6 Corporate Store and Employee Merch Tips: Drivee’s Experience

August 20, 2026

Many companies have corporate merchandise: hoodies, mugs, and branded notebooks. Such items often sit unused in warehouses or are handed out to everyone indiscriminately, so their value quickly drops to zero. Drivee took a systematic approach. Three years ago, the company launched a corporate store with an internal currency. Today it is a working tool that helps solve HR challenges.

Let’s look at their experience: what tripped them up at the start, what worked, and which lessons can be applied in any company.

The Corporate Store as an HR Tool: Goals and Mechanics

Drivee is a Russian ride-hailing and delivery service operating in more than 100 cities. The company started in Yakutsk and now also has offices in Moscow. It employs 350 people, with an average age of 32.

Even before the store launched, employees wore branded clothing—you only had to walk around the office to see that a third of the team was dressed in company merch. When Drivee was choosing a platform to automate HR processes, a built-in corporate store became one of the deciding factors.

Most importantly, the platform and store were not conceived as a “perk,” but as a way to solve specific problems:

• collect employee feedback,
• recruit new employees through referrals,
• strengthen the company’s employer reputation,
• develop a culture of gratitude within the team.

Each mechanism emerged in response to a real business need.

How It Works at Other Companies

Internal currency is a closed economic system: it has issuance (awarding points), circulation (saving and spending), and a consumer market (the rewards store). For the system to work, it is important to set an exchange rate and clear earning rules—employees will always compare internal points with rubles.

What to Award Currency For

Companies reward tenure, participation in referral programs, creation of internal training, article writing, and conference talks. In some companies, employees receive a basic monthly allowance of points to share with colleagues.

What to Offer in the Store

Besides merchandise, the store can offer non-material benefits such as extra days off, lunch with management, or paid training.

Employees should be involved in deciding what to stock: run surveys before ordering new batches, hold design votes, and organize idea contests. A hybrid approach also matters: some merchandise can be given away for free for events or anniversaries, while some is sold for internal currency. This preserves the value of the items; when merchandise becomes too readily available, it loses its appeal.

How Drivee’s System Works: Currency and Mechanics

The internal currency was named “Dravishki” (DRV). Employees quickly nicknamed it “firewood.” Around the office, you can hear people say “throw me some wood” when colleagues transfer currency to each other. The name became part of the company’s folklore and another source of engagement.

The store is built into the corporate portal. It automatically tracks stock in real time, records orders, and shows statistics for each warehouse. The system itself tracks everything an employee orders.

How Employees Earn Currency

Surveys

Collecting feedback is difficult: people do not like spending time on it when they see no benefit. When Drivee began rewarding surveys with currency, response numbers increased several times over. Eventually, employees developed a habit: after any event, share your impressions.

Referral Program

Recruiting in IT is difficult, and there is often no budget for cash referral bonuses. Drivee chose another approach: if a candidate referred by an employee passes probation, the employee receives internal currency.

More than 15 people have been hired through referrals since the program began.

Employee-Created Content

At launch, the corporate portal needed content, but the HR team did not have time to write everything themselves. The company began rewarding publications with currency. Employees now start their day on the portal, reading news and articles by colleagues.

Promoting the HR Brand

Conference participation takes significant effort: preparation, speaking, and answering questions. The currency helped identify internal experts who now regularly represent the company at external events.

Volunteering

The company believes that every contribution should be recognized—not necessarily with money, but with currency. This makes volunteering more intentional: people see that their effort has not gone unnoticed.

Thank-Yous

The most social element is employees thanking each other for help, wishing colleagues a happy birthday, and showing appreciation for support. Transactions happen within the platform, and everyone’s balance is visible in real time. A culture of gratitude grows, and people begin to notice who helps and how.

Mistakes Made at the Start

Size Range

Drivee ordered a full range of sizes. In practice, S, M, and L were the most popular. Everything larger remained in storage. The company still has 4XL and 5XL items.

How to avoid this: order the main batch in popular sizes and buy nonstandard sizes for specific requests.

Equal Product Distribution Across Offices

Preferences differ from city to city. Products were distributed evenly, which created surpluses in one office and shortages in another. Items had to be moved, costing time and money.

How to avoid this: analyze local preferences and distribute inventory accordingly.

Untested Assortment

Drivee ordered pillows, kitchen sets, and passport covers, but they did not sell. People want wearable items: hoodies, jackets, and shirts. Soft toys and accessories turned out to be unwanted.

How to avoid this: ask employees before placing an order.

Too Much Currency

At the start, currency was awarded for almost everything. People grew accustomed to receiving a reward for any activity, which devalued the system. Some even began asking for currency for ordinary work tasks.

How to avoid this: establish clear rules for awarding currency. Transparency increases the value of the reward.

What Works in Practice: 6 Observations

1. A Photo of a Person Wearing the Merch Sells Better Than a Catalog Shot

At first, the store looked like a conventional product catalog with items on a white background. Drivee then replaced those images with photos of employees. When people see how a hoodie or jacket fits a real colleague, they are more likely to order it. Today, almost every product is accompanied by a photo of someone from the team.

2. Vote on the Assortment Every Six Months

Before each new season, Drivee launches a survey. Employees choose which items and designs they would like. This reduces the risk of ordering something nobody will wear, and people become invested in the outcome.

3. Surprise Boxes Help Clear the Warehouse

When leftover stock accumulated, the company packed it into decorated boxes and listed them as surprise boxes with one condition: the contents were unknown and could not be exchanged. The excitement worked—employees bought up the remaining stock and spent currency that some had left sitting unused.

4. Turn Internal Memes into Merch

Drivee has an inside joke: when someone walks away without locking their computer, colleagues write “donut” in the shared chat. The joke became stickers and later plush donuts.

5. People Prefer High-Quality, Expensive Items

Order data shows that hoodies, jackets, and ceramic mugs sell out instantly. Cheap pens and notebooks do not. People are willing to save longer for a quality item. It is better to release fewer products, but make them the kind people actively seek out.

6. Logistics Underpins Everything

Without a well-designed inventory system, a store turns into chaos. Drivee integrated the store with its corporate portal, which counts stock in real time, records orders automatically, and shows statistics for every warehouse.

The Results

• Portal ER is 50% (a user engagement metric).
• More than 15 employees have been hired through the referral program.
• Store transaction volume is growing. People save currency and participate in activities.
• eNPS and engagement grow year after year. Survey data shows a direct relationship between portal activity and overall satisfaction.

Checklist for Launching a Corporate Store

1. Define three to five goals: engagement, feedback, referrals, content, and employer brand.
2. Survey employees about what they want.
3. Run a pilot with a small group, analyze the results, and scale what works.
4. Establish transparent rules for awarding currency.
5. Use stock and demand analytics.
6. Create separate drops for interest-based clubs.
7. Add surprise boxes and giveaways.
8. Involve employees in choosing the assortment and designs.
9. Turn internal memes and stories into merchandise—it brings people together.

Who We Are and Why We Share HR Tools

We are the HRBOX team. We create a digital HR platform for businesses. For the past seven years, we have helped companies build internal communications, automate routine work, and make employees’ work convenient from day one. Everything we share comes from experience gathered across hundreds of implementations. If you would like to learn more about us, visit our website.

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