One of the common problems that promotional products suppliers often encounter are unreasonable demands and expectations from clients. Do not get me wrong here, most of the suppliers will go all the way and beyond to satisfy the client. But if they find the client too troublesome and unreasonable, they will not hesitate to dump him once the project is finished (or even before).

The promotional product business is very specific and from manufacturing and service point of view much more demanding than let’s say supplying to a wholesaler or a retail chain. And add to this already complicated business an unreasonable client and you have a recipe for disaster.

The problem for a new buyer may be not really knowing the logistical, technological and budget limits. Supplier needs to explain. Here is one example:

Client:

I need a simple custom made accessory bag in a colour matching my product with 2 colours logo printed on it. I need 3,000 pieces in 25 days latest. I have only USD1.00 budget per piece.

Supplier:

We can do it in 25 days.
but

• only to produce the material in colour matching your product takes 30 days

• the minimum run of the special material is equivalent to 5,000 pieces of your bag

but

• we can buy similar but not exactly matching colour material from the market

• we can make approval sample with your logo in 3 days and email you the image for approval

• if approved immediately the goods can be ready within 20 days from today

• we can deliver to you in 25 days from today using courier shipment

but

• only the courier costs over a dollar a piece making your budget not workable. the best we can within your time frame is $1.50.

• to meet your budget $1.00 we would need at least 60 days

Now the buyer has 3 options:

1. to accept what the supplier is telling him and either go ahead under these conditions or scrap the project
2. to challenge the supplier trying to get what he needs no matter what the supplier says
3. to place the order and then begin to give the supplier hard time

You will not be probably surprised if I recommend the option 1) . In this situation it is the most sensible thing to do. But if the buyer chooses to go ahead, he should follow the rules and trust his supplier. In case of time wise tight project flexibility from both parties is necessary.

Option 2) is OK too, but only if there is time. Negotiating to and fro takes time and that is one asset that neither side has in the situation described above. At the end the client may be able to work out what he wants and get the supplier to say “OK, I can do exactly what you need in 25 days from today…” But by that time several days will have passed and “25 days from today” is no longer workable … This happens a lot, trust me …

Option 3) is the best way to get dumped by the supplier. After seeing the picture of the sample client may reject the material as it is not close enough in colour, or he gets too picky on logo details, or demands to receive the actual sample. All this while the clock is ticking and the deadline not moving. The supplier may bite his tongue and oblige telling himself “this is the last time I deal with this ****“, or he may crack and walk out of the project right away …

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I touched already this topic little bit in the BizGifts and Chinese New Year Part 2 post last week, but that was the Holiday Special . The wrong timing wrecks many promotional product and business gifts projects all the year round, so let’s have a look at this project timing issue and get some “How To” hints .

There are many different factors that affect the timeline of a BizGifts project. To simplify this rather complex matter I created a BizGift Project Timeframe matrix:

• A - Normal Season / Regular Product

This is the best situation for you and your supplier. You pick up a ready in stock product from your local supplier’s catalog, supply him with proper artwork and depending on the quantity and the capacity of your supplier’s printing facilities you can have your branded merchandise between 7 - 14 days. There are many companies that these days offer shipping in 3-5 days. VIP services with only few hours to complete your order are also no longer rare (depends on where you live of course ).

• B - Peak Season / Regular Product

Here we are still talking about the products from your local supplier’s catalog. But … during the peak seasons it is more likely some items may be out of stock and depending where exactly the replenishment is it may take from few days to over a month to arrive. The other issue during peak seasons are the printing capacities. Even if the printers run for 24 hours you may still have to wait quite few days for your turn. It has to be said that the reputable and experienced suppliers are well stocked up for the peak seasons and have many contingency plans in hand, but if you do not want to end up disappointed, better order what you need before the peak season hits the fan . The production leadtimes may easily double or triple when compared to normal days and the available selection of products may be shrinking every day …

• C - Normal Season / Tailor Made Product

Not everybody is satisfied with a regular product. Some people may still like a product from a catalog, but would like to have at least its colours customized to match their products or brands. Others may want nothing from any local catalog and have their own idea. That may require either an extensive sourcing by the supplier (or by the client himself if he is capable and brave enough) or some serious design and development work, or both … You need time to source or time to develop, time to produce your approval samples, time to ship and receive them, time to comment on them, alter them, remake them, ship them again. You may approve the first sample you receive, but you may also keep commenting and remaking several times adding weeks and months to your timing. Once you are happy with sample, the production can start. If all goes well (and this can be BIG IF sometimes), your goods will be ready as planned and can ship. Ship across the globe usually … It is very difficult to give accurate number of days or weeks or months tailor made project may take, but here is an example or reasonably OK going project:

- Brief to your supplier, beginning of the process
- Initial offers from your supplier - 1-2 weeks
- Sample making - 1-8 weeks (depends on if you are customizing an existing product or developing brand new one)
- Sample shipping - 3-7 days (if mail or couriers work OK)
- Approval process - minutes to weeks (depends on customer )
- Production - usually 30 - 90 days (depends on products, quantity)
- Shipping - 4-7 weeks sea, 3-10 days by air (depends on from where to where)

• D - Peak Season / Tailor Made Product

In case of Tailor Made Products the Peak Season applies to the peak season at the point of manufacturing and shipping. The timing in general would be very similar to C scenario with an important exception of production and shipping. If you production for your project falls into the peak season and you unlucky to be a latecomer, you may face 1-3 months longer production times than normal. This may in many cases totally kill your project. To have products planned for Christmas marketing push shipped out of factory in January does not make too much sense …

The other danger during the peak seasons is shipping - shipping capacities. Shipping space is hard to come by and the higher bidder usually wins. So you may either face much higher logistical cost than you expected, or few days or even weeks in the queue for the next available vessel or flight.

When you are thinking about what product to make, think hard about how much time you have ! Tailor made products are great way to go but do require planning well in advance !

To explain what is a peak season in detail takes at least an entire post as it depends on many factors and varies from product to product. I will return to this topic very soon. Stay tuned !

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A week has passed and five new posts have been published on BizGiftGuru.com

• Not sure what to do, start with a pen - advice on how to begin your own promotional products adventure.

• Not one of the best BizGift ideas - Three Nuts - advice how things perhaps should not be done .

• BizGifts and Chinese New Year Part 1 - look at one of the Chinese traditional gifts.

• BizGifts and Chinese New Year Part 2 - how the traditional Chinese festival can affect your promotional activities.

• How to brief your BizGift supplier - something that may help your supplier to understand what you need.

The ShopDogDiaries blog continued with excellent series of articles on T-shirt printing, I highly recommend all 3 parts published so far for reading.

There is Logo Design Love Awards competition in full swing at the LogoDesignLove site, BizGiftGuru logo designed by the UBD is among the contestants.

Last week was a Superbowl week. I am not much of a fan of the American version of football so for me the Superbowl is about the ads Here are the collections of this year Superbowl ads from Dear Jane Sample and from the Daily (Ad) Biz.

Big Bald Blog joined the party with his Favourite TV commercial ever.

Staying with marketing and sport - F1Wolf has an preview of all the 2008 Formula 1 team logos and Air Asia, one of the sponsors of the Williams F1 team painted one of their planes in the team’s colours, with helmet of Nico Rosberg included.

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Very often the entire deal between the promotional product buyer and his supplier may be over before it even starts. The reason is insufficient brief. Simply put, wrong brief results in wrong offer, wrong offer means no deal or deal with lots of troubles.

There are some products where the brief can be simple. You choose let’s say a pen from your supplier’s catalog, tell him the quantity and in how many colours your logo will be printed and you will get quite accurate quote.

The difficulties begin, when you ask for a product tailor made to your needs. Lot’s of variables enter into the picture and the more you specify the more accurate and competitive quote you will get. The moment your supplier has to guess or estimate, unless he is a suicidal kind of business person, he will always be guessing on the safe side - meaning more costly option. Why ?

For example you send over a picture of a reasonably complicated bag and ask for a price. From the picture materials can be guessed, but not really clearly and definitely not those used inside the bag that you can’t see on the photo. How to quote ? Just guess. If the supplier guesses wrong on the cheap side, he is likely to get the business because of the low price and then loose money. If he guesses wrong on the expensive side, his client will not get the deal and blame him for overcharging him … In fact the supplier simply quoted as inaccurately as the original brief was …

It is not always possible to give 100% accurate and detailed brief, but here few bits of info that should not be left out from any brief to your BizGift supplier:

• Detailed description

• Material specifications

• Dimensions

• Photos from different angles or detailed drawings or samples if available

• Budget

• Your delivery time requirements

• Branding requirements (size, technology, number of colours)

• Quantity you want to get quoted on

• Deadline for offer

There may be other details necessary for different kinds of products, but the above list is already very helpful to your supplier. Your suppliers may still ask you for more information or some clarifications - don’t feel annoyed by that. Those who come back to you and ask for more information are those who care and want to give you the best deal. Those who simply send you a price no matter how inaccurate your brief is are those most likely to get you or themselves in trouble later on.

Stay tuned to BizGiftGuru for case studies on How to brief your BizGift supplier on different kinds of products and in different situations.

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The production side of the BizGift business is rather similar to any other consumer product manufacturing. There is one huge difference though. Often the timing is essential in case of tailor made projects. There is simply no room for delay. Some time few thousands or few tens of thousands of relatively cheap gift are part of multi-million advertising and promotional campaign and no one wants to face the damages for messing such a campaign up … So very careful planning is of essence. Any planning should take into consideration the Chinese New Year holidays …

Whether we like it or not the promotional products business relies heavily on outsourcing. The more valuable corporate gifts still often originate in Europe, United States or Japan but the cheaper stuff inevitably comes from China and on a lesser scale from India, Turkey and some other South East Asian or Latin American countries. China is however the major source.

The growing Chinese economy can only function thanks to their army of migrant workers. They come from all over the country and sometime travel thousands kilometers to find a job in the booming manufacturing areas in the South of the country or along the east coast. When they travel from home, they however also need to travel back some time. And here lies the problem. Due to all sorts of reasons, but mainly the distance, time and money, the migrant workers take that long trip home only once a year - during the most important Chinese festival - The Chinese New Year.

To facilitate their long journey home (and then back to factories) all of the factories pretty much shut down for 2-3 weeks. Even if they do not want shut down they have no choice, without the manpower, nothing can be done anyway . The whole country moves but at the same time comes to a standstill. What are the consequences ?

• In the weeks prior to the holidays the production facilities are full and rarely there is a room for any urgent new order to be slotted in.

• The last couple of weeks before the holidays the shipping space (vessels, aircrafts) is very booked up and difficult to secure. Even if you manage to have the goods produced, you may not have a way to get them going…

• After the holidays, the workers do not return all at once and on time, some do not return at all, some return but go to another factory. The actual situation is often big unknown for the factory owners and it may take few weeks before the factories are up and running as usual.

So what are the possible scenarios here ?

• You are lucky and you order your things well in advance, productions is completed and shipped out before holidays, everybody happy

• You are a bit less lucky, you have the goods finished but can’t find shipping space. You loose about 2 weeks waiting for holidays to pass and get the goods going right after holidays.

• Your are quite unlucky, you order too late and have no chance to have the goods produced before holidays. However, there is still enough time for the factory to purchase and prepare all the materials and parts and once the holidays are over your goods can go straight to production. You loose “only” 1 month and still consider yourself lucky.

• You totally ignore the fact that there are serious holidays somewhere half way around the globe, place order a week before holidays and then freak out when you find out that you will miss your deadline by about 2 months .

This year the Chinese New Year holidays start on February 7, 2008. If your order gets to factory on February 5th for example, you can expect the shipping date by end April if the order is not too big and if you (or your supplier) have good relationship with the factory. If your order is bigger and requires some pre-production preparations, end May is what you can count on. If your order requires pre-production sample production and approval, then add 2-3 weeks on top of that. Add up the shipping time and in a worst case you may only see your merchandise by late June or early July …

If you do not want to create trouble for yourself, your customer and your supplier, do your homework and do think about the Chinese New Year holidays …

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