Frequently asked questions.

MPower Promo is a purpose-built commerce and workflow platform for the promotional products industry. It connects distributors, suppliers, decorators, and end customers through a single ecosystem covering product data, store management, order flow, purchasing, fulfillment, and analytics — so you don’t need to stitch together separate systems for each.

Generic platforms such as Shopify or BigCommerce are not built for promotional products. MPower ships natively with:

• Complex B2B pricing: quantity breaks, customer-specific pricing, and margin management
• Multi-location, multi-color decoration workflows
• PromoStandards integration for real-time supplier inventory and pricing
• Company store functionality with approval workflows and budget controls
• Sample ordering, rush production options, and virtual proofing
• White-label storefronts that look 100% like your brand

MPower serves four types of participants:

A distributor is the top-level account in MPower. Every user, order, store, product, and B2B company account belongs to one distributor, and all data is isolated per distributor — nothing crosses between accounts.

Distributors log into the MPower App Dashboard to:

1. Create and configure storefronts for different brands, programs, or clients.
2. Manage products, pricing, categories, and visibility rules per store.
3. Set up shipping, tax, checkout questions, and payment methods.
4. Manage customer users, departments, budgets, and approval chains.
5. Track orders and route purchase orders to suppliers and decorators.
6. Create presentations and quotes.
7. Access analytics, reports, and exports.

A distributor commonly runs many stores at once, each tailored to a different client or program.

A store is a fully branded, customer-facing e-commerce website. Each store is independent and has its own products and pricing, categories and navigation, shipping methods and tax rules, checkout settings and custom questions, customer accounts and roles, and allowances, credits, and approval chains.

Changes to one store do not affect any other store. This lets a single distributor run many programs with full separation and control.

Suppliers provide the underlying products and often fulfill orders. In MPower they share product data through PromoStandards or custom integrations, receive purchase orders generated automatically when customers check out, confirm availability and ship items, and return tracking information and invoices.

MPower normalizes supplier data so distributors can use it consistently across all stores. Suppliers that support PromoStandards provide real-time inventory and pricing; vendors without PromoStandards can still be represented using custom products or manual line items, with purchase orders and invoices managed internally.

Decorators are production partners who apply imprints, embroidery, engraving, patches, and other decorations. MPower gives decorators purchase order details including artwork and imprint instructions, virtual proofs and artwork approval workflows, production status tracking, and shipment tools. Decorator users log into the Artist portal and see only the purchase orders and artwork queues assigned to them.

Customers access only the store storefront — a branded website at your custom URL. From there they can browse a curated catalog with store-specific pricing, place orders (with or without an approval step), track shipments, download invoices or artwork files, and manage allowances and credits if the store is configured for them.

Customer accounts are tied to a specific store. Customers never see the distributor’s App Dashboard or any store configuration settings.

1. Products enter MPower — through PromoStandards supplier feeds, manual product creation, or copy/import from another store.
2. Distributors configure stores — products are assigned to stores with pricing, categories, decoration rules, and visibility settings.
3. Customers browse and order — the storefront shows store-specific pricing, live inventory where enabled, and any checkout rules you’ve set.
4. An order is created — MPower checks availability, enforces budgets and approvals, and records the order.
5. The order generates purchase orders — line items are routed to the correct supplier or decorator based on your routing rules.
6. Suppliers and decorators fulfill — they ship items and send tracking back to MPower.
7. Everyone sees the status — customers track their order in the storefront; distributor staff see orders, purchase orders, and reports in the App Dashboard.

Yes. Each store can have its own supplier mix, product catalog, visibility rules, and pricing. The same product can carry different sell prices, margin rules, or category placements depending on which store it appears in.

For marketing and content teams, MPower includes a drag-and-drop page builder with a library of pre-built components (carousels, grids, forms, and more), custom CSS support, SEO controls, and content management tools.

For business logic, distributors can configure custom pricing rules, order routing, approval workflows, checkout reference fields, and conditional visibility — without writing code.

Yes. Storefronts are fully responsive and designed for phones, tablets, and desktops. Touch navigation, product selection, and checkout are all optimized for mobile.

MPower has two layers of access control:

• Distributor user roles — control what a staff member can do inside the App Dashboard (configure stores, manage orders, access reports, and so on).
• Store customer roles — control what a customer can do inside a specific store’s storefront (place orders, approve others’ orders, view reports, manage allowances).

Only distributor App users can change store configuration such as the product catalog, pricing, shipping, tax, and checkout settings. Customer roles grant storefront features within a single store but cannot touch store settings.

Staff roles are configurable per distributor. Common capability profiles include full administrator, manager/executive, sales and outside sales, sales administrator, accounting, store manager (who can also sign in as a customer to troubleshoot), and artist/artist admin for artwork workflows.

The exact role names in your dashboard depend on how your account is configured — your account manager can review or adjust role definitions with you.

A customer store admin is a customer with additional permissions inside one store. They can typically view, invite, deactivate, and assign roles for other customers in that store; view and adjust allowance balances; run and export store-level reports; and review and approve or reject orders where approval workflows are enabled.

They cannot change the product catalog, pricing, shipping methods, tax rules, or checkout settings — those stay with distributor staff.

Supplier users log into the Supplier portal to view and process purchase orders, manage other supplier users, and manage production calendars and queues. Decorator users log into the Artist portal to handle artwork, virtual proofs, and visual assets. Both are limited to their own account and can never see other distributors’ stores, orders, or configurations.

Yes. Store access is controlled through user roles in the App Dashboard: assign the staff member a role scoped to the specific store and remove broader roles that grant access to other stores. Your account manager can walk through the exact steps for your role configuration.

Yes. MPower is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. Key security commitments include:

• SOC 2 certified — an independent auditor has verified MPower’s security, availability, and confidentiality controls. See mpowerpromo.com/compliance.
• Payment card security — card numbers are never stored on MPower servers; all card transactions are tokenized.
• Data encryption — data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3).
• Role-based access controls with full audit logging.
• Regular third-party security audits and penetration testing.
• 99.9% uptime target with redundant infrastructure and automatic failover.
• Automated backups every 6 hours with point-in-time recovery.

Credit card numbers never touch MPower servers — tokenization handles all card data through PCI-compliant payment processing. 3-D Secure authentication is supported for fraud prevention, and ACH / eCheck payments are supported with bank-level encryption. The architecture is designed to minimize your PCI compliance burden.

MPower targets 99.9% uptime with redundant infrastructure across multiple AWS availability zones. Automatic failover to backup systems can occur in under 60 seconds, the target for full restoration is under 4 hours, and the maximum data loss window is under 1 hour. A 24/7 monitoring and incident response team is on call, and live status is published at status.mpowerpromo.com.

• Shipping: UPS, FedEx, USPS (carrier-calculated rates and label generation), ShipStation.
• Payments: Stripe credit card processing, plus house accounts and invoice terms (Net 30, Net 45, and similar) for B2B customers.
• PromoStandards: full support — Product Data, Inventory, Media Content, and Order Status services.
• Accounting: Xero and QuickBooks Online.
• Marketing and CRM: HubSpot company sync, Klaviyo, Google Analytics, Zapier.
• Tax: configurable state-level rules; third-party tax service integration available.
• Single Sign-On: SAML, OAuth 2.0, Active Directory.
• API access: REST APIs for custom integrations — see apis.mpowerpromo.com.

Browse the full list at Integrations.

Yes. For vendors without a PromoStandards integration, you create custom products or manual line items in MPower to represent what the customer is ordering, then place the actual purchase with that vendor outside MPower. You can still create internal purchase orders and attach vendor invoices so costs, margins, and customer-facing invoices stay accurate.

Yes. MPower is a two-sided platform. While distributors use MPower to build stores and manage orders, suppliers use it to distribute product data to hundreds of distributors and decorators, host PromoStandards-compliant feeds without managing IT infrastructure, advertise products across the MPower distributor network, build supplier websites, and streamline order fulfillment through automated integrations.

MPower uses a “sync once, reach everywhere” model:

1. Upload your product catalog to MPower once — self-managed or handled by the MPower data team.
2. MPower validates and formats all data to PromoStandards standards.
3. Unlimited distributors access your products through the PromoStandards API — no per-distributor fees or custom connections.
4. Update your catalog in one place; changes reflect across all connected distributors automatically.

• Product Data Service — listings with specifications, pricing, quantity breaks, categories, and configurations.
• Inventory Service — real-time stock levels by part, color, and size; lead times and manufacturing schedules.
• Media Content Service — product images, lifestyle and decoration images, videos, and 3D assets.
• Order Status Service — order acknowledgment, production status, and shipment tracking.

MPower handles the technical complexity of compliance, feed hosting, validation, and monitoring.

Yes. MPower offers featured product placements on distributor storefronts, category page sponsorships, search result priority placement, banner ads in distributor admin panels, sponsored emails to the distributor network, and targeted advertising by distributor size, category focus, or region — with full impression, click, and conversion analytics. Learn more at Supplier Advertising.

Yes. Suppliers can launch branded websites using the same platform distributors use — product pages, lead generation forms, SEO optimization, and mobile-responsive design, with no per-page or per-product fees. See Supplier Websites.

1. Initial consultation (about 30 minutes) — discuss your current data format and distributor reach goals.
2. Data assessment (about 1 week) — MPower reviews your existing product data and identifies gaps.
3. Data loading (2–4 weeks) — products are loaded, validated for PromoStandards compliance, and quality-checked.
4. Go live (about 1 week) — API endpoints activated, distributor access enabled, analytics configured.

Total time from start to live is typically 4–6 weeks. Contact [email protected].

MPower uses a monthly or annual subscription based on your feature set and order volume. There are no transaction fees, no per-product charges, no per-order charges, and no separate infrastructure costs — hosting, platform updates, and standard support are included. See Pricing or contact us for a proposal tailored to your configuration and volume.

Yes. Launch with a single store, prove results, and add more stores as your business grows. No architectural changes are required to expand — all stores run on the same platform from the start.

• Standard implementation: 4–6 weeks from kickoff to launch, covering discovery, design and branding, catalog setup, integration configuration, testing, and launch support.
• Complex implementation: 8–12 weeks for extensive customization.
• Rush implementation: 2–3 weeks for urgent launches.

Average response time is under 6 hours during business hours, across email, phone, chat, and a ticket system. You also get a dedicated account manager for strategic guidance, role-specific training, an on-demand video library, and detailed documentation.

Role-specific training sessions for store administrators, marketing and content teams, support staff, and advanced users covering integrations and analytics — plus on-demand video training, documentation, and regular office hours for questions.

Within the first year, typical results include a 3–5x increase in online order volume, 40–60% reduction in order processing time, 25–35% increase in average order value, 70–80% reduction in phone and email orders, and 50–70% faster quote generation.