Want to create between souvenir or merchandise for your business or brands? Well, let’s see the difference between the two and choose wisely!
One thing to note, both are one of Promotional Item for your business.
The most striking difference between souvenirs and merchandise is in their meaning, but because the end result of the activities carried out is almost the same, sometimes people misinterpret it. If we look more deeply, the differences that we can find are actually very diverse, including the functions or benefits felt by the recipient of the goods.
What is a Souvenir?
Souvenirs are consumption activities that are consciously carried out by someone to buy a product he likes when attending an event or being in a new environment.
For example, if you are in Japan, you will buy souvenirs or Japanese products as a souvenir. Or when you attend an idol singer’s concert, you will buy souvenirs sold by the organizers as a personal collection.
What is Merchandise?
While what is meant by merchandise is receiving goods for free as a form of promotion from the organizer of an event. For example, when you attend a magazine exhibition A, at the end of the event you will receive the latest magazines or posters without spending any money at all.
As a result, the merchandise received is not always treated as well as souvenirs. If you don’t like it, it’s not difficult for the recipient of the merchandise to auction it off or give the product he received to someone else.
3 Differences between Souvenirs and Merchandise
In order to better understand the difference between souvenirs and merchandise, it is better if you read to the following discussion:
Function
In some cases, merchandise and souvenirs actually have many similar functions or benefits, especially when viewed from the point of view of the organizers, namely as product marketing. But when viewed from the perspective of the recipient or consumer, souvenirs are more personal than merchandise. Because souvenir buyers generally can choose goods according to their own preferences.
Consumers’ emotional attachment to souvenirs is much greater, some people even compete with each other to collect as many souvenirs as possible. For example, when you really like South Korea and then vacation in that country, at the end of the tour you will buy many souvenirs that symbolize South Korea as a symbol of experience.
Embodiment of Goods
Broadly speaking, souvenirs and merchandise are determined based on the purpose of the activities carried out by the event organizers. However, because the consumption of souvenir goods is not limited to certain events, the manifestation of the goods is much more diverse.
For example, when you go to Morocco, the souvenirs you can get are unique and most popular items in that country. Meanwhile, between Morocco and Brazil it could be popularizing different souvenirs.
Meanwhile, if you attend a music concert, the merchandise offered is always the same even if the concert is being held in Japan or China.
The money spent
Souvenirs on the one hand are more consumptive in nature, so the funds that need to be spent are much larger than merchandise. The more souvenirs you want to get or collect, the more budget you need.
Meanwhile, the funds spent to obtain merchandise are funds to enter an event. If you attend a fan meeting for example, there is an entrance ticket that you have to pay dearly.
Bottom Line
Those are some of the differences between souvenirs and merchandise, hopefully they can be positive input so you don’t continue to misunderstand their meaning. And as a reference for companies or SMEs, if you need merchandise to support promotional activities, please contact MK Printing Bali as a service for making quality merchandise and souvenirs.