1. Most companies that supply USB flash drives printed with a company brand or logo are principally supplying then as giveaway promotional products – the sort of thing that you pick from a company booth at trade and retail shows. Typically these flash drives won’t get a huge amount of usage and the demands the drives need to support in terms of read/write speed are pretty light.

   Typical read/write speeds of a “standard” promotional USB flash drive are going to be around 4MB per second (write) and 10MB per second (read). This is more than adequate if all you’re doing with the drive is loading up a couple of sales brochures maybe the odd short media file and links to your company web site but, if you’re a professional photographer or wedding video company you may (depending on what you are doing with the drives) need to specify certain minimum requirements – read/write speeds, grade of memory chip etc.

2. If you buy standard promotional USB Flash drives and you then start to load very large video files or wedding portfolios onto them then you’ll immediately notice that they’re not the quickest of products. If you’ve been used to working on Apple Mac’s and you use top end Memory Cards with fast read/write speeds, or perhaps you use Firewire to move data around then by comparison a promotional USB flash drive is going to be a “horse and cart”.

   For example top end SD cards or CF cards have a read/write speed of around 40MB per second – X10 times the speed of standard promotional USB flash drives.

3. Top end, high performance USB flash drives typically have read/writes speeds of 20MB (ish) per second, significantly faster than promotional versions but still not as fast as High Speed SD or CF cards. These high performance USB sticks also carry a significant price premium.
4. If speed of data transfer is an issue for you then you might want to consider getting quotes on printed USB Flash Drives that work to the new USB 3.0 standard – these have read write speed of around 50MB – 100MB per second so they are blisteringly quick! Again, the downside is cost (they’re new so they’re going to be expensive) and you need a PC or Mac that is equipped with USB 3.0 USB ports to take advantage of the speed improvements. They’ll still work on USB 2.0 PC’s but only at USB 2.0 speeds! Still at least if you have USB 3.0 and you buy USB 3.0 sticks you can dramatically reduce your own data-loading times – your customer won’t notice any speed improvements until they upgrade to USB 3.0.
5. A sensible compromise if you’re looking for decent data transfer speeds it to ask your supplier to quote for upgraded USB 2.0 flash drives – they’ll be a little more expensive but you should get something that has a longer warranty period and better performance with speeds closer to the High performance products sold by brands like Kingston and Lacie. Remember if you don’t ask for this you will just get “standard” promotional USB flash drives which are fine they’re just slow!
6. Apart from speed the aesthetic of the USB flash drive will be important but there are lots of different models to choose from and the internal components of all of them can be upgraded to include High Speed, High Performance controller chips and flash memory modules.
7. Ideally talk to your supplier about what you plan to use your USB flash drives for and get them to recommend a solution. If you’ve chosen your supplier well and they know their industry they should not only be aware of the issues but they should be able to put forward a range of different solutions.

Photographers UBS Sticks

The popularity of USB flash drives is primarily because they are an excellent way to distribute data, presentation slides, sales brochures, media files and so on whilst at the same time giving the recipient something that is genuinely useful and will therefore promote the brand that is printed on the USB drive beyond the event.

Printed USB Drives

If you’re in the market for printed USB flash drives for your company or school then there are some basic things you need to know and consider before you place your order with any supplier. Buying USB sticks is made all the more difficult because it’s not so much what they look like on the outside that matters but what goes inside the stick when its manufactured and with the growth in the market lots of unscrupulous sellers are making a quick killing by selling sub-standard, fake, or “masked” USB flash drives.

Here’s a quick checklist of things to ask:

Make sure you get Grade A flash memory chips inside the USB drives?

The memory chips inside any USB stick are the key component – they are what the data is stored on and if they fail you will lose you data files. Grade A chips are either branded (Hynix, Samsung etc.) or they are typically made on the same production lines but are OEM chips – both are OK but what you need to avoid are cheaper recycled chips or Grade B memory chips – these are either chips that have failed the QA checks, they are chips where some “sectors” have failed (e.g. they were manufactured as a 1GB but only 600Mb works) or they are flash chips that have been “recovered” from redundant products.

If you end up with anything other than Grade A memory chips you are highly likely to experience a higher failure rate, those flash drives that work will have a short life expectancy and they will typically have a slow read/write speed.

Make sure they are not masked

One of the more dubious tactics some USB flash drives supplies and factories are employing to win business is to “mask” the drives they supply – this is an industry terms for what amounts to fraudulently doctoring the memory to look as though it’s higher than it is.

In a typical scenario the factory will buy flash chips that failed the QA on the production lines because certain “sectors” of the memory chip could were “dead” – the chip (or wafer) did not fail in full just a proportion of it did. What the factory then does is take this partial chip and process it so that it looks OK – as an example they might dress up a 1GB chip with only 600MB of working memory to look like a 1GB again. It’ll look like a 1GB chip when you plug it into any PC but it won’t let you save more than 600MB of data to it. This is “masking” and it’s a practise that is being used more and more in the promotional sector because suppliers think the customers won’t check and they can get away with it!

Our advice is to always check a small sample of your USB flash drives – to do this you need to load data up to the advertised capacity on one PC, remove the USB drive and plug it in another PC – if some of the data is missing on the 2^nd PC then you’ve been supplied USB flash drives with “masked” chips inside.

Will the Flash Drives comply with the RoHS regulations?

RoHS is the acronym that stands for the “Restriction of Hazardous Substances” and it applies to thousands of electrical and computer parts and components imported into the EU. USB flash drives have to comply with the RoHS EU Legislation and it is your responsibility to make sure that any you buy are compliant. The fines are significant so ensure you ask the right questions and if you’re uncomfortable with the answers get copies of the RoHS certificates to prove their compliance.

Above all when buying printed USB flash drives don’t just buy them based on the cheapest quote you get unless you have satisfied yourself that you know exactly what you’re buying. Ideally choose a local supplier that has a proven track record of delivery, a supplier that is going to be around if things do go wrong and a supplier you’re a confident can and will deliver on their promises. The USB drives will have your logo or brand on so they need to work or it will reflect badly on you and your company.

Twister USB Sticks

Why? Well, although some suppliers do put prices on their web sites those that do tend to have particularly high prices to cushion themselves against the daily fluctuations in the market. Buying USB drives in bulk is a bit like buying other commodities such as coffee, tea, gold or oil – they are all subject to the dynamics of the market and prices can be volatile, even within a single trading day.

Suppliers of promotional USB flash drives have to adjust their prices to take into account changes in the price if flash memory, seasonal supply and demand volatility and fluctuations in the exchange rate – all USB flash drives are purchased in USD ($) so when the Pound (£) weakens against the dollar prices increase.

The fluid nature of the market coupled with the fact that most companies looking to buy printed USB drives want them within a matter of days means that the best prices tend to be quoted on a “spot” basis and are only held for 2-3 days. So, to ensure you are getting the best price you need to shop around and get a couple of quotes from reputable suppliers.

When you get your quotes back do check to make sure that all of the costs are included and you’re not going to be landed with any nasty surprises – most good companies will include the print set-up, printing, data-loading and shipping costs. You also need to make sure that a low price does not equal a sub-standard product. Get reassurances about warranties, performance, read/write speeds and the grade of the flash memory being used in the USB stick.

There are some basic things you can do to reduce the likely cost of the flash drives you’re buying:

• Only buy the memory you need – the most popular size for promotional or give-away USB sticks is 1GB. These are normally large enough to pre-load your own sales material onto and they have enough storage on them to be used by whoever you give them to (so your brand will get on-going exposure)
• Buy the more popular models like the Twister Flash Drive – these get sold in the millions so they tend to be the cheapest option. Don’t be put off by this, they have remained popular over the years because they are an excellent drive, they’re a good size (physical size), they don’t have a cap to lose and they come in a wide range of colours.
• Buy a sensible number of them in one go – you can order as little as 25 at a time but if you do this expect to pay a hefty premium. It’s simply because some fixed costs (print and carriage) have to be amortised across every order so on small orders every USB stick is picking up quite a high proportion of the fixed costs.
• Allow at least 10 days for your order to be produced and delivered – you can get USB sticks in as little as 48hrs but typically these will be printed in the UK (rather than at the factories where they are made in China) so you’ll not only pay a premium for the UK print costs but you’re pay a premium for the “rush” service to get them to you.

Twister USB Flash Drives - The Cheapest Option

If price is an issue then buy the twister, buy no bigger than a 1GB version and give yourself 10-days for the order to arrive.

Typically the USB flash drives will be pre-loaded with sales brochures, white papers, price lists, product specifications, video files and links to websites. Occasionally this pre-loaded data is “locked” onto the flash drive so it cannot be deleted but typically the data can be removed (deleted) by the users once they have read it – this is the recommended approach because it ensures on-going use of the flash drive by the recipient and as a result you get on-going brand exposure.

Most companies buying printed USB flash drives will typically order between 100 – 500 pieces with the most commonly requested memory size being 1GB or 2GB. These memory sizes are large enough to carry most companies pre-loaded data and they’re big enough to ensure they get used by the recipient.

Twister USB Flash Drives

If you order less than 100 USB flash drives at a time then you’ll notice a sharp increase in the unit price. Whilst some companies will print and supply as little as 25 USB memory sticks at this quantity level the unit cost is pretty steep. The reason for the fairly dramatic price increases when you order in small numbers is simply because there are a lot of fixed costs in the production and delivery that have to be amortised across a much smaller number of USB sticks. Examples of these fixed costs are:

• Print set-up costs. Every print colour has an associated cost – each ink colour has to be bought and a “screen” has to be made for every colour before the USB sticks can be printed.
• Carriage costs from the factory. Most USB flash drives are produced and printed in China and they therefore have to be shipped into the UK using carries like UPS, TNT or DHL.
• HM Revenue & Customs charges. As the USB sticks arrive in the UK VAT has to be paid on them in addition to which there are normally associated VAT “handling” fees.
• QA checks, anti-virus checks and speed performance tests have to be performed on a sample of every order before they are released to a customer.
• Re-boxing – When the USB sticks arrive in the UK it is not unusual for multiple customer jobs (particularly small jobs) to be consolidated into a single box. These consolidated shipments need re-boxing after the QA checks.
• UK shipment costs – because of the time critical nature of most USB flash drive orders they are typically sent on the final leg of their journey by next-day courier.
• Invoicing and payment costs – every order needs a formal VAT invoice raised and of course the banks and card companies make a charge for handling any payment to clear the invoice. If payment terms are offered there can be additional costs in chasing the payment of invoices.

When the costs illustrated above are spread over an order for say 500 USB sticks they only add pennies to the unit cost but spread over say 25 USB sticks the additional cost per stick can be quite hefty!

Where possible it’s recommended that you buy your USB flash drives in quantities of 100 plus but if you do only want 25 pieces then you can buy them from USB2U

Flash Drive Gift Boxes - Tins

With more and more companies using flash drives to promote their brand and products its important if you invest in them that they make an impact when you hand them out. You’ve only got a few seconds to attract and retain people attention so make the most of this time by doing the best job you can with your USB drives.

One option is to consider giving the USB flash drives out in a gift box. Admittedly you’ll have to contend with the anti-packaging lobby that are opposed to all sorts of unnecessary packaging because of the potential damage it does to the environment but arguably if you really want to make an impact packaging will give you the edge.

Tin Gift Boxes

There are lots of different packaging solutions for USB flash drives ranging from a basic white (unprinted) cardboard boxes all the way through to an aluminium tins with a custom foam insert for the USB drive and other accessories you are including (lanyards, keyrings etc.). Pretty much all of the boxed can be printed (the tins can be engraved) and they don’t add much to the overall cost albeit there is a bit of a “hit” on the carriage costs because of the increased weight.

If you opt for the presentation tins there are three different options: tin with “see through” window lid, tin with removable lid and finally a tin with a hinged lid.

Printed Tins really are the pinnacle of packaging for promotional flash drives. They might be overkill in some circumstances but if you’re targeting high net worth clients or you want a really nice “thank you” gift for speakers at a conference then its certainly worth going the extra mile and getting some printed tin gift boxes produced.

1. Award Ceremonies – A number of schools are buying USB flash drives printed with the school crest and details of their annual awards evening and are giving the branded flash drives to all of the attendees. The USB drives are pre-loaded with details of all of the award categories and winners before being handed out. Electronic versions of the Award Certificates are pre-loaded onto the drives for the award winners adding a personal touch to their particular drive.
2. School Open Evenings – Today with significantly more choice and power in the hands of the parent when it comes to selecting a school for their children it’s important that schools actively promote themselves to prospective pupils and parents alike. Pretty much all schools now make lots of information about the school available on the school web site(s) including performance tables, OFSTED reports and intake procedures. Much of this information is also given away on school open evenings but with the amount of information now demanded, printing and collating the information and having it ready for the open evening can be a daunting task. Consequently as an alternative some schools are now making all of this information available on a pre-loaded and branded USB memory sticks. The branded USB sticks are then handed out to the parents who in turn can read and/or print the information at their leisure.
3. School Shops – some enterprising schools are buying USB flash drives in bulk and at a discount and then reselling the USB sticks to pupils (and staff) via the school shop. Typically the profits flow back to the school but occasionally the purchase and sale of the sticks will be organised by a student group to enable them to fund raise for trips and events.
   

   USB for Universities

4. Fresher Fairs – in an effort to attract students to join certain events and activities at university it’s not unusual for promotional USB flash drives to be given away to encourage them to stop by and listen to a “pitch” at a specific stand.
5. DT Projects – some schools with students studying GCSE Design Technology have discovered that custom and bespoke USB flash drives are ideal products for students to develop their DT skills on. The core component of a USB flash drive; the controller chip, the flash memory module and the USB connector are readily available from UK suppliers and allow students to design, manufacture and package a complete USB product.

USB PCB

This list is by no means an exhaustive list but it does go some way to illustrate the diverse way in which USB flash drives are being used by schools and universities in the UK.

For an item that costs a couple of pounds USB flash drives really do punch above their weight. There are very few other promotional products that have such a wide appeal, are as easy to use and have such a high-perceived value. Load the USB flash drives up with sales brochures or other information that’s relevant to target audience for the USB sticks and you’ll boost their desirability even more.

USB Presentation Tins

By loading the flash drives with data before they are handed out it’s also possible to offset the cost of buying the flash drives against the saving made by not printing the collateral loaded onto the drives.

If you really want to raise the “desirability bar” even higher then its worth looking at options to supply the flash drives in presentation boxes or tins. There are lots of presentation box options available but some of the more stylish ones are made of tin and come with a foam insert that is custom made to fit snugly around the USB flash drive. These foam inserts, (typically available in white or black) protect the USB flash drive whilst in transit but more fundamentally they help to show off the drive.

USB Tin Boxes

Presentation tins come in three different styles; removable lid, hinged lid and a lid with a “window” that allows you to see the USB flash drive that’s stored inside the tin. The tins can also be printed to compliment the USB sticks but this will add more cost so its worth checking on the price of printing so that you can see if your budget will stretch to this.

Whichever option you opt for presentation tins add a real “wow” factor and consequently they are ideal if you’re out to impress.

One thing to consider if you do buy presentation tins for your USB sticks is that they add quite significantly to the overall weight of the USB sticks – not a problem individually but just something to bear in mind if you are transporting them to a venue or a show, particularly if you are taking them overseas with you.

There are some golden rules when looking for the cheap price for your branded USB flash drives are they are:

1. Allow enough time for your supplier to produce them at the factories in China. It sound impossible but nearly all USB flash drives are manufactured to order in China and then flown via TNT, UPS or DHL to the UK for onward shipment to our customers. The lead time for this is usually as little as 10-days and this includes getting you a proof to sign off, mixing the plastic/ink to create a body shell that matches your pantone, printing your logo on the drive case, assembling the drive and passing the drives through a rigorous QA process.If you go looking for printed USB drives and you’re working to a very tight deadline then don’t expect the prices to be cheap and be prepared to compromise on the model, style, colour and memory size. The reason for this is that very few companies hold blank stock in the UK and when they do it tends to be limited to one or two models in the most popular memory size. Additionally, any printing incurs UK labour and print charges and this pushes up the price.
2. Simplify your logo. If your logo has lots of colours in it or has graduated tints then expect to pay a premium to get it reproduced on a USB stick. This is particularly true if you have to get the sticks produced and printed in the UK because the UK printers will charge a set-up and print fee for each colour. If you can accept a single colour print then this will reduce prices for you without any compromise on memory size or quality.
3. Choose a popular model. If you can work with the Twister or Chic models then you’ll get the best price
   

   Twister USB Drive

   because these are the most commonly produced versions of flash drive and as such the factories often have “offers” and “promotions” on them. Expect to pay a premium for anything new, anything leather, metal or a little different like USB credit cards and USB wristbands.

4. Don’t go overboard on the memory. The most popular versions of USB flash drive in the promotional sector are 1GB. You can get smaller memory sizes but the price differential is relatively small and if you give away flash drives with too little memory they’re unlikely to get used which negates the value of giving them away in the first place.
5. Abandon boxes and tins – Most USB flash drives come individually wrapped in thin polythene bags or in a plain white or silver gift box for no extra cost. You can buy fancy tins, plastic boxes with magnetic clasps, or branded cardboard boxes but if you’re over-riding requirement is “cheap” then just go with what’s on offer for free.
6. Get several quotes. As a rule of thumb get at least three quotes from different suppliers making sure when you
   

   Chic USB Drive

   do that they have a good reputation and have been around in the industry for some time. A quick check of their web site, their testimonials and companies house or even Google Earth is normally enough. When the quotes come back make sure the prices are for Grade A, New (not recycled), flash chips and all print set-up and origination charges are included. Also make sure you know what the final price is going to be including any delivery costs and when comparing check to make sure whether they all include or exclude VAT!

7. Question any really cheap prices. If you get a price from one supplier that looks great but is at odds with other prices you’ve been given be careful before you proceed. Incidents of suppliers “masking” drives so you think you are getting 1GM when in fact it’s a 128MB drive made to appear as 1GB are growing. It’s also increasingly common for some unscrupulous manufactures to supply USB memory sticks with re-cycled or Grade B flash chips inside them. Whilst these might work they will have a very high failure rate when in use and their data transfer speed will be slow.

At USB2U we’ve been supplying printed and fully customised USB flash drives since 2002 and we list hundreds of household names amongst our customers. We like to think our customers choose us not just because we offer flash drives at a great price but also because we’re passionate about producing really stunning flash drives for our customers. We never have and never will compromise on the quality of components used in the flash drives we supply. We also carry a significant amount of blank stock in the UK to help our customers out if they need flash drives in a hurry. Of course we’ll always recommend you allow us 10 days to get you a better price from our factory in China but we’ve been around long enough to know this is not always possible.

Given the relatively tiny amount of data you can save onto a floppy disk (around 2MB) and their awkward shape they have simply been out gunned over recent years by CD’s DVD’s and of course USB Flash Drives. Consider that a fairly middling 4GB flash drive can store 2,000 times more data than the largest floppy disk and you get a feel for why this technology is now effectively obsolete.

Floppy Disk Vs USB Flash Drive

At their peak in the 1990’s it’s estimated that around 5 billion floppy disks were in use. Today you won’t find any new PC’s shipping with an integral floppy disk drive and most software applications have long outgrown the storage capacity on offer from a floppy disk.

Of course some people still use them to store and back-up their personal data and files but considering that we now store and save digital photographs, music tracks and videos (all of which have files that are too big to be stored on a floppy disk) their use is likely to be limited to small document files and back-ups routines developed years ago.

Unlike USB flash drives one area that floppy disks never really entered is the promotional gift or corporate give-away market. Floppy disks might have been used to hand out corporate and sales information on but printing company logo’s onto them and handing them out to promote a companies products or services was never really done. In contrast today tens of millions of USB flash drives are given away every year by companies looking to promote their brand and/or products.

Because USB Flash drives are available in a wide range of different styles, colours, materials and formats they have been used by many school, universities and companies (large and small). They look excellent when printed with a logo; they can be fully customised and supplied with complimentary lanyards and/or key rings.

USB Flash Drives are portable, lightweight, attractive, easy to use and work with anything that has a USB port on it. Their ubiquity and popularity make them an ideal choice for anyone looking to save and carry their data with them. USB flash drives are floppy disk killers and branded USB flash drives have rapidly risen to become a key product within the Sales and Promotional Marketing industry.

OK there are a couple of catches but they are reasonable ones:

1. You have to buy the memory sticks from us – I’m afraid we won’t be data-loading them for free if you’ve purchased them from another supplier. We do offer just data loading so if this is a service you need just call us for a quote.
2. The free offer only applies to orders where we are manufacturing the memory sticks, printing them and data loading them at our factory in China. In other words the free offer does not apply to our UK “rush” stock and rush service.
3. The maximum of data we will load for free is a generous 100Mb.

Data loading usually costs up around 40p per stick so on an order for 500 branded memory sticks the savings are considerable. You don’t have to order 500 sticks to take advantage of this offer. Our minimum order is 50 pieces.

Why take advantage of this offer? Well a flash drive with your logo or brand printed on makes an excellent giveaway or promotional item. They are popular, well received, they are useful and they get noticed and more importantly they get your brand noticed every time they are used.

If you don’t pre-load data onto the sticks before they are given away then you’re missing a trick. You are after all paying for the memory in the memory stick so you might as well use it. Think about the range of material you could load onto the sticks. Typical examples would include sales brochures, price lists, press releases, presentation slides, media files, links to your website and product user manuals.

Given that it’s free you might as well take advantage of this cracking Easter offer. It won’t last forever but it’s certainly worth more than a freebie Easter egg!