How To Avoid The Frustration Of Buying Year End Corporate Gifts?

The end of the year, especially from August onwards until early December marks an extremely busy period for promotional product companies.

A time that is filled with bumper production schedules, longer lead times, stock shortages, and longer and slower transport times.

In an already crazy year, it can prove to be very frustrating to acquire those power banks, headphones, laptop bags and memory sticks you want to hand out to staff and customers as a show of appreciation for their support during the year.

Fortunately, with seventeen years of experience in corporate gifts, we have learned what is needed to navigate easily through all the pitfalls when buying promotional items in the silly season.

Time can be your friend or will become your biggest enemy if you wait too long to plan your branded corporate gift campaign, while volumes increase and lead times become longer. Make sure you start planning early by getting the best advise as soon as possible and allowing enough time for orders to be executed.

We cannot emphasize this crucial element strong enough. If you want the best end result in the shortest space of time ensure you have a vector PDF of all logos to be used readily available. And should any logo need to be combined with text, ensure the font names are specified. The rule is simple, poor quality or incorrect artwork will lead to delays and bad quality branded products.

What better time to think outside of the box and ask for branded product solutions that are new, innovative and trending? Catalogs are updated around July each year with new products added monthly. So by this time of the year, there are many new products that you won't find in an outdated catalogue. Replace your outdated printed catalogue with our website www.entrepopromotions.co.za, which is a live catalogue at the tips of your fingers.

Most products are branded in Johannesburg and need to be transported down to Cape Town. Transport and courier companies also deal with larger volumes at this time of the year, so allow enough time for delivery to take place. Smaller orders can be sent via air freight, which is fast but expensive. Large orders are sent with road freight, cheaper but slower. Based on the volume of your order ensure your supplier provides you with the correct delivery solution.

We LOVE to create miracles but be sure to mention early on in discussions that this is an urgent order. When we know this beforehand we can plan accordingly and twist the necessary arms before production commences to make the lead time as short as possible. However, when artwork is approved and an order is in the queue for production, it is very challenging to change anything due to very stringent production processes.

Once you have decided on a product, the purchasing decision and process must be swift. There are numerous distributors and their customers competing for the same stock from the importers, with stock levels literally changing by the minute. If you drag your heels unnecessarily the chance of your chosen product being sold in a day or two is very good, which means you might have to go through the whole evaluation process again. Avoid this frustration and get the wheels in motion as quickly as possible.

Acquiring a novel laptop bag, speaker or flask to brand and distribute will be a breeze if the above lessons learned over the years are taken into consideration. Follow them and ensure your year end frustrations are kept to a minimum.