You can build a basket of products on hotline.co.uk and share it with a colleague by email. They open one link and see everything you selected, with the quantities and the prices, exactly as it was at the point you sent it. It replaces the version of this job where you paste 8 product links into an email and hope everybody opens the right ones.

Merchandise decisions almost never involve one person. Somebody researches the options, somebody else has to like them, and quite often a third person controls the budget. All three need to see the same list, and until now the only way to give it to them was a wall of links and a covering note explaining which was which.

How sharing a basket works Build your selection the way you normally would. Add the products you're considering, set the quantities you want, and when you've got something worth showing somebody, share the basket by email.

Your colleague opens the link and sees the whole selection on one page. They don't have to piece together which products go with which quantities, and they don't have to open eight tabs to see what you're proposing to spend.

Why the shared version is a snapshot The basket your colleague opens is what you sent, rather than whatever you've done to your own basket since. If you carry on browsing afterwards and swap two products, their link still shows the selection you shared.

That's deliberate, and it's the part worth understanding. If you're asking somebody to approve a spend, they need to approve a fixed list. A basket that quietly changed underneath them would make the approval meaningless, and it would make the person who gave it look careless when the invoice came in different.

If you do change your mind, share the basket again. They'll get the new version and can approve that instead.

Where it fits in an approval process Most merchandise sign-off runs through three steps. Somebody shortlists. A manager approves the choice. Somebody in finance approves the money.

A shared basket gives the second and third of those people one link with the products, the quantities and the prices in front of them, which is usually all they need in order to say yes. There's no reconstructing the shortlist from an email thread, and no ambiguity about which of the four bottles you meant.

If the sticking point is what it'll look like rather than what it costs, request a free Visual Proof and send that alongside the basket. Start building from the full product range whenever you're ready. Proofs come back within 20 minutes during working hours and they show the product with your actual logo on it, which tends to end the conversation faster than a description does.

Name your approver before you send If your organisation buys merchandise regularly, it's worth agreeing in advance who approves what. Approvals hold up more merchandise orders than production does. A proof or a basket sits in somebody's inbox for four days while everybody assumes somebody else is looking at it, and the deadline moves by four days.

Name the approver before you send, and tell them it's coming.

Frequently asked questions Can I share a basket of promotional products with a colleague? Yes. Build your selection on hotline.co.uk and share it by email. Your colleague opens one link and sees every product you chose, with the quantities and the prices.

If I change my basket after sharing it, does the shared version update? No. The shared basket is a snapshot of your selection at the moment you sent it, so the person reviewing sees exactly what you sent rather than something that's changed since. Share it again to send an updated version.

Why doesn't the shared basket update automatically? Because if you're asking somebody to approve a spend, they need to approve a fixed list. A basket that changed underneath them would make the approval meaningless and would make the invoice come as a surprise.

What does the person I share with actually see? The products you selected, the quantities you set and the prices, all on one page, as the basket stood when you sent it.

How do I get merchandise approved internally without a lot of back and forth? Build one basket, share it as a single link, and name the approver before you send it. If the question is what it'll look like rather than what it costs, send a free Visual Proof alongside it.

Can I share a basket with more than one person? Yes. Share it with whoever needs to see it, which for most organisations means the person choosing and the person holding the budget.

Can I still change my basket after sharing it? Yes. Your own basket carries on as normal and you can keep editing it. The version you shared stays as it was, so nobody is approving a moving target.

What's the best way to handle merchandise approval across a team? Agree who approves what before you start, build one basket rather than several, and share it as a single link. Approvals hold up more merchandise orders than production does, so naming the approver in advance is the cheapest time you'll save.