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Posts Tagged ‘Custom USB’

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Announcing The New Flexible PVC USB Flash Drives From USB2U

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Custom USB flash drives manufactured in a 3-D shape have been possible for a number of years but typically they are not cheap and they have quite a long lead-time (you should allow around 6 weeks for the production and approval process).

PVC USB Flash Drives

PVC USB Flash Drives

Done well custom USB flash drives do look fantastic and there are some great examples around of flash drives manufactured in the shape of trucks, Nike trainers, eggs and musical instruments. Literally anything is possible providing you have the time and are prepared to spend a little more money on them compared to standard factory designs.

Custom USB flash drives are popular because they:

  • Create more of an impact when they are handed out
  • They generate “chatter” about the brand or product that the flash drive has been produced in the image of.
  • They’re good “ice-breakers” for sales people at the start of a meeting.
  • They work incredibly well at press events to launch a new product or service
  • They will be unique to the company that has commissioned them.
  • Just like any “regular” flash drive they can be supplied in a wide range of memory sizes and pre-loaded with sales or presentation documents before they are handed out.
PVC USB Flash Drive

PVC USB Flash Drive

The new PVC USB flash drives launched by USB2U have all of the benefits of a custom USB flash drive but without the large tooling and set-up costs and they are available with a much more aggressive lead time.

The PVC drives can be produced in any shape (2-D shape) and are supplied with an integral key ring attachment. They’re lightweight and the USB connector slides back into the body of the flash drive when not in use so there is no cap to use. The examples on this page show the wide range of shapes and designs that can be produced but literally anything is possible!

One of the beauties of these new flash drives is the quality of print that be achieved – both sides of the drive can be printed using a four colour print processes to generate a photo realistic finish. The quality of the print is really crisp and bright.

PVC USB Sticks

PVC USB Sticks

Because the flash drives are made from PVC the body of the flash drive is slightly “squishy” but this does not detract from the overall effect and is a positive advantage if you’re getting them produced in the shape of things like fruit or t-shirts.

So, if you’re looking for a flash drive that is a little bit different from the “norm” but you don’t want to pay (or wait) for a fully customised 3-D flash drive then these new drives might be just what you need.

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Announcing The New Flexible PVC USB Flash Drives From USB2U

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Custom USB Flash Drive Promotional Offers in May

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Don’t order your custom USB flash drives until you’ve checked out the latest promotional offers from USB2U. During May 2011 we’re giving away a free gift box with every USB flash drive ordered and load up to 100MB of data absolutely free of charge as well!

To qualify you just need to order at least 50 USB flash drives and let your account manager know when placing the order that you want to take advantage of these promotional offers.

If you’re ordering the popular Twister USB Flash Drives then our FREE pantone-matching offer might tempt you. If you order more than 200 of the Twister USB flash drives then we’ll colour match the body shell of the drive for you absolutely free of charge. Typically pantone matching (because it’s a very labour intensive process and takes a while to set up) costs around £100 per order but during May we’re offering it free of charge – subject to a minimum order of 200 pcs.

Custom USB May 2011 Offer

Custom USB May 2011 Offer

If you do take advantage of the free pantone matching service please make sure you allow an extra 48hrs for us to manufacture and ship your flash drives to you – this extra time is to enable us to make the flash drive shells in the colour you want rather than just using a standard colour which we have available “off the shelf”.

In addition to these cracking offers when you order your Custom USB Flash Drives from USB2U you can be assured of:

  • Working with a supplier that has been dedicated to the supply of USB flash drives since 2002
  • Some of the best prices in the market but without the compromise on the quality of the flash drive memory chips or flash drive controllers that some of our competitors seem to use.
  • An underwritten guarantee of at least 12-months on every USB flash drive we supply
  • Fast lead-times (48hrs if you’re in a hurry) or around 10-days for our standard service.
  • A QA process that involves 4 separate checks on every one of your USB flash drives during the manufacture and assembly process followed by a final QA check and virus report before your order is packed ready for delivery to you.
  • A named account manager that will take care of your order and look after you from your initial point of contact.
  • An in-house design team that can turn around mock-ups in an hour or two and re-draw artwork if needed.
  • Next day shipment when your order arrives via UPS.

USB2U a trusted supplier of quality custom USB flash drives since 2002.

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Custom USB Flash Drive Promotional Offers in May

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Professional Photographers Embrace USB Flash Drives

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Today there are an estimated 50,000 professional photographers in the UK. Its popularity as a subject means that colleges and universities are turning out thousands of budding new professional photography students every year to add to this already high number.

Couple this with falling prices of professional photography equipment, the flexibility that digital photography now offers and an amazing array of software designed to allow the enthusiastic amateur to turn out near professional looking results and you get a picture of a crowded market and a profession that is understandably concerned about its future.

wedding_photographers

wedding_photographers

Professional photographers with years of experience and qualifications behind them are being undercut by new entrants who see photography as an easy way to earn a “bit of cash on the side”. After all the barriers to entry are a considered by many to be little more than the ability to point and shoot a decent digital camera and print off the best results.

What is often misunderstood is that whilst the ability to take a good photo is important, professional photography is also about running a business and this includes a whole gamut of skills from advertising, marketing, cash-flow management, customer relationship management and time management to name just a few.

Experience is also a fundamental requirement and it’s not something you can buy over the counter or order online. Experience ensures that the “once in a lifetime” moments (weddings, birthdays, christenings, engagements etc.) are captured properly and clients are happy with the end results.

On the marketing and delivery side of the business more and more professional photographers are turning to USB flash drives to supply the finished photographs to their clients. In the past digital copies of the portfolio shot for a client might have been sent on a CD or DVD but these are increasingly seen as “old hat” and not a particularly attractive way to present the portfolio.

Photograher USB Flash Drives

Photograher USB Flash Drives

USB flash drives on the other hand offer an exciting, professional and innovative way to present a portfolio of photographs. The flash drive(s) can be supplied in a wide range of shapes, designs and styles and they can be printed up with the photographers logo, website address and phone number. Some photographers using Flash Drives already have commissioned printed gift boxes to go with the drives to add a real professional touch!

It’s little touches like this that will help to differentiate a professional photographer that invests in his business from a new start-up that might just be looking at photography as a way of earning a “few quid on the side”.

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Professional Photographers Embrace USB Flash Drives

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USB People Are Revolting

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

At a time when most people are enjoying a protracted Easter break the USB people at USB2U are unhappy at being forced to work through not only the Easter holidays but also the Royal Wedding!

usb-people-on-strike

usb-people-on-strike

Of course the extent of their “work” is purely promotional and it hardly constitutes “hard labour” but nevertheless the representatives of the USB people are adamant that they should be able to take time off like everyone else and enjoy the Royal Wedding along with the rest of the country.

Feelings are now running so high that we have the unedifying sight of USB people at USB2U refusing to participate in new projects and staging unplanned walkouts. Some have made placards and are picketing the sales team who ironically are only trying to do their job and ensure the long-term support for USB people within USB2U.

The management of USB2U have opened discussions with representatives of the USB people but both sides seem entrenched and an early settlement seems unlikely.  Whilst there is no precedent for going to arbitration it might be the only way this dispute can be resolved.

With time ticking away any resolution is unlikely to be reached in time for the Royal Wedding on Friday 29th April but if nothing else the USB people want to establish a precedent for other public holidays and ideally they want to ensure they have holiday rights in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

The management at USB2U have moved swiftly to reassure their customers that their will be no impact on its business and all orders for promotional USB flash drives, including any orders for USB people will be unaffected.

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USB People Are Revolting

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Custom USB Flash Drives – Where to Buy Them From

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Custom USB flash drives are incredibly popular at the moment. Millions are given away every year by companies to promote their brand, to advertise their products or to disseminate large amounts information quickly, easily and in a cost effective manner.

Shenzen

Shenzen

The expression “custom USB flash drives” defines a wide spectrum of USB flash drive products including standard “factory” designs that are printed, engraved or embossed but it can also include fully customised flash drives that are designed and manufactured to a customers specification.

Typical flash drives used for promotional purposes have a memory capacity of 1GB or 2GB. At this size the flash drives have enough memory (storage capacity) to carry any files the company giving the USB drives away want to pre-load onto them and they are large enough to have some value to the recipient.

The vast majority of USB flash drives produced in the world today are manufactured in China with most factories concentrated in the city of Shenzen. Situated just a few miles north of Hong Kong, Shenzen is an economic powerhouse – in just 30 years its population has grown from that of a small village to around 12 million people, it has received over $30 billion of foreign investment and is arguably the most successful of the five “Special Economic Zones” established in China.

The products of many global brands are manufactured and assembled in the factories in Shenzen including much of Apples product range. The factories in and around Shenzen are, in the main, state of the art factories and competition for business is intense.

Most promotional and custom USB flash drives are manufactured in relatively small factories with staffing levels ranging from circa 50 people to around 300 people. The degree of automation in these factories and the emphasis on quality varies so when engaging with any USB factory in China it is vital that you first meet with them and see at first hand how they work and thoroughly examine their work practises and QA checks. If you order USB flash drives from China and they don’t turn up or they turn up and they are not what you wanted or they have a high failure rate then your options to resolve the issue are pretty limited.

Custom USB Sticks

Custom USB Sticks

The high levels of competition help to ensure prices are kept low but it is easy for some factories to cut corners and use cheap components like re-cycled or “masked” flash chips so its critical when you engage with any factory that you undertake factory, product and social audits before committing to any orders. Alternatively, work with a local supplier that either has their own factory or works with known and trusted factory partners. This way you not only have some recourse in the event of any problems but you have the peace of mind that your supplier will (or should) have undertaken these checks on your behalf.

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Custom USB Flash Drives – Where to Buy Them From

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Custom USB Flash Drives Keep Your Business Moving

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

One of the challenges facing any business in these difficult times is to keep the sales leads coming in and to keep existing customers not only happy but continually informed about new products and services that you launch.

Of course the Internet has helped tremendously to keep the dialogue flowing with customers (new and old) and if you’re using Twitter and Facebook then these applications provide all sorts of interesting opportunities to engage with your customers in a dynamic way without being too invasive. Understandably not every business has the time or the expertise to use them but for many they are proving invaluable and eventually most businesses will need to embrace them.

Alternatives to the Internet and social networking sites like Facebook include the use of promotional USB flash drives. These have become incredibly popular over the last 2-3 years. The reasons are; falling prices, better range of designs, larger memory sizes and the ease with which data files can be loaded onto the flash drives.

USB flash drives are typically used as “giveaways” at trade shows to attract new customers, to hand out to journalists at press launches or they are simply sent to customers in the post to keep them appraised of new products – some companies are now sending USB flash drives loaded with their sales brochures because its cheaper than printing the brochures and paying for the postage costs to send them out.

Custom Removal Van

Custom Removal Van

To really make an impact with a USB flash drive it’s worth considering commissioning your own fully customised design. Whilst there are hundreds of different models of flash drive available “off the shelf” including flash drives made from wood, bamboo, leather and metal there is no doubt that a custom version can really make your brand and company stand out and keep you ahead of the competition.

Custom flash drives are typically manufactured in a shape that reflects the broad thrust of the business or alternatively they are made to look like a specific product, e.g. a tyre, a fork-lift truck, a removal van or an eraser. Anything is possible.

Custom USB flash drives can create a real buzz and lead to lots of internet chatter and discussion on social networking sites so they are a great way get “viral” discussions going.

Costing only a little more than standard factory models that are just printed with a logo they are definitely worth considering. The only downside is the lead-time which can be anything up to 6 weeks so if you do want to use a custom USB stick then you need to plan ahead.

If you don’t have artwork or a specific design in mind don’t be put off – any supplier of Custom USB flash drives worth their salt should have in-house designers that can work up some concepts for you to consider.

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Custom USB Flash Drives Keep Your Business Moving

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Custom USB Flash Drives For The University of Plymouth

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

If you’re one of the leading Universities in the UK and you want to hand out USB flash drives to your students to help them carry their work files to and from the university then it makes sense to choose a flash drive that reflects the DNA of the university.

Custom USB - Plymouth Uni

Custom USB - Plymouth Uni

In the case of The University of Plymouth they didn’t just want a standard flash drive that was printed with their logo instead they wanted a fully customised USB drive that matched the shape and colour of the monolith that marks the entrance to the University. The finished custom USB flash drive looks similar to a standard rectangular flash drive but has a distinctive sloping edge and is of course branded up with the Plymouth University logo.

Additionally, Plymouth University were keen that the flash drives could be personalised by each student so a white “signature panel” was included on the reverse of each flash drive. Handy in the event of the flash drives getting mixed up in lectures or simply lost on the campus.

The finished flash drives were supplied with a customised blue lanyard and the overall effect was stunning.

Custom Flash Drive - Plymouth Uni

Custom Flash Drive - Plymouth Uni

Custom USB flash drives are increasingly being used by universities not only to hand out (or sell) to their students but many are now using them to distribute prospectuses on and other course material. It’s not unusual these days to go to University or University department Open Days and be handed a printed flash drive that contains all the information you’ll need on the University, what courses are on offer, what the expected offer levels will be, what the key dates are and how to apply.

In many cases it’s cheaper for the universities to buy flash drives and get all this information loaded onto the drives rather than get the paper prospectuses printed. The added benefit is the data loaded on the flash drives can be changed at the last minute (if needs be) and they can be re-used again the following year if too many are ordered – you simply wipe the data and re-load them again!

It looks like paper prospectuses are still going to be with us for some time to come but the availably of the same information over the web, on memory sticks and on products like iPads and Kindles is eventually going to lead to their demise.

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Custom USB Flash Drives For The University of Plymouth

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Raising a Glass to Custom USB Flash Drives

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

If you’re in the drinks industry then it’s always a challenge coming up with new, exciting and innovative ways to promote your product without incurring the wrath of the anti-drinking lobby and ensuring you only promote responsible drinking can be a challenge!

USB Bottle Opener

USB Bottle Opener

Custom USB flash drives, particularly custom USB drives that are pre-loaded with TV adverts, media files, press releases, discount vouchers, and links to web sites and social networking sites present a really interesting and novel marketing opportunity.

We’ve already seen a number of major drinks brands use custom USB sticks to support the launch of a new product (at a press event) and some of the smaller Scottish distilleries have taken a shine to USB barrels and are using these to target their customers with offers.

USB Bottles and USB Corks

USB Bottles and USB Corks

The custom flash drives are ideal for press events and trade shows because they’re a little bit different, a little bit quirky and they’re fun. At the same time they get the message out about the product they are promoting and because its on a memory stick you’re pretty much guaranteed it’s a promotional product that won’t end up in the bin but will be used over and over again.

Whilst lots of people may already have at least one USB flash drive it’s the sort of product people still clamour for not least because they have a high-perceived value, they’re really handy to have and they’re really easy to use. By going for a version of the flash drive that has a “drink connection” you heighten the association to the brand printed on it, for example the USB bottle opener is ideal for the beer and larger brand whereas the USB barrels are fantastic for fine wines and spirits.

USB Barrels

USB Barrels

If you do opt for flash drives to support an event or product launch then make sure your supplier complies with the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and the WEE directive on reuse and recycling – it’s tough enough ensuring you comply with the advertising standard surrounding the drinks sector without having to worry about whether you comply with this legislation as well. A professional, reputable supplier should be able to give you the reassurances and certificates you need.

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Raising a Glass to Custom USB Flash Drives

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Custom USB Memory Sticks In A Flash

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

If you’ve got a complex logo with lots of colours, tints or graduated sections then reproducing this on a small USB memory sticks can be a challenge. Not only that but if you’ve left it until the last minute and your supplier needs to get them printed locally rather than during the manufacturing process in China then you’ll typically be stung with some hefty print set-up and print charges.

Local print charges are always higher because wage costs and other associated costs in the UK are significantly higher and this is reflected in the costs charged to set up each colour and then print each colour. This assumes of course that you get your custom USB memory sticks are silkscreen printed or pad printed.

An alternative to these more traditional print methods and one that handles complex prints well is to use an epoxy resin dome sticker. These “dome” stickers are precision machine cut so they fit neatly onto the memory sticks, the layer of resin applied to the sticker helps prevent wear and tear and reduces, significantly, the usual scratching and erosion of logo’s that can occur on printed USB sticks.

Custom USB Memory Sticks With Dome Stickers

Custom USB Memory Sticks With Dome Stickers

Best of all you can achieve stunning results with epoxy resin dome stickers quickly and relatively cheaply – certainly when compared to standard print methods.

So, if you do find yourself in need of custom USB memory sticks printed with a complex logo and you don’t have much time to work with then its definitely worth considering dome stickers. Don’t be put off by the use of the word “sticker” which does tend to carry negative connotations because the finished product as these images illustrate are stunning!

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Custom USB Memory Sticks In A Flash

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Custom USB Flash Drive Get Students Engaged in Design Technology

Friday, February 11th, 2011

If you’re struggling to get your pupils engaged and excited about Design Technology then you might want to follow in the path of a number of other UK schools that have challenged their students to design, build and package their own custom USB flash drives.

Whilst USB flash drives are not quite in the same league as mobile phones they are “techie gadgets” that the students will relate to and many will own and use already. Realistically we’re not quite at the stage where a group of mixed ability students could design and build a working mobile phone from scratch but a working USB flash drive is pretty much within the grasp of anyone.

USB Flash Drive Internal Component

USB Flash Drive Internal Component

OK, they might need a little bit of direction and encouragement but the ready availability of the core components means that building a flash drive is more of a design and assembly task and requires no complex manufacturing. The results can be stunning and of course the student will be left with a working USB flash drive that can be used in anger to save and transport their school work on.

The internal components of a flash drive are; a flash memory module, a controller chip and a PCB chassis with a USB connector on the end of it. These elements can be purchased as a single component and then a body or “shell” designed and fabricated around it. In essence this is what the factories that produce the flash drives in volume in China do but they use standard “factory shells” that are in the public domain.

Simple Custom USB Ideas

Simple Custom USB Ideas

It would be relatively easy and not too expensive to take any “winning” design and produce it in volume for the school. Fully customised USB flash drives are popular business promotional products and are commonly used to encourage the sale of all manner of goods from Nike Trainers to Fork-Lift Trucks. The growth in the commissioning of custom versions has forced down the set-up and moulding costs to a point where they are only marginally more expensive than “standard” factory models.

So, as well as setting pupils the challenge of designing a building a custom USB flash drive it’s also possible to do this in the context of a “competition” and put the winning version into production by way of an award. Get the design right and it would be worth approaching the commercial suppliers of promotional USB flash drives with the design. They might even be willing to buy it off you – it’s a crowded market at the moment and all the suppliers are fighting for points of differentiation and a unique design would be something they may be willing to pay for.

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Custom USB Flash Drive Get Students Engaged in Design Technology

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