How to Set Up a Microsite for Corporate Gifting or a Tournament

Whether you work at a company and want to set up an ecommerce site to offer branded corporate apparel for a holiday party, or a PGA Professional and pro shop buyer who wants to set one up for a tournament or event, here is the path.

1. Create a free RepSpark account.
2. Go to Community.
3. Filter on Microsites Enabled.
4. Request access to the brand whose gear you want.
5. Email that brand's general contact address at the same time so they know your request is coming and what it is for.

The brand builds and controls the microsite. Your job is to get connected to the right brand and give them a clear brief.

The full version

First, know who does what

This is the part most people get backwards, so it is worth being clear up front.

You do not build the microsite. The brand does.

A microsite is a custom storefront a brand creates inside RepSpark, separate from their main wholesale site, for a specific event, campaign, or customer group. The brand keeps central control over product data, pricing, and fulfillment, and gives you a dedicated place for your people to shop.

So the goal of these steps is not to build anything. It is to reach a brand that offers microsites and give them enough information to spin one up for you quickly.

Step 1. Create your RepSpark account

Sign up for an account at repspark.com. It is free to create and it is what lets you browse the Community and request brand access.

Use your company email address rather than a personal one. Brands approving access requests want to see who you actually work for.

Step 2. Go to Community

Community is where brands on the RepSpark platform are discoverable. This is where you find who you can work with rather than guessing and cold emailing.

Step 3. Filter on Microsites Enabled

Not every brand offers microsites. Use the Microsites Enabled filter so you are only looking at brands set up to do exactly what you need.

This one step saves the most time. Without it you will end up requesting access from brands that cannot help you, then waiting on replies that go nowhere.

Step 4. Request access to the brand you want

Once you have found the brand whose gear you want to offer, submit an access request.

Approval is up to the brand, not RepSpark. That is by design, since brands manage their own relationships and decide who represents their product.

Step 5. Email the brand directly at the same time

Do not just submit the request and wait. Send a short note to the brand's general contact email in parallel.

An access request on its own is a name in a queue. An email tells them who you are, what you want, and how big it is, which is usually what moves it to the top of the pile.

Step 6. Give the brand a clear brief

Whether by email or on your first call, come with these answers ready. Brands can move fast when they have them and slowly when they do not.

What the occasion is. Holiday corporate gifting, a member-guest tournament, a client event, an employee milestone program.

How many people will shop. A rough headcount is fine. It drives inventory planning and package limits.

Your budget per person, or your total budget. Say whether the company is paying or whether individuals pay for themselves. This determines how checkout gets configured.

Your delivery date. Work backward from when people need the product in hand, not when the site opens.

Whether you want your logo on it. Decoration adds production time and needs artwork. If yes, have your logo file ready in a usable format.

Whether you want shoppers to see prices. Brands can show or hide retail and wholesale pricing depending on how you want the program to feel.

What a brand can configure for you

It helps to know what is possible before you ask, so here is what microsites support.

Storefront settings can show or hide retail or wholesale pricing, show or hide product descriptions, and carry your own ordering instructions.

Checkout can accept credit card payments directly from the shopper through RepSpark Pay, and can be set to a flat rate shipping amount.

Products can be bundled into packages with ordering limits based on either dollar value or number of units, so nobody blows the budget.

Orders can be split automatically based on whether an item needs decoration, which keeps logoed and blank product moving on the right timelines.

Users can be invited in bulk, and the brand can see who has been invited, who is pending, and who is active.

If this is for a tournament

Same path, with two differences.

Tell the brand your event date first, not last. Tournament merchandise has a hard deadline and no second chance, so the date drives everything else.

Ask about on-site versus pre-order. Some programs run entirely ahead of the event with delivery to the course, and some run alongside it. The brand will have a recommendation based on what has worked for their other events.

On timing

Start earlier than feels necessary, especially for holiday gifting.

The sequence is account, access approval, brand conversation, site build, invitations, shopping window, decoration production, and shipping. Each step is short and there are a lot of them.

Ask the brand for their order cutoff date in the first conversation and build your plan backward from it.

Why brands do this

If you are wondering whether brands actually want this business, they do.

Straight Down ran more than 70 microsites in 2023 and averaged over $11,000 in revenue per event. Robert Ogden said microsites "allowed us to keep serving customers even when golf shops were closed." Olu-Kai uses them for corporate gifting specifically, with Hillary Wiebe describing them as "a way for us to capture more business and keep relationships direct."

You are not asking for a favor. You are bringing them a program they are already set up to run.

Questions

If you get stuck on the account or Community side, contact RepSpark. If you get stuck on product, pricing, or timing, that is a conversation with the brand.