Pre-buying inventory for every size and color of every SKU is expensive and often wasteful. An on-demand merch store flips the model: items are produced only after an employee or department places an order.
Where it works well
Distributed teams, frequent new-hire cohorts, and budget-controlled departmental ordering are the strongest use cases. SSO login and per-department spend limits keep things auditable for finance.
Where it does not
For a single large event with a hard deadline, bulk pre-production is usually faster and cheaper per unit than on-demand fulfillment, since on-demand carries a per-unit production premium.