Companies who consider using Promotional Merchandise programmes are usually those looking for a single source solution for their Promotional Products or other advertising giveaways. The number of companies in the UK that can provide this service can be counted on the fingers of one hand and it’s important that you get all of them to quote for you. The advantages of such a programme are many but it should not be looked at if cost savings are your major objective.

An experienced provider of Promotional Merchandise programmes will be able to let you know very quickly if your company would benefit in terms of time and cost savings by distributing your Promotional Items in such a manner. Not all companies have the right set up for this initiative so please check this out first before you go to the trouble of creating a lot of work for yourself. This is particularly relevant if you are looking to do an on-line tender for the work. Winston Churchill said if you fail to plan then you plan to fail and it’s true, you must go into such a programme with your eyes wide open. Your potential supplier must be able to demonstrate experience in the area especially in Promotional clothing which is almost certainly going to form part of the programme.

The amount of Promotional Merchandise you buy must be high enough to make all the effort of setting up a Promotional Merchandise programme so you need to ask yourself if that figure justifies all the work. Next you need to be sure you are not just running a couple of different products. Finally how many distribution points will you be shipping your Promotional Merchandise to? If you are using just a handful of products and are sending them to a couple of places then stop now and don’t waste any more time. Unless you have at least 10 products and turn over in excess of 25,000 then this is not the route for you.

You simply cannot run such a Promotional Merchandise programme without a website because it is an absolutely vital element. Any potential supplier that cannot provide a free, well designed and built website should not be used, they should shoulder the cost of this themselves and not charge you for it. The ongoing updating and marketing of the site is an essential element of a successful programme.

If your supplier can’t offer on-line stock control and you run out of Promotional Items in the first few days then your whole project is dead in the water before it’s hardly begun. If you do nothing else you must visit each and every potential supplier at their place of work and see how they run their own business and how their staff treat you. Anybody can set themselves up as a supplier of Promotional Products these days by creating a website and making it look as if they are a massive outfit when in fact they operate from a shoe box under the stairs. Lastly but most importantly ask them for a list of satisfied clients, if they can’t provide one then wave goodbye and don’t look back.