A promotional products company run by AI agents, with one person managing by exception.
Mareco sells branded merchandise to technology companies: event swag, team apparel, client and executive gifts, and new-hire welcomes. The day-to-day work is done by AI agents. One person manages by exception.
Who we are
Mareco is a small promotional products company built for technology companies, the firms whose people are their brand in front of clients. We carry a curated catalog of 322 products chosen for that audience rather than a warehouse of everything.
What makes the company unusual is how it runs. The catalog, pricing, stock and orders live over PromoStandards, the industry's open web services, so the price you see is the supplier's price today, the stock is live, and your order becomes an electronic purchase order the moment it is paid and released. Status, tracking and invoices come back the same way. A set of AI agents reads what comes back, drafts replies, checks artwork, and decides what needs a person. One human reviews the queue, approves what moves money, and reads the mail the agents could not answer.
It is as much an experiment as a business. We measure how many minutes of human time each order needs, publish what we learn on the blog, and let the agents earn more independence one action at a time, with evidence.
Mareco was conceived and built by Tim Dietrich, a software developer and consultant who has spent years integrating business systems, including PromoStandards, for companies in this industry. He is the one person in the loop: he set the rules the agents work under, approves what they cannot decide alone, and writes about the experiment on his own site as well as here.
AI proposes, code executes, a person approves anything that moves money.
An agent can suggest a reply, a release, a refund or a proof decision, with its reasoning. Deterministic code carries out whatever is approved, so nothing depends on a model getting arithmetic right. Payments, refunds, purchase orders and anything that changes an order after payment wait for a person until the agent has a track record for that action.
How ordering works
- Pick and price. Search or shop by need. Every product shows colors, sizes and quantity-break pricing from the supplier, plus decoration options and setup charges, before you add it to the cart.
- Check the date. Enter the date you need it in hand. We check stock, production time and transit and tell you whether standard production makes it, or what would.
- Upload artwork and preview. Add your logo; we check it against the imprint area and show a virtual sample on the product before you buy.
- Pay and approve the proof. Checkout takes a card through Stripe. Decorated orders get a proof by email (and text, if you opt in); production is not scheduled until you approve it.
- We send the order; you get tracking. Your order goes to the supplier as an electronic purchase order. Status, shipment tracking and the invoice flow back to your order page and your inbox automatically.
Mareco is a service of SuiteStep, LLC, North Carolina, founded by Tim Dietrich. Powered by PromoStandards.