Is it better to order promotional products online?
Chances are you are reading this blog on your preferred device. Many if not most business leaders we serve buy products and services online on a regular basis. In this blog I am covering what our current and future customers may want to know about buying promotional products online versus using a local professional.
Buying anything online is easy and most of the time it is with minimal risk to do so when dealing with companies that have customer centric return policies and when using credit cards to pay. SWFL Marketing Group is owned by myself and my wife Karen both of us having been self-employed for over 30 years. We are dedicated to helping our customers use the right customized merchandise / gifts / marketing items in the best way to achieve their organization’s goals. We are fortunate to be able to serve both for profit small and medium sized businesses and nonprofit organizations daily.
Our focus is serving local organizations in a professional manner which helps them achieve their objectives so that they call on us and refer us to others whenever a project could use custom printed items to enhance success. Promotional items are used for many reasons and we like to say we help our clients “Thank, Invite, Excite, Recognize and Reward” those important to their organizations with effective use of custom printed items.
Consider these areas where we or another local company should be your choice versus typing t-shirts on google and buying from an unknown vendor.
Our Advantages
2 of our 3 full time staff are owners that are committed to success in using items we recommend.
Both of the owners have over 30 years each small business ownership and marketing experience.
Our entire team participates in industry education in the areas of marketing and specifically in new in the market products to support our customer’s campaigns.
We regularly inspect and test samples our supplier partners send us randomly and ones we order to share with our customers.
We encourage where possible our customers inspect and test a sample prior to placing a custom printed order.
As a practice we do not require prepayment for a custom imprinted order, so we are guaranteeing our customer’s satisfaction in the areas of product quality, imprint quality and on time delivery of the item. In recent times even Fed/ex and UPS have been unable to offer guarantees.
We have live answer on our office line, quick response to email and online inquiries all by full time industry trained professionals.
Online Advantages
Where we may fall short compared to online.
On a new order we will not process it until assisting you with your imprint layout or confirming your layout will work on the item and if a reorder no changes are required and confirming it is in stock and can make it on time to your event based on production and shipping times. We are slower but feel it is a good tradeoff for most folks.
We may not be able to handle 20 orders in one day. We feel hands on attention is worth it for most folks
We may not be the lowest price all the time on every product. We do pass on savings which we get from our industry partners and our preferred industry buying group and where we can we match pricing.
Summary
Myself and my team feel the bottom line is:
- Access to professionals who care about the success of your campaign.
- Recommendations from experienced marketing professionals to enhance the success of your campaign.
- Ability to customize just about any type of product from paper to huge displays and signs using one vendor.
- Honest feedback if we cannot get an item due to turn around time or inventory quickly so alternatives can be considered.
You can search on our site and research solutions, and we encourage you to search online in general and other industry vendors sites. We just don’t sell unique customized products online with the click of a mouse and a credit card number. Your campaign is too important to take risks on product quality, imprint content or quality and timely delivery. So if better means easier than yes online might be better to buy customized promotional products but if better means the best result possible we encourage you to contact a reliable professional that will support your campaign with recommendations, art and layout assistance and invoicing when you are satisfied.
We invite you to find out more about us and recommend you start planning how to use customized items early rather than last minute.
We are available to our customers by phone, email, or at our physical location!
