Posts Tagged ‘Promotional Products’

Read About Why Buying Promotional Promotional Merchandise In The Far East May Not Be Right For Some Companies

With the advent of the internet the buying of Promotional Merchandise direct from China has become a much easier process than before. Goods that range from promotional clothing such as printed T-shirts or embroidered polo shirts are now seemingly within easy reach. Electrical items that could include clocks or calculators, cheap printed pens and thousands of other promotional products now sit waiting for you to just click a button and buy. And it’s not just China, India is a great source of leather conference folders or promotional wallets. Vietnam make amazing promotional jackets and if you want to go really crazy you can even buy promotional bottled water from Indonesia now.

Is buying Promotional Merchandise in the Far East as simple as that? Is putting a search phrase into Google the next time you need something all you have to do to get a whole new range of suppliers? The fact is it is not, this is a not a simple process and many people have learned that lesson the hard way by losing lots of money, trading in the Far East requires specialist knowledge and experience. The following true story should be a salutatory lesson.

This true story is about a very cocky young procurement professional who joined a long established promotional merchandise company that had been trading in the Far East for many years and doing so successfully. They prided themselves in taking their time to get communications right and apart from the odd natural disasters such as flood and famine they usually got what they ordered on time. The new procurement man refused to take any advice form people with much more experience, in fact he told them that they could learn from him how to make some considerable reductions in cost.

His first order was for 350,000 watches for a promotion run by an oil company. The senior promotional items buyer at the company offered him advice on who to buy from but he informed him that he had a better factory. The watches were duly delivered and looked great, everyone in the company felt that maybe they were wrong and the guy was really good.

The consignment duly arrived, a few watches were tested to make sure they worked and the shipment was sent to the client. Everything seemed to be just fine until a few days after the promotion started calls about the watches not working started to come in. People claimed that just a day after they activated the watches by inserting the battery they just stopped ticking. Our arrogant buyer looked extremely worried and contacted the manufacturer. Another buyer who was working in the office at the time he made the call said that his face drained of all colour when he realised what had happened. His poor communication had resulted in him ordering a 24 hour digital watch with a 24 hour battery. You can rest assured that this particular promotional merchandise company got rid of him fast.

That example was just one of thousand of things that can go wrong if you choose to deal direct with Chinese manufacturers. One of the big challenges with buying Promotional Items is that they are often purchased to a particular promotion. If the printed T-shirts or embroidered polo shirts that you ordered are emblazoned with the date and details of the event then when they arrive late they may as well be used as dishcloths. Image having the branded promotional bottled water and leather conference folders arrive days after the convention is over? It does not bear thinking about.

Careful communications is essential if you do decide to go ahead and buy in the Far East. In fact why not ask a promotional merchandise supplier to take the stress out of your hands. The costs may be a bit higher but it’s better than losing your job like the guy in the story above.

Discover Why Promotional Promotional Merchandise Programmes May Not Be Right For Every Company

Companies who consider using Promotional Merchandise programmes are usually those looking for a single source solution for their Promotional Products or other advertising giveaways. The number of companies in the UK that can provide this service can be counted on the fingers of one hand and it’s important that you get all of them to quote for you. The advantages of such a programme are many but it should not be looked at if cost savings are your major objective.

An experienced provider of Promotional Merchandise programmes will be able to let you know very quickly if your company would benefit in terms of time and cost savings by distributing your Promotional Items in such a manner. Not all companies have the right set up for this initiative so please check this out first before you go to the trouble of creating a lot of work for yourself. This is particularly relevant if you are looking to do an on-line tender for the work. Winston Churchill said if you fail to plan then you plan to fail and it’s true, you must go into such a programme with your eyes wide open. Your potential supplier must be able to demonstrate experience in the area especially in Promotional clothing which is almost certainly going to form part of the programme.

The amount of Promotional Merchandise you buy must be high enough to make all the effort of setting up a Promotional Merchandise programme so you need to ask yourself if that figure justifies all the work. Next you need to be sure you are not just running a couple of different products. Finally how many distribution points will you be shipping your Business Gifts to? If you are using just a handful of products and are sending them to a couple of places then stop now and don’t waste any more time. Unless you have at least 10 products and turn over in excess of 25,000 then this is not the route for you.

You simply cannot run such a Promotional Merchandise programme without a website because it is an absolutely vital element. Any potential supplier that cannot provide a free, well designed and built website should not be used, they should shoulder the cost of this themselves and not charge you for it. The ongoing updating and marketing of the site is an essential element of a successful programme.

If your supplier can’t offer on-line stock control and you run out of Promotional Items in the first few days then your whole project is dead in the water before it’s hardly begun. If you do nothing else you must visit each and every potential supplier at their place of work and see how they run their own business and how their staff treat you. Anybody can set themselves up as a supplier of Promotional Items these days by creating a website and making it look as if they are a massive outfit when in fact they operate from a shoe box under the stairs. Lastly but most importantly ask them for a list of satisfied clients, if they can’t provide one then wave goodbye and don’t look back.

Promotional Teddy Bears Make Great Promotional Gifts

What could be a better time to choose Teddy Bears as Business Gifts than when the first bitter winds hit and all thoughts turn to Christmas time, hot drinks in front of a log fire and a great movie or bestselling book to get your teeth into.

Teddy bears have been used as Promotional Items for decades and long gone are the times when there was just a few to choose from. They are now available in all sizes, shapes, colours and price ranges. Printing them with your logo or message has also become much more simple, once upon a time all you could have was a white Tee Shirt with horrible iron on letters to get your promotional message over. Now though you can have T’shirts in any dozens of different colour printed in full colour both front and back. Teddy bears with ribbons round their necks, Teddies in waistcoats and even Teddies in city suits. Pantone matched clothes can now be sourced for your teddy and even embroidered logos onto the soles of poor Teddy’s feet can be organised. Although this may seem a little strange it actually works very well from a Promotional Merchandise point of view as these Teddies sit with their legs splayed out so your logo is always on view.

If you are looking for inexpensive Teddies to use as Promotional Items you will find good size models from less than £3. However if your budget stretches to a few pounds the range is enormous. As long as you plan well enough in advance you can have a totally bespoke Teddy bear made out in the Far East and save anywhere up to 50% of the UK cost of off the shelf models. There are many advantages to going down this purchasing route because you can select all the elements to suit your personal taste. These include the fabric so your Teddy can have long or short hair, it can be filled with very small round pebbles so it sits upright or it can be filled with feathers that give a very soft feel. You can clothe it in the uniform of a bus conductor a train driver, nurse, fireman or any other garments that you choose. This is why Teddies make such good Promotional Gifts, they really can be designed to fit into any promotion or event.

Teddy Bears are no longer the only plush toys that are used as Promotional Gifts there are now lots of other animals such as Tigers, Lions and even Cows getting in on the act. There are also ranges of very small teddy bears that are attached to keyings, these work particularly well for promotions that involve children and especially young girls who invariably end up having lots of them around the house.

The next time you have a promotional event do please consider using these extremely versatile pieces of Promotional merchandise, they look great, have a very high perceived value and will be kept by the recipient along with your logo or message long after the event is over.