How Ditto scaled campus brand marketing with a seamless merch process

Ditto is one of the fastest-growing organic apps on college campuses, powered by close-friend sharing and a strong campus ambassador network. To support their growth and brand visibility, the Ditto team needed merch to give out to students at campus events and activities.

As those on-campus programs scaled, the team started rethinking how they sourced merch as a fast-moving startup.

What Ditto was looking for

As Ditto grew, merch became an important part of their brand and growth strategy. However, working with traditional merch vendors often meant slow timelines and too much hands-on coordination.

Lillie Sun, Co-founder at Ditto, explains:

“With other companies, it took multiple days of communicating back and forth to get quotes, get designs, coordinate with the factory, negotiate over shipping, and it’s not fully transparent.”

For a fast-moving startup, this made executing merch harder and more time-consuming than it needed to be. Ditto wanted a way to go from idea to finished product without turning sourcing into a project of its own.

Specifically, they were looking for a solution that could:

• Go from idea to production fast for time-sensitive campus events
• Provide clear pricing and production details upfront
• Reduce manual coordination and back-and-forth communication
• Provide cost-effective merch options
• Bring their dream product to life, down to the smallest details

They had already tried working with traditional merch suppliers, but the process required days of emails just to reach a decision. Ditto wanted merch sourcing to feel simple and easy, instead of a separate project they had to manage.

Why Ditto chose Wayo to be its merch partner

When Ditto compared different merch vendors, the main difference came down to how much of the process was available upfront. With traditional suppliers, the team had to wait through long email threads to get quotes, mockups, and shipping details – slowing down what should have been a fast process.

With Wayo, those details were accessible from the start, making it easier to move forward without delay, removing the need for constant back-and-forth.

Wayo was also consistently cost-effective. In every comparison Ditto ran, Wayo matched or beat competitor pricing, so the team didn’t have to trade speed for budget.

But what stood out most was how easy it was for the Ditto team to fully bring their ideas to life. Instead of being limited to standard options, they could customize their merch down to the smallest details – customizing down to the cap lid and even the individual stitch colors. This gave the team the flexibility to create merch that deeply reflected their brand, rather than settling for something generic.

Last but not least, Wayo dramatically reduced the amount of work Ditto had to manage internally. Instead of coordinating across vendors, factories, and shipping partners, the team could handle merch in one place and keep their focus on running campus programs.

The result: Cool campus merch loved by students

Ditto worked with Wayo to produce merch for campus events and ambassador activations, including:

• 400 Handheld mini-fan/phone holder
• 400 fully custom trucker hats with four design variations
• 300 custom t-shirts
• 800 fully custom sticky notes

These products resonated strongly with students and became part of Ditto’s on-campus identity, helping reinforce brand presence at events and across campus communities.

From sourcing to delivery, Wayo handled the full merch process, giving the Ditto team a faster, more seamless way to support campus growth without taking time away from building their product.

What’s next

As Ditto continues expanding its presence on college campuses, the team plans to keep using Wayo for future merch needs to support events and ambassador programs. With the full flexibility provided by Wayo, the Ditto team is excited to experiment with different products, designs, and formats as their brand evolves on campus.

Lillie is especially excited about Wayo’s upcoming AI initiatives focused on supply chain and procurement, which aim to make sourcing fully custom products even faster and more cost-effective.

With a simpler, more flexible merch process in place, Ditto can keep focusing on growing their app and community, with the Wayo team supporting their on-campus presence behind the scenes.