Despite the current price volatility in the memory stick market their popularity as promotional giveaways continues unabated. The current weakness of Sterling (GBP) against the US Dollar has pushed prices back up a little but hopefully once the uncertainty of the UK General Election is behind us things will settle down and prices will fall again.
Whilst demand for branded memory sticks is not completely immune to pricing, orders continue to be strong with demand for bespoke and custom flash drives seeing a noticeable increase.
The forecast for the remainder of 2010 is that prices of the core components that make up the memory sticks (the flash modules and PCB’s) will remain largely unchanged albeit the usual season peak in the run-up to Christmas will no doubt happen as it does every year.
The one real unknown is what will happen in the currency markets. Some analysts and speculators are suggesting that the pound (GBP) has now “bottomed out” and that there will be a slow but steady strengthening throughout the rest of the year. But conversely others are predicting a rocky few months as the UK heads towards and comes out of the General Election.
Underpinning the demand for branded memory sticks is the realisation that not only do they make an excellent and popular giveaway but used properly they can also help to reduce other print, production and transportation costs. By pre-loading the memory sticks with sales brochures, price lists, presentations, media files and so on companies are now reducing significantly the amount of printed media they produce and take with them to trade shows, exhibitions and conferences. When these cost saving are offset against the purchase cost of the memory sticks (including the data loading) the business case for their purchase is pretty compelling.
The other major benefits that drive the popularity of memory sticks are:
- High perceived value
- Handy and easy to use
- Large range of designs and styles
- Great brand ambassadors
- High levels of repeat usage
- Easy to store and distribute
If you’re looking to buy branded memory sticks in the short term for your company then, given the current volatility in the market, make sure you shop around for the best all inclusive deal and lock in the price for as long as possible.
Tags: Branded Memory, Branded Memory Stick, Branded USB Memory Sticks
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Branded Memory Sticks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
