Energy use in the United States has been growing steadily since 1949, with the exception of a plunge in the mid-1970s as a result of the oil crisis. The energy consumed today by America is double of what was used up in 1963 and almost 40 percent higher than what it was in 1975. The only saving grace is the country’s readiness to recognize the potential for improved energy efficiency and accordingly, prioritize the efficient use of energy by widely adopting energy efficient lighting, heating, cooling, transport and computing technologies across every cross-section of the society.

Until a few years back, opportunities for energy efficient lighting did not strike an attractive pose for the housing segment, businesses, industries or municipal sectors, owing to the huge purchase price of efficient lighting systems. Not many realized that the cost savings over time positively outweighed the initial costs of these energy saving measures.

However, unprecedented investments in efficient lighting technology are making it easier and more affordable for American homes and businesses to retrofit their buildings with LEDs and other energy saving lighting solutions. According to a recent market research, the sale of traditional light bulbs in several European countries has dropped by 35 percent in the first quarter of 2009, with LEDs accounting for 65 percent of sales.

Considering the fact that America has approximately 81 million single-family homes, 25 million multi-family housing units, 7 million mobile homes and 75 billion square feet of floor space contained within 5 million commercial buildings, it does not come as a surprise when EIA reports state that residential and commercial buildings accounted for 73 percent of total electricity used in the United States in 2008.

Within the next twenty years or so, if all buildings in America were to be upgraded with energy efficient lighting, the surging demand in lighting electricity can be reduced by as much as 33 percent, generating energy savings of around $265 billion. By using efficient lighting for just one-twentieth of all the homes in the United States, the government can definitely, avoid the need for 13 new medium-sized (300MW) power plants every year.

Buildings are the largest source of energy efficiency in America and steps are being taken by all Americans to make their home or business energy-efficient in every sense of the word. This conclusion is supported by the fact that more than 8,000 single-family households in America applied for the federal tax credit for 50 percent savings during the first year of its availability.

America’s energy saving initiative for the next few years is bound to overcome all barriers in the domestic and commercial use of energy efficient lighting technologies, thereby lowering annual electricity use and contributing to a greener environment.

Is buying Promotional Items 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 Gifts 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.

Controlling the supply of promotional items is a good reason for using the tender process because once it is in place you determine who buys what products from whom at at how much. It also means that you can agree terms in relation to service level agreements rebates etc.

Any corporation who allows the procurement of goods such as leather conference folders or promotional bttled water is wasting a lot of money. The reason is that untrained an unskilled buyers tend to keep going back to an original supplier and never look at alternative cheaper sources of supply. These suppliers may even send in a few inexpensive gifts to the buyers every year in an effort to persuade them to stay with them. These free promotional gifts are often sponsored by the manufacturers and given to the distributors free so there is nothing illegal in people accepting them as long as it is not against company policy.

In the case of promotional clothing such as Printed T-shirts or embroidered polo shirts for example you could have as many as 20 people in large organisations buying them. The problem is that every single one of them are probably paying repeat origination charges every time. An origination charge for embroidery could be as much as £50 and for silk screen printing £30 per colour. This means that every time each of them put in an order for these goods or any other Promotional Items with a 4 colour logo for that matter they are paying around £170, if you multiply that by twenty buyers that gives you £3,400 so if they buy say three times a year a large corporation could be spending over £10,000 on origination costs that would come free of charge form one supplier.

Promotional merchandise tenders offer the opportunity for proper service level agreements to be set up. These are usually standard conditions with any supplier who trades in a professional way. But a company setting up a single source supplier for their Business Gifts or come to that for any other sorts of products, can make more stringent demands on these service levels if it feels it necessary. Financial rebates will also usually form part of the service level agreements with money being returned based upon annual expenditure.

If you do decide to go ahead with a tender you should contact a few promotional merchandise suppliers first and ask them for details of well run tenders they have already completed. This will undoubtedly save you a great deal of time further along in the process as a poorly constructed tender wastes a good deal of time for both the company setting the tender up and the suppliers who are tendering for the business. Experience in running full promotional merchandise programmes is essential so make sure you choose a company that can demonstrate lots of expertise in that area.

The Promotional T-shirt has been around for many years and is probably the most commonly worn piece of clothing in the world. Everyone from young children to elderly ladies and gentlemen wear these iconic garments. Manufacturers began using these pieces of Promotional Clothing way back in the 1930’s to sell everything form cigarettes to drinks. The great thing about a printed T-shirt is that if the brand is well known a person hardly has to read the message they just recognise it subliminally. A good example of this is Planet Hollywood whose printed t-shirts are identical throughout the world apart from a name change. People recognise the logo instantly then look a little more closely to read where it is from. It’s the closest thing to playing I Spy with printed T-shirts.

Embroidered Polo Shirts are a cut above the printed T-shirts and can be seen in all walks of life. Worn by Presidents and paupers they are available in very inexpensive versions of poor quality 100% cotton. Or for a really classy Promotional Product they are available in the finest combed cotton which can cost many pounds but look and feel fantastic which is why they make such great Promotional Gifts.

When it comes to giving away Promotional Products there is no doubt that products such as Promotional Bottled Water or even Leather Conference Folders are very useful but they don’t last like a piece of Promotional Clothing. An embroidered polo shirt for example is likely to be kept by the recipient for a long time especially if the quality is good. Even Printed T-shirts will be worn for a considerable length of time, firstly as an over garment then as they fade and get less attractive they are used as undergarments. After that you will often see them being used to clean the car or the windows around the house. So when you look at the return on the investment of giving away a Printed T’shirt or an Embroidered Polo shirt as a Promotional Item it makes a lot of economic sense.

Other types of Promotional Clothing such as Customised Jackets or an embroidered baseball cap work equally well as business gifts especially in places that are colder and have more rainfall. It is important to always try to budget to give away the best quality Promotional Clothing that you can. Cheap printed T’shirts or Embroidered Polo Shirts are soon discarded because people like to look good in what they wear.

Lastly it is important to ensure that when you give any clothing away as Promotional Items they must be branded well. This means that the embroidery must be well positioned on each garment and any screen printing is clear and well defined. This will be another reason for the recipients to wear your Promotional Clothing with a sense of pride.