Trade marketing merchandises are
important to create an advantage over your competitors. If your trade marketing
is good enough, your retailer partners will always promote your products over a
competitor, giving you better mileage and longevity for your business.
Equally as important as Trade
marketing merchandises is the sourcing of the customised trade marketing
merchandise, as this will give you a competitive advantage over your
competitors.
Do you source it with a specialised global Promotional Products Marketing Agency like DTC World Corporation to save cost or do you source it locally and pay higher price as you are worried about the risk of customising it overseas?
Today we would like to share some tips on how to manage the sourcing of your trade marketing merchandise overseas.
1) Using the RIGHT supplier
Trade merchandise are usually
complicated and require a high level of customization. When customising it
overseas, it is often prone to error. If the supplier is not experienced with
producing trade merchandises, the sampling process can be delayed for up to 3
months.
An example is the Oil Drum Table (image
above) created for Tiger. The customisation required us to coordinate with
3 different production partners as there were different components used to
create the Oil Drum Table. We worked with a wood specialist to create the
customised table top, a metal specialist for the oil drum legs and a printing
specialist for the special textured finishing on the metal oil drum legs.
Some may ask, why did we not work with just one partner, for example, the metal specialist to help us create whole table? This will not work as the metal specialist is not familiar with the other components required in building the perfect table set. They may need time to coordinate in terms of communication and getting the right finishing, down to the correct placement of the logo.
2) Packaging is important
The proper packaging is important
when transporting fragile items which may break during fulfilment of the trade
merchandises. Suppliers usually are not familiar with the right packing
methods. You would need to pack it to ensure there are enough protection for
the edges and a small gap to ensure that the trade merchandises do not move
around too much during transportation.
For example, for the Coca Cola Drinks Push Cart (image above), the carton and inner carton had to be custom made to ensure maximum safety during transportation due to the fragile nature of acrylic.
3) The design phase shipping cost consideration
Trade merchandise are usually
bulky by nature to ensure that it stands out. During the design stage, the
ability to design the merchandise into a compact packaging for easy
transportation is an important consideration.
One good example would be the Niugini Ice Floor Stand (above image). As the Floor Display Stand is very bulky, shipping cost will be very high if you source this overseas. Thus, during design phase, DTC will dismantle the floor stand into smaller parts that is easy to assemble, so that when we ship it out, it can be packed more compactly just like the IKEA compact box and easily be assembled when it reaches the destination country.
Creative designing can help our
clients to save on their warehouse and transportation cost.
5) Ease of installation
Due to its bulky nature,
Trade merchandises like light boxes and floor stand displays usually require
local installation. It is important to select a partner to support on save time
and effort.
At DTC World, we have a specialised
installation team to provide assembly and installation services in your local
markets.
6) Maximise your savings by
combining orders with your other countries’ orders
Currently, for trade
visibility items, each MNCs have a local procurement team to customise their
own trade merchandise. As a result, there is lack of consistency among
neighbouring markets such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. They also miss
out on the potential group bulk orders saving opportunities.
If you are able to find a right
partner with the right Global Fulfilment capabilities, you will be able to
design a new range of more exciting trade visibility items and at the same
time, enjoy maximum savings by combining the order volumes among all the participating
countries.
Since 2018, DTC World has been helping many clients in achieving high quality production with maximum cost savings through our FAST E-portal platform and assisting with the global fulfilment of these orders to the local markets effectively.
Contact us today if you are looking
for an experienced team that can help you produce the highest quality trade
marketing merchandises while saving cost.
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