This St. Cloud-Area Kwik Trip Store is a Test Market for the Company

When your company's brand ends up on a tee shirt or a mug, you know you're kind of a big deal.

But when your customers plop down their hard-earned money to buy -- and proudly use -- your socks, tumblers, baby onesies and plushie cows, too -- well, that's just next-level.

And yet, Wisconsin-based Kwik Trip -- the convenience store chain extraordinaire -- has tapped into an at-times rabid fanbase of loyal customers to sell its company merchandise.

For the most part, that merch has been only available on the Kwik Trip Merch website.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: Need a Unique Gift? Kwik Trip Rolls Out This Year’s Holiday Merch

But Kwik Trip is dipping its toe into another natural sales pond -- its own brick-and-mortar stores.

The Kwik Trip fan-base is loyal.

Ben Leibl is a media spokesman for Kwik Trip. He says interest in Kwik Trip merchandise has been "pretty serious." And he says the company's thankful for the big fan interest in the brand and their merchandise line.

For example, right now, you can shop for hats, tee shirts, sweatshirts, drinkware, bags, towels, umbrellas -- even pickleball paddles.

And that's just the first page of the merch website.

Now, we don't know how much branded merchandise Kwik Trip is selling. But consider this:

• If you're a big chain, you don't produce a huge line of products that don't sell.
• You don't keep doing it if doesn't work.
• And you don't expand those sales unless it's worth your time.

Kwik Trip is now testing in-store merchandise stands to continue to spread the KT brand.

Stocked in a compact red wire stand near the side entrance of the Highway 10 Truckstop Kwik Trip store in St. Cloud is merch. A bunch of it, too.

Take a peek at what's in the merch stand.

Everything from white tee-shirts emblazoned with the Kwik Trip logo...

...to lanyards and stickers...

...and bottle opener keychains.

Fancy embossed red socks...

...to trucker hats...

...to dairy cow plushies decked out in their own red Kwik Trip tee shirts.

Kwik Trip's Ben Leibl says the branded products are available at only a few different stores at this point. Those stores are acting as test markets to see what the appetite may be for this way to get a curated offering of Kwik Trip merch.

It's all about instant gratification these days, isn't it?

Now if you're like me, browsing a website is one thing. You can peruse gift ideas and window shop.

But when that cute plush toy is right there, on a shelf in front of me, ready to take home -- well, the laws of instant gratification often kick in. (Along with a coffee refill and some chicken tenders...)

It’ll be interesting to see what products are the best in-store sellers on Highway 10 — and whether merch stands become as common as glazers and gas pumps.

Because when your brand loyalty runs this deep, even a stuffed cow plushie can become a top seller.

Thanks for tagging along — and hey, see ya next time.