If this is your first time ordering custom merchandise for a big group or event, it can definitely be overwhelming. What type of product is best – a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, or an engraved metal drinking straw? And then, which t-shirt out of the hundreds of options should you go for?

Be sure to take the following factors into account, when making your decision:

• What budget do you have? Are you shooting for a lower price point item, or something higher end?
• If this is a recurring event (like an annual fun run), what were the options last year? Are people expecting the same product? Or does your team offer something new each year?
• Consider the audience, and location of your audience: would they appreciate a fleece 1/4 zip or sweatshirt? Or does a tank top or t-shirt make more sense, if you’re in a hotter climate?
• How are you hoping to customize the item? Depending on the complexity of the design and decoration request, this may also narrow down your options.

To browse some potential product options, we recommend checking out the SanMar catalog.  Don’t pay attention to the prices, as you’ll get much better deals through the AgoraCX bid process (the prices you see there are retail, not bulk, prices).

And, as always, feel free to send any questions over to our team at support@agoracx.com.

First, hopefully you catch this before getting too far into the quote request process, to save you some hassle. If not, you may need to start your quote request over to adjust the requested quantity to accommodate the limit on your card.

Or, if your organization permits, you could switch your payment method over to a purchase order.

If you have any questions about this, please contact support@agoracx.com.

Make sure you select a product category and subcategory at the top of the quote request form.  Once you do, relevant suppliers will appear at the bottom of the form.

Yes!  Fill out the quote request form for your first item.  Then, when you reach the project summary page and before the system prompts you to submit your request, you’ll have the option of adding another product to your project bundle.

You can even submit each item to different suppliers, all while keeping everything under the same project umbrella.  This is especially handy if you need more than one item for the same event, or by the same deadline.

At this point, there’s no way to cancel a quote request after you’ve submitted to your list of suppliers.  But, there are a couple things you can do:

1. Decline offers from suppliers as they come in, so the suppliers know right away that you won’t move forward with their offer.
2. Contact the suppliers and let them know you’re not moving forward with your project.

The first question is: Can I make edits to my quote request after I submit to suppliers?

As in…

• Add new artwork details?
• Change the requested sizes or quantities?
• Change the product brand or color?

Technically, no.  Why?  Editing a quote request could make things really confusing really fast, especially if suppliers respond to your quote before you make your edit.  Then, all within one project bundle, you have supplier offers responding to different versions of your request, which makes tracking and pricing comparisons, etc. pretty difficult.  With that, we opted to lock a quote from the user end once you submit it.

But, there are a couple ways around this:

1. You can contact the suppliers that you’d like to work with, and inform them of the change directly.  They can then submit a new offer version back to you incorporating your changes.
2. You can submit a new quote request, and incorporate your new changes there.

Coming soon!

At this point, there’s no way to re-order an item that you ordered in the past through AgoraCX, so you’ll need to submit a new quote request.  However, we’re hoping roll out a new “cloning” feature soon that will allow you to copy a project and run it again in the future.

Unfortunately, we don’t allow you to select multiple offer variations for the same requested item (you’re limited to one offer per item that you request).  This keeps the process free of complexity in the back end, and in your own user experience.

However, there are some ways around this:

• Before submitting your quote request, create multiple items within your project if you need variations of one item type.  Be sure to provide notes about this in the comments section.
• Before moving forward with the two (or more) offers you want, contact the supplier directly and request that they incorporate those two offers into one and then submit that back to you.
• Submit a new quote request.

Depending on the AgoraCX marketplace, you may need to wait to receive licensing confirmation before finalizing your order.  Once you finalize your order, the supplier will be notified and will then reach out to you with instructions for payment.

You can decline a quote at any point, and doing so won’t involve any extra action steps on your end.  When you do decline a quote, the supplier will immediately be notified via email. This, however, doesn’t lock them out of quoting on your project.  They can still submit another offer version back to you until you select an offer from the supplier that you’d like to work with.

There’s no need to send an invoice to anyone. All records are generated and stored within the AgoraCX system.

If you need to send an invoice for consistency’s sake, you can send your invoice to support@agoracx.com.

How you get paid is actually up to you. You’ll collect the payment directly from the user, and we’ll send you a bill for our 2.5% platform fee once the order has been delivered, or 15 days after the order is finalized in the AgoraCX system, whichever comes first.

How do we know when an order has been finalized?  You tell us!  You’ll need to update your order status to a status that signifies order completion. See this article to learn more.  Once you do so, our team is notified, and the check request process begins.

If you’re a supplier at Towson University, the process for getting paid is a little different.

If you need to change the email associated with your AgoraCX account, please contact support@agoracx.com, and our team will make the update for you.

Yes, but this email won’t be associated with the actual AgoraCX account (as in, you can’t sign in with it). It will only be copied on all system communications.

If you’d like to set this up, please contact support@agoracx.com.

You may receive irrelevant projects from time to time, and that’s because of the way we’ve set up the product category structure in AgoraCX.  Rather than offering a thousand categories to choose from, we’ve boiled down the options to about 20.  This keeps the user experience simple on the buyer side.  Because of that, it’s inevitable to have overlap, especially as buyers try to figure out which category their product request fits under.  So, rather than tightening the categories and having you miss potential project opportunities, we figured we’d rather send you all the relevant projects and some irrelevant, rather than just relevant and have you miss some.

Yes!  We’ll send you updates throughout the project timeline.  Here’s a summary of the types of emails you’ll receive from us:

• When you receive a new quote request to respond to (including a couple reminders if you don’t have a chance to get to it right away)
• Whether or not the buyer accepted or declined your offer
• Whether or not licensing confirmed you can move forward with the project (if this step is included in your particular marketplace)
• When the buyer finalizes the order and is ready for the payment step (this varies by marketplace; read the email for instructions)

Your categories are determined during the site build process.  The data is either pulled directly from the licensing office that the organization has partnered with, or directly from the licensing office.

If you make any changes to your product categories through licensing, or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact support@agoracx.com.

If you’re stuck in a place where the buyer didn’t provide enough information for you to quote accurately, here are some possible solutions:

1. Submit an offer, and provide notes in the “Additional Comments” section detailing where the quote request info was lacking, where you made some suggestions, and how you approached the offer.
2. Take advantage of the fact that you can submit multiple offer variations, and submit a couple of your best guesses.
3. Contact the buyer directly and ask for clarification before submitting an offer.  Depending on how that conversation goes, you may want to ask the buyer to submit a new quote request.
4. Or, a combination of all of the above.

No.  Once you submit a quote (or an offer), those details are locked in.  However, if the buyer hasn’t selected an offer to move forward with yet, then you can submit a whole new offer version back with the updates you need to make.  Make sure you provide a note to the buyer in the comments section.

If the organization in question is currently partnering with a licensing agency, then no, it doesn’t count.  You will still need to submit the project through the respective portal for official approval.  The confirmation step just grants licensing another layer of accountability over projects, but it doesn’t replace your current official approval process.

If the organization is independently licensed, then confirmation in AgoraCX could very well count as official approval.  You will have to confirm that with the licensing department.

If you’d like to add a supplier to the directory, please send the following information to the AgoraCX support team at support@agoracx.com, and we’ll set it up for you:

1. Supplier name
2. First and last name of the supplier rep, or your main contact there
3. Email address
4. Mailing address (for check deliveries)
5. Approved category structure

At this point, suppliers do not have access to their approved categories within the system. If you’d like to double-check the categories assigned to a supplier, or if you’d like to make changes, please contact support@agoracx.com.

You can customize any and all of the following:

1. Site logo
2. Site photo (visible to users on the home screen after signing in)
3. Custom text right under the site photo
4. Content under the “Trademark FAQ’s” tab in the navigation bar.
5. Contact info featured in the footer
6. Site colors: footer, navigation bar, links, hover colors, etc. etc.
7. Automated fee calculations, to accommodate your organization’s royalties

If you’d like to make any changes to the elements listed, please contact support@agoracxmp.com.

You can access this information in your downloadable supplier report.  Column O displays the Activation Date.  If it’s blank, they haven’t activated yet.

Check out this article to see how to download the list.