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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After several years of date collisions between the PSI Fair in Germany and PPAI Fair in the United States, this year the schedule finally provided me with an opportunity to visit both fairs in the same year. So I took off from Germany on Friday, landed back in Hong Kong on Saturday and tried to nurse my jet lag for 2 days (without much success). Tuesday I took of for Las Vegas and thanks to the time difference being the same as the journey I arrived in Vegas the same day and pretty much the same hour I left Hong Kong. Dead tired, but ready.

This has been my 3rd visit to the PPAI Show, but the first one since 2001. The last time I went I discovered what lanyard is :-), the product now as common as a ball pen but virtually unknown those days. Well, except it was all over the PPAI Show back in 2001 … So I was quite curious to see how the show, the exhibitors, the products have evolved. I also wanted to see what the location change did to the PPAI Show, as last time went the show was still in Dallas.

Same as the PSI Show in Dusseldorf, Germany, the PPAI Show is open to the PPAI (Promotional Products Association International) members only. Vast majority of the exhibitors are suppliers, most of the visitors are the distributors. For the suppliers this is an opportunity to present their new product lines, distribute new catalogs, meet up with their distributors.

The first thing I realized when walking the fair was that the size of the booths seems to have shrunk. I am not sure whether it is a result of an effort to accommodate more exhibitors or a result of some cost saving measures from the exhibitors. This also lead to changes in the design of the booths, nothing really spectacular I must say. People who visit this fair every year may not have realized this, but after 7 year break the difference is very obvious.

When it comes to products on exhibit the biggest changes I have spotted is the lack of US made products. There still are some, but not as many as there used to be back in 2000 and 2001. It is understandable that production shifts to the places with lower production cost, but the same forces work in Europe too and one can still see lots of products made in Germany, made in Italy, made in Switzerland at the PSI show.

Very useful feature of the PPAI Show is New Products hall.

Ween I walked in I felt like I am at some sort of flea market (without the sellers being present). But this simple set up is very practical. Not all the products on display were new things, but they might have been new for the exhibitors displaying them. Still quite a few new products, new ways of packaging and most importantly applications of new technologies especially in printing were on display.

The fact that the booth sizes were not as big and designs as spectacular as they used to be does not mean there is nothing to see. On the contrary. One has to look hard and know what to look for (like at most of the trade shows) but the fair is definitely worth the visit. Even though I could not see anything totally new and groundbreaking this time, it was a fruitful visit. I was not coming as a buyer or a seller but as an observer. And those 3 days I spent at the fair helped me a lot to get clearer image about the current situation on BizGift market in the United States (and Canada to certain extent).

The PPAI show is more than an exhibition though. The show program includes development workshops, seminars, keynote luncheons, fashion and accessories show. The highlight of the entertainment program this year was the ONE party that included a concert by the rock band Daughtry. I unfortunately had no time to attend any of these events…

It has been several years since the PPAI Show moved from Dallas to Las Vegas, but only this year I got a chance to see myself whether it helped the overall experience or not. Oh yes, it definitely did help . Those who have been to Vegas will understand, those who are yet to try should go and see.

Here are few more photos from the 2008 PPAI Show.

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For the BizGift industry in Europe and in the US every year starts with a bang with the respective biggest industry trade shows of the year. The second week of January the European BizGift who is whos make their way to Dusseldorf for the annual PSI Fair. This year it was the 46th edition and it was 6th time for me to visit.

PSI Fair is closed event, for members of PSI only. That makes is an exclusive event for the promotional product industry. This is the opportunity for the big players to display their new lines for the coming year, introduce new catalogs, meet with the existing clients and find some new ones. For the visitors it is one of the last opportunities to select some new items to carry in their 2008 lines. Most of the companies that come to PSI Fair as buyers would close their 2008/2009 product selection during the early weeks of the year.

Who are the exhibitors at the PSI Fair ? Of course those looking out to sell all over Europe, but there are several types of companies. The big guns that pretty much set the trends, holding huge stocks of full range of promotional merchandise (imported mostly from Far East). Another group are European manufacturers (yes, there still is stuff produced in Europe, more on that in some future posts) presenting their own product line. Other major group of exhibitors are companies that specialize in selected product ranges. And then those in between these 3 groups.

What trends did I spot at the PSI Fair this time ? Well, it was quite obvious that 2008 is again the year of football (the one with the round ball, soccer). EURO 2008 will be held later this year and so there were many football related products and product collections. The colours of the 16 countries taking part in the competition were everywhere I looked.

The current wave of environmental consciousness made it to the BizGift industry too. The “green” products like vegetal and corn pens, garments made of bamboo were all over the place. How is T-shirt made of bamboo more Earth friendly then T-shirt made of cotton, that I can’t tell.

In the wearables there is obvious further shift towards the higher end products, whether these are T-shirts, shirts or jackets. Cheap no name garments were almost impossible to find.

And while there is still big demand for low budget promotional products, there is more and more emphasize on brand name higher end high quality goods, whether it is for give away purpose or as a business gift.

As most of the other fairs, PSI Fair is also an important networking event. Many exhibitor booths look like hospitality centers with food, drinks and yes… booze in large quantities. And if there is not enough time for proper networking on the site, there are parties in the evenings. Either the official ones organized by some of the exhibitors, or the not so official one but attended by everybody every year on Thursday night (Friday morning) in one of the downtown clubs in Dusseldorf.

Here are few more pictures from the 46th PSI Show in Dusseldorf

The report from the PPAI Show in Las Vegas is coming next.

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Many people are surprised or even shocked when they realize the size of the BizGift industry. What would you guess, what would be annual industry sales let’s say in the United States ? Hundred million dollars ? Half a billion dollars ? Billion Dollars ? Or more ?

Well, it was 5.2 billion dollars… back in 1992. Now fast forward to 2006 (latest data available) and the figure stands and 18.8 billion dollars. And this is for United States only. It is not the biggest industry in the world, but as much surprise as it may be to some, it is serious business where big money is made (and often also lost, more about that later).

And what product lines take the biggest chunk of the BizGift pie ? As the above chart shows, in 2006 in the United States the honours went to wearables (t-shirts, shirts, headwear…) and writing instruments (pens, pencils, markers, highlighters).

I used the data from the United States to demonstrate the size of the BizGift industry. I do not have the data from Europe available at the moment, but the above chart would not be too different across the Atlantic.

Coming up next: Reports from 2007 PSI Show in Dusseldorf and 2007 PPAI Show in Las Vegas - the biggest BizGift industry shows in Europe and America.

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