Do you know which question every campaign staff meeting has started with in recent months?
“Which region has the best investigation?” “How many people have registered at 2019.vote?” “Whose concert got banned today?”
Not even close. The question ACF staff and campaign headquarters employees ask each other most often is: “When is the store relaunch?”
When the 20!8 campaign launched, a lot of people wanted merchandise with its branding. So we came up with a fundraising store. We started selling printed T-shirts like some cool rock band—except instead of spending the proceeds on parties, we put them into the campaign.
And now, as 2018 draws to a close, it’s time to relaunch the store.
Because we’re perfectionists and the world is far from perfect (especially the manufacturing world, where for some reason every other producer is horrified by a turquoise tag that says “Navalny”), we kept putting this off for a long time. In the process, we managed to saw up several birch logs and cut a kilometer of belt material (for a behind-the-scenes look at the store, check out its Instagram). And now, at last, the time has come.
First, there’s a much wider selection. To the items left over from the campaign days, we’ve added several dozen new ones, and now we have no fewer than three collections (plus a whole lot more). There are sweatshirts, shirts, hats, socks, belts, stationery, wallets, and even duck tattoos. And the products are all very different—see for yourself. Before the relaunch, we conducted a large customer survey and tried to take everyone’s wishes into account. And yes, almost all of our items are made in Russia.
Second, the prices are lower. We cut out middlemen wherever possible to make our products more affordable. We even have a separate section called “Items under 500 rubles” (about US$8 at the time).
And third, at its core this is still the same good old fundraising store. We spend all the money from purchases on building the Beautiful Russia of the Future (a slogan for a better, democratic Russia). By buying T-shirts, tote bags, and phone cases from us, you help campaign offices across the country carry out investigations and fight crooks—while also getting some great-looking things.
One important point: our store is the only official one of its kind. Any other websites selling items with our branding have nothing to do with us, and we receive nothing from those sales.
The updated store is now live at shop.navalny.com. Come take a look and do some shopping.