The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

Tom Peters said: ‘if you see a band wagon you’ve missed it.’ Well ECO gifts are turning into one as far as I am concerned. This week a new supplier phoned me who said that he had heard that I was one of the nicest people to deal with in the promotional gifts industry - go on smooth talker! Then he says that he has a load of ECO gifts coming through including Lanyards made from milk. Now STOP right there young man! Surely we are pushing the limits of what can be recycled in order to give a gift some USP - Unique Selling Points - of which I can think of very few for a Lanyard product made from milk.

This is one of the busiest times for diary and calendar suppliers. Now people like my husband are totally anti-paper and have a clean desk, ‘everything must be electronic’ attitude to life. Even he though had to say that he was a little surprised when the Redbows Desk Top Calendars arrived this week. You see most people think that a calendar is something to put on a wall but these desk calendars are petite, and what’s more they have a useful functional format and interesting photos. Their real benefit is not just as a calendar off course (you get that from Microsoft Outlook) - what they actually do is bring something to your creative environment, adding a little bit of colour, and some imagery to refresh your mind and take you away from that screen. With a reasonable imprint area they also offer a great way to keep your contact details within easy eye-contact.

Just as I was looking at our budgets and projections for 2008 I heard the first enquiry come in for next year’s Easter Eggs. Well done! This year Easter falls early on Sunday 23rd March and so we can expect a very busy period just after Christmas for this product line. Back to the sales graph and once again it shows the busiest periods for a promotional gifts company as March, May and November with peak sales in these months. Whilst we do not have a true Walls ‘Bangers and Ice Cream’ strategy, it is fair to say that with over 6,000 promotional items we are getting to a similar stage of development and our new e-commerce website will mean that we are always open and ready to process an order and deliver on-demand.

Our personalised cake slices go down a storm at this time of year. There is a wide range to choose from and the personalisation is fairly easy as well. Each cake slice is supplied in a polythene tray with clear cover and we simply attach a label to each. The label design is almost totally open to customisation apart from the usual information we have to put on to comply with European food packaging legislation.

It is quite common to offer samples in this industry. The Redbows Samples Policy has evolved over time and we think that it is pretty fair. If you want a sample we are generally more than happy to supply it and simply ask that you send it back to us within an agreed timeframe. Some samples are dummies, as is the case with flashdrives and others are the real McCoy. Off course we do end up writing off a sum for samples each year but hey-ho sometimes you have to have a marketing budget for such occasions.

Please let this be true! Alan Shearer is being touted as the potential England Manager. After Wednesday’s awful result I read this morning that Alan Shearer could throw his hat into the ring . This would be absolutely fantastic - a leader who can inspire, motivate and work some magic both on and off the field. I just hope that the job goes to a home-grown Englishman like Shearer and that we have the guts and commitment to give him the time to work through the problems in the England football camp and come out fighting for the next World Cup.

This is a great event for suppliers in the promotional gifts industry. Trade Only is a must visit exhibition held at the Richo Arena in Coventry.  As the name implies, it is only for trade suppliers and for Redbows it gives us the chance to meet up with friends and contacts within the industry, as well as discover new potential product sources. A must as well is to attend the Gala dinner which is a huge bash with plenty of entertainment. It is a great excuse for a night out and our only wish is that it could take place a little later in the year.

The Toy Retailers Association has just announced its top twelve toys for this Christmas. Now it has to be said that with three kids I sometimes do not feel ’smarter than a 10 year old’. I do however have to take my hat of to Noel Edmonds who just seems to have that knack of being able to come up with game shows that catch the imagination. Perhaps after some Nintendo ‘Brain Training’ I will feel ready to tackle their latest craize.

A little thought is sometimes needed when planning for large consignments. Promotional gifts can be supplied bulk or individually packed, dependent upon the quantities and weights involved. The larger the quantity (and weight) the higher the quantity of cartons that will be used. These themselves may then be placed on a Euro Pallet (800×1200mm), banded and shrink-wrapped. Such an approach makes a lot of sense within manufacturing facilities and distribution depots. Using a standard sized Euro pallet means that it is easy to load and off-load lorries across Europe, using local forklift facilities. However, at the final point of delivery, logistics problems can arise, where a client does not have such facilities. The answer is to either hire a local forklift service, ask for a lorry with tailgate and delivery personnel or ask for the consignment to be broken down at a distribution centre into more manageable lots. The problem with the latter is that boxes can then go missing - yes it does happen unfortunately. So, even though the former approach may add a little more to the delivery costs it can avoid this potential problem. If you have any doubts as to the logistics required check with our promotional gifts consultants, who will be more than happy to guide you and provide volume, weight and other consignment information. As a rule of thumb a one-person lift is taken to be 20kgs and even this can be difficult for some people. If you take the quantity of gifts ordered and multiply this by their individual net weights you can get a good idea of much you will need to plan for their delivery.

You may have noticed a change to our email sign off this week. We got those nice guys at Emedia to do us an Outlook stationery template. We are very pleased with the result as it gives Redbows a little dynamic. You would not believe the debates we had on whether we needed to rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise. Off course this rebranding is all part of our marketing strategy for 2008.