While our goal is to make everything look seamless to you, we spend quite a bit of time on our end getting your inventory program on boarded. The setup fee allows us to allocate resources company-wide to architect your program, configure administrative controls, and build out your inventory program for deployment.

The Platform Fee covers standard packaging such as polybags and common stock boxes. It does not include unique packaging that is designed for single specific items like poster tubes, very fragile items, electronics, or large items such as barbecues and tents. If you plan to ship lots of odd-shaped items that require unique non-stock packaging, we recommend pre-packaging those items at the time of production.

This covers the technology, support team, and other costs of maintaining your inventory program. It’s waived for the entire quarter if you spend $5,000+ during that quarter, or have spent $100,000 in the prior four quarters.

A SKU is a unique item that is counted separately in inventory. Each size of an apparel item is a separate SKU, because they are available for separate ordering and require their own labeled box on our shelves. For example a t-shirt with small, medium, large, and XL would count as four SKUs. A hat that comes in either blue or grey is two SKUs. However you can have as many small t-shirts as you need, and it’s still only one SKU – imagine a box on our shelves as the SKU and we can fill the box with lots of that same item. If you pre-kit multiple items together, that counts as a single SKU.

You have several options:
1) if you spend more on merchandise, you will be moved into a higher tier with more warehousing included,
2) you can reduce the number of items, or
3) we will invoice you at the end of the quarter for the excess SKUs and pallets.

A pallet is a wooden crate that is 40” x 48” and can be carried by a forklift, where bulk items are often stored up to 5 feet high. As an example, one pallet can store approximately 2,000 t-shirts, 1,500 long sleeve shirts, 1,000 hoodies, or 1,500 water bottles. Our pick shelves are only designed to store 1-2 boxes of an item, so if you send us multiple boxes of an identical item we will move the extras onto a pallet for long term storage. Because up to 5 pallets are included on all tiers, you would need to send us a LOT of extra boxes before exceeding that limit. As noted in other questions, we recommend keeping lower levels of inventory and reordering more often.

Spend amount is based on all purchases of physical product from Kotis, regardless of whether items are sent to our warehouse for your inventory program. It does not include taxes, shipping, or fees from warehousing and fulfill- ment. The Annual spend will be calculated at the time of billing, at the end of each quarter, based on the combined total spend from the prior four quarters. Spend is not prorated for partial years, and does not get backdated if more spend happens later.

We ship over 2,000 packages a day and get great rates that we pass onto you. We do add a 10% markup, which usually still saves you money because of how great our rates are (the markup is standard in our industry). We’re transparent about it so you know exactly what you’re paying for.

In addition, if you select “economy” shipping, we rate shop between all the carriers at the point of shipping to ensure your packages go out via the cheapest option. We continue working with the carriers to find more cost-effective ways of shipping.

No. While some vendors might encourage you to order huge quantities at once for bulk discounts, we recommend keeping lower levels of inventory at any one time and reordering more often to reduce the potential for waste. Buying less up front allows you to pivot based on which items are popular, reduces the impact of rebrands or changes in direction by your leadership, and limits excess pallet fees.

No! The first partial quarter will have no monthly platform fees no matter how much you spend. Additionally, that spend will count towards the first full quarter’s $5,000 threshold for the purpose of the monthly platform fee.