The student union sweatshirt also appeals to other classes, parents, and alumni who want their keepsake sweatshirt. A Store open to all these buyers mechanically means more garments sold, price tiers reached faster, and more money in the kitty.

One last lever: the Store doesn't have to close after the back-to-school pre-order. Left open all year with references sold individually, it picks up latecomers, second-semester arrivals and passing alumni. Merch becomes a permanent income for the association, not a once-a-year event.

The handover: the Store outlives committees

Trap number 3 deserves its own section, because that's where the Store really changes an association's life in the long run.

The Store belongs to the student union, not to the person who created it. At handover, you pass on an access, not a folder of scattered files: the logo is in place, the references are there, and so is the sales history. The next committee changes the colours, adds its collection, and is up and running in a few minutes instead of starting from scratch. Buyers, for their part, keep the same link from year to year.

A handover tip to write in the committee's handbook: pass on access to the Store on the day of the general assembly, along with the accounts. It has become an asset of the association, just like its treasury. The handover formalities themselves, including the declaration to the prefecture, are covered in our student union handover guide.

The final word

Creating your student union's merch in 2026 no longer means evenings on a spreadsheet, an advance on the budget and boxes in the union office. It's a Store opened in 3 minutes, a pre-order shared with one link, production to the exact number, and a margin that feeds the association's kitty. The committee's energy is better invested elsewhere: in the events, and in choosing the colour that will leave its mark.

The class sweatshirt will remember you. Do it well.