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Supply Chain and how it will effect your next print project

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Every industry has been hit with Supply Chain issues, the printing industry is no exception.  The most important commodity for printers is the paper materials.  The mills have been down in production due to labor shortages for over 2 years.  The paper mills have been informing us that this will not change for the rest of 2022. The national demand for printed products has gone way up since we have all been back to business as somewhat normal. The supply of paper materials is at an all time low.  Some materials are 2-3 months out especially in the medical lab forms industry which have barcode applied or integrated labels . This supply issue is unheard of in the print industry, never before have we as a whole had problems with buying paper inventory .  Mills have all printers on allocations so this has been a real challenge.

Rush deliveries are not available due to supplies and even on time deliveries can be a challenge.  Companies are asking their customers to order early.  You can do a few things to keep your supplies from running out.

  1. Watch inventory closely
  2. Implement a reorder policy within your company
  3. When you have new projects/events plan for your printing and other items such as banner, table cover and promotional item early in the process.
  4.  Know where your high resolution logo artwork is stored and make sure the department ordering has access.

Lets all work together to keep you in stock with your forms and supplies.  Unisource Printing and Promotions is ready to help you navigate your printing and promotional needs.

Building Your Company Brand

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Building Your Company Brand

Your company brand is very important.  By definition “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a client’s decision to choose one provider over another. Your brand’s value is merely the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose the expectations, memories, stories and relationships of one brand over another.”

So how do you build that brand?  Here are some suggestions that are tried and true:

  • Establish Expectations for Remarkable Experiences: You must always strive beyond good.  Never just deliver a product or service at a good price on time.  Many of your competitors can do that.  With every interaction with your customers, you need to leave them feeling great about themselves and the reason that they chose you.  Set a standard of excellence that is personal to each client.
  • Make it Memorable: Write a handwritten thank you note, Go the extra mile and personalize the product sample or proposal, Create a timeline that is accurate and conforming to the customer needs.
  • Be a Friend: Always make it about the relationship, Get to know your customer_Birthdate_Family_Interest.  Friends can have conversations about other things so your call to clients will not be a sales pitch every time.
  • Know what you stand for and take a stand: Define your brand.  Chooses honesty, integrity, reliability and go deeper.  Take your stand and don’t wavier your principles.  Become known as being impeccable.  Know your worth, charge for it and never lower your price without taking something back from project.  To stand for your worth you will gain respect from your clients.
  • Know what you’re good at and be great at it.  Stay in your lane better to be good at a few things than just okay at many.
  • Promote your brand:  You must promote your brand by providing useful content through social media, promotional giveaways, trade shows, events and business meetings.  Work constantly on becoming the preferred brand in your category.

For more information and options to work with us see our email and shopping store and go shopping.

 

Email us at harrison@unisourceprinting.com.

Website: www.unisourceprinting.com

Shopping for promotional items you can visit our shopping store: www.freckledfrogpromos.com

Shopping for banners, flags, table covers and tradeshow kits: www.bannersdude.com

 

 

 

 

Overage_Underage in quantity ordered in the Printing Industry

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Overage_Underage in quantity ordered in the Printing Industry. Quantity ordered verses quantities shipped is the often missed subject when a printer speaks to their customer.  In the 30 years Unisource Printing and Promotions has been working in the industries we have also missed pointing this out as well.

So what is this Overage/Underage in quantity ordered come from and what does it mean?

From the perspective of the offset printer, producing a particular quantity of printed pieces is not an exact science. For one thing, a printing press is not like a light switch. It cannot be turned on and off to print exactly 50,000 copies, so the printer almost always either prints too few or too many copies.

In addition, there are many different manufacturing activities within the production process. For instance, one side of a press sheet is printed, then the other side is printed after the first dries. Once the presswork is complete, the printed press sheets are transferred to post-press for trimming, folding, collating, stitching, etc. Ink-jet addressing and other lettershop activities may follow. In the course of each production task, printed sheets are wasted. This waste is called spoilage. To eventually hand off to the client a completed press run of 50,000 copies of a publication, a printer must start with many more copies, assuming he will destroy a certain number in each step as part of the manufacturing process.

Within the printing industry, a membership organization of printers called the Printing Industry of America has developed a series of trade customs. Among these is a standard for overage_underage. This is the terminology for the copies of your publication that exceed or fall short of your requested press run.

According to these trade customs, a printer charges a customer for the actual number of copies produced, up to 10 percent more or less than the requested amount. The key here is the word “actual.” This is not an arbitrary number. The printer can only charge for what he hands off to the customer.

So next time you speak with a printer and he doesn’t mention about these overage/underage and quantity billed ask the question.  You can request exact quantity but then you can expect your price to be slightly higher since the extra printed pieces will be recycled instead of delivering to you to be used.

This information and more can be found on Printing Industry Exchange website under Overage_Underage in Printing Industry.

Unisource Printing and Promotions looks forward to service you.  586.992.0556

www.unisourceprinting.com

 

Marketing Plan for 2016-logo promotions and logo apparel, uniforms, printing, brochures, business cards

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