In our time we’ve produced custom USB drives in the shape of floor heaters, rubbers, tampons and eggs, we’ve printed USB flash drives for football clubs, schools, companies that sell 4-D images of babies in the womb, theme parks, charities, photographic studios and lots more besides.

We’ve even done plenty of printed USB sticks for people celebrating the birth of their child, lots of engagements and milestone birthdays (40^th’s 50^th etc.) and we do our fair share of USB sticks for wedding photographers but, until last week we’d never been asked to supply USB sticks for a funeral!

Our customer, whose father had died, purchased the sticks to hand out to mourners attending the funeral. The sticks were printed with a photograph of his father and personal memorabilia was pre-loaded onto each stick including photographs of his father throughout his life, extracts from books and poems he enjoyed reading and music that he loved to listen to.

The general thrust of the idea was that the funeral was to be a celebration of his fathers life and he wanted to give every mourner something that gave them a real insight into the man that his father was. Lanyards were attached to each USB stick and the mourners were actively encouraged to wear them during the funeral service and then to take them home, plug them in and use the images and files loaded on the sticks to remind themselves of the man they knew and loved.

It’s a great idea, not one we’d have thought of and probably not an idea that will appeal to many but it does demonstrate the diversity of use that USB memory sticks (printed and pre-loaded) are being put to these days.

Today not only are large elements of lives shared on-line through Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter, but we also post photographs on services like Flickr, we share out thoughts on blogs and we share endless amounts of information via our smartphones.

As such it should have come as no surprise that even in death, images and information about continues to be distributed.

Consider this, we now capture and store on USB sticks images of babies whilst still in the womb, images of birthdays throughout our lives, our engagement, our weddings and now our death – the “circle of life” now stored and distributed on a USB Flash Drive.

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

We’re referring of course to the havoc that the Chinese New Year Holidays causes within the promotions industry and in particular the panic that ensues because companies can’t get promotional USB sticks printed and delivered in time for their key events and shows.

USB Sticks in a Hurry

The primary problem is that during Chinese New Year normal lead times get stretched from a reasonable 7-10 days to around 4-6 weeks and if customers have not anticipated this then they tend to turn to the web in an endeavour to find a company that can meet their requirements. Consequently for the few weeks that Chinese New Year is on our phones run red hot and our on-line lead enquiry system “chatters away” all day.

Fortunately, having been here before we now order plenty of blank stock to see us through Chinese NY so we are in the enviable position of being able to respond to the enquiries we get and we are turning around requests for printed USB memory sticks in as little as 24hrs.

We’re working flat out and our print schedules are filling up fast which is great but it does mean that if you want us to supply you with promotional USB sticks during this tough period then you need to get your order in quickly.

So, if you need USB sticks in a hurry, or perhaps you’ve been let down by another supplier who over promised during this period then give us a call or fill our on-line enquiry form and one of our team will get back to you.

If you’re fund raising as part of a group then it can be a lot easier than raising funds on your own because you’ll have the benefit of pooling your ideas together and setting up a little committee to work out how you execute your plans. Fund raising on your own is a little more challenging simply because you need to be much more focused, determined and self-sacrificing. The range of activities you can don on your own will also be more limited than those you could do as a group.

Firm favourites for fund raising include:

• Sponsored walks, runs, cycle rides, silences, bungee jumping, abseiling etc. These are all “doable” as an individual or as a group but they all demand a degree of physical fitness and nerve so they’re not for everyone.
• Car boot sales, jumble sales, table top sales and garage sales.
• Quiz nights including pop quiz nights, sports quiz nights or just a general quiz night – these can be great fun but you need to put lots of energy into the promotion of the quiz night to ensure enough people turn up, typically people will want food so this needs to be factored into the planning and budgeting and you’ll need some great questions and a willing compare for the evening.
• Car cleaning and sponsored bag packing at the local supermarket – again, great ideas but lots of people want to do this and supermarkets only allow it occasionally becuae they don’t want their customers “hassled”.

For something a little bit different you could sell (for a profit) printed USB memory sticks or printed USB wristbands. USB Memory sticks (also known as flash drives, pen drives, thumb drives and pen drives) are incredibly popular at the moment. They have become the de facto way to save and carry around data files and lots of school students use them every day to save their homework onto.

Fundraising with USB Memory Sticks

You could buy USB flash drives printed with your school, church or group logo on, or you could get them printed with details of charity. One option that would make them a little bit special is to get them personalised with peoples name on – for this you’d have to take “orders” in advance and then get your supplier to print each stick with a different name on (as well as your logo).

Don’t forget you can also pre-load onto the memory sticks documents about your charity; school etc. to give people an idea about what the money you’re raising will go towards. You could also include web links to your blog, your on-line charity donation page(s) and any Facebook or Twitter pages you’ve set up to support your fund raising.

To make it worth your while you need to order at least 25 USB sticks – this way you’ll get a decent price (including the printing) and should be able to sell them on for a reasonable profit.

There are lots of suppliers around that can offer printed USB memory sticks including USB2U who have been around since 2002 and are now one of the leading suppliers in the UK.

Of course you should load them with data (sales brochures, web links, brochures, etc.) but don’t put yourself through the torture of doing it yourself. Get your supplier of the USB sticks to load the data for you before they are delivered. Most suppliers (providing it’s a reasonable amount of data) will pre-load the sticks for you free of charge. OK, you need to be organised and have your data ready and you might have to provide the supplier with the data early but if you can do this it’s so much easier than trying to load them yourself from you PC in the office!!

Pre-loading data onto hundreds or thousands of memory sticks can take hours and in some cases days, depending on the size of the data you are copying. So don’t do it it’s not good for your health or your sanity.

USB Data Loading

Companies that offer a data-loading service will usually use commercial and automatic USB data duplication equipment that allows them to load thousands of memory sticks pretty quickly. These professional data-loading systems are rack mounted, they manage tens or hundreds of USB sticks at a time and the systems can be expanded to meet demand.

At USB2U we invested in a number of professional data-loading machines a few years ago and we regularly load data on behalf of our customers. All we need is the data and then we create a “master” USB memory stick which we get approved by the customer and then we replicate the data onto the memory sticks the customer has ordered. Simple, painless and hassle free!

Not only that but, the beauty of the professional data duplication equipment that we use at USB2U is that during the data loading process we test and QA each USB stick again before they are sent to our customers. We can also provide detailed reports on the overall amount of data loaded; the data transfer speeds of the sticks and any failures.

The level of investment in this professional equipment is significant but it allows us to offer a complete solution that includes the supply of branded USB flash drives and accessories, data loading and if needed fulfilment. We can also do all of this quickly often responding to request to print, dataload and ship USB sticks in as little as 24hrs

The benefits of handing out promotional USB sticks to help drive brand awareness, to increase sales or simply to give the recipients’ a means of storing and carrying data are well documented.  To a large extent USB sticks have now replaced CD’s and DVD’s as the de facto storage option of choice.

Their popularity has been underpinned by dramatic price falls over the past few years coupled with the availability of much larger memory sizes. A few years ago the typical memory size of a giveaway or promotional USB flash drive was around 128MB, today the most popular size is 2GB and by the end of this year it’s expected to be 4GB.

Personalised USB Flash Drives

Most USB memory sticks that are given out are printed with a single design or brand on them (or in the case of schools and universities it tends to be the school crest or logo). This is fine in most circumstances but sometimes it would be beneficial for every USB stick to be personalised; perhaps with a name or serial number for example.

It makes sense if you’re buying USB flash drives for a school class or perhaps an entire school to add the students name to the logo that is printed – perhaps on the reverse of the USB stick or if there is room adjacent to the logo. This way it’s much easier to identify who owns the sticks should any of them get lost or misplaced (and inevitability with school students)

The challenge if you want a different name or image printed on every USB stick you order is find a supplier that is able to do it and do it for a reasonable price. Most suppliers charge a set-up and print fee for every design they print which could potentially mean 30 different set-up and print charges for a class of 30 students (assuming you had each student’s name printed on every stick)!!

The reason for the charge is because  USB sticks are typically screen printed and a new “screen” would have to be made for every name change but, if you can find a supplier that uses the latest digital printing techniques it should be possible to change the graphics on every USB stick for little or no extra cost.

USB2U is one of the few suppliers of promotional USB memory sticks that can only offer a truly personalised printing option for some of their core products and if you get your order in early enough (and they have the stock to hand) then they can turn around orders in just 24hrs!

So, if you need to get hold of branded USB memory sticks in a hurry you’ll have to find a local supplier that can offer a “rush” service but even this normally means a wait of around 3 days (typically a little longer if you need data pre-loading onto the USB sticks as well).

USB Sticks in 24Hrs

The problem is that most suppliers of branded USB memory sticks don’t hold any stocks of USB sticks in-house preferring instead to place the orders on their factory as their customers confirm them. This de-risks holding stock that might not get purchased or simply might devalue based on fluctuations in the price of flash memory and currency exchange rates (all USB flash memory and memory sticks are traded in US Dollars).  Those suppliers that do hold stock typically only hold very small quantities of a very limited range of model and styles and even then they can’t print them on-site.

One supplier that is different is USB2U. Established in 2002, USB2U been supplying branded USB memory sticks longer than any other promotional supplier in the UK, they hold large quantities of stock in the UK, they have invested in professional data-loading equipment and they have the latest printing technology in-house.

The combination of their experience, their large stock levels and their investment in the latest state of the art technology enables them to provide a lightening fast delivery service. Customer who take advantage of their rush service and who place their orders by 10am can opt to get them delivered the following business day. That’s fast!

So, if you do find yourself up against a tight deadline and you need USB memory sticks, USB credit cards or USB business cards with your company or school name/logo printed on (full colour) then get in touch with the team at USB2U.

Unfortunately just like lots of other sectors that supply businesses and schools with products there are “scam merchants” about that are only too willing to take your business and turn a profit at whatever cost even if that means supplying you with fake or poor quality goods. Given your name will be printed on the USB flash drives you need to be sure you don’t fall prey to their scams or it will reflect badly on your brand and organisation.

Some of the basic things to watch for when buying promotional USB Flash drives are:

1)      Is your supplier using or planning to use “re-cycled” or Grade B flash memory chips inside the USB flash drives they supply you with. As the name implies a re-cycled flash memory module will have been salvaged from a Grade A product that has perhaps failed a full QA process. They are likely to be to correct memory size but they will have a much higher failure rate and will typically perform poorly, e.g. the read/write speeds will be slow.

2)      Check the drives have not been “masked”. Masking is a growing problem and it’s particularly difficult to spot. It involves making smaller capacity flash drives appear to look as though they have more storage capacity than they actually do. Externally the USB sticks won’t look any different, even when you plug them into a PC everything will look “OK”. If you’ve ordered say 1GB USB sticks they will appear as 1GB sticks on the PC (even when you check the properties of the drive) But, if you load data on the drive up to the supposed limit and then take out the drive and plug it into another PC you’ll find the data isn’t there!!

What’s happened is that the manufacturer/supplier has taken say a 256MB flash drive and “masked” it to make it look like a 1GB – they’ll sell it to you as though it’s a genuine 1GB. This is the reason why some supplier prices look so cheap – it’s because you’re not getting what you ordered. Worse they’ll sell it at a 1GB price and pocket the extra profit.

3)      Cheap controller chips and cheap flash memory modules – at the heart of any memory stick are two core components: the flash memory module and the controller chip that manages the read/write process to the flash memory. Both of these components are available from a number of different sources (Intel, Samsung, Hynix etc.) and some perform better than others – the price of them is a reasonable indicator of the performance.

So, if you get offered “cheap” USB sticks then be prepared for these two components to be at the lower end of what’s available. This in turn will impact the speed and performance of the USB sticks. This is not always an issue but if you are planning to load lots of data on the USB sticks or you’re a photographer that will be hoping to load lots of high resolutions images on the sticks then make sure you go for high spec memory chips and controllers.

4)      It’s not unknown for some suppliers to just put a 1GB sticker on a 256MB flash drive and hope they’ll get away without you noticing.

If you don’t want to fall victim to these scams then buy from a trusted and reputable supplier and ideally a local supplier that will take ownership of problems or issues you might have once they have been delivered.

Custom USB Boxes

But, if you are giving away your USB flash drives as a gift then there is a judgment to be made about whether the small additional cost of a gift box is a price worth paying – both in cost terms and also in terms of environmental impact.

There is no getting away from the fact that USB sticks make a bigger, better impact when handed out in a printed gift box. It just looks like more thought has gone into the gift and anyone given the gift is going to be more impressed with the gift and they are therefore more likely to remember who gave it to them and think positively about any brand associated with it.

Custom Flash Drive Boxes

Very few people would consider handing out their Christmas or Birthday gifts without first wrapping them up so it is surprising how many businesses give out promotional gifts without considering the packaging options.

There are a wide range of standard gift boxes and tins available for custom USB sticks. They can call be overprinted with a brand or message and typically they will come with a custom foam insert to hold the USB sticks firmly in place.

The incremental cost to get your flash drives supplied in a printed gift box is relatively small and it’s a price well worth paying for greater impact you’ll make.

Understandably for some businesses who have an strong environmental message to push, packaging and gift boxes is a going to be a non-starter, but for everyone else they ought to be considered.

Superspeed USB has been so named because it delivers a 10 fold increase in data transfer speeds compared to the current USB 2.0 standard but to achieve these speeds everything from the PC, to the cable to the peripheral or storage device connected to the PC must support the USB 3.0 standard.

Whilst we’ve seen a number of smaller PC manufacturers launch PC’s with USB 3.0 on-board the lack of any Intel based

USB 3.0

solution has held the market back. The market needs Intel to deliver 3.0 support to drive competition and to bring USB 3.0 prices down.

Some sceptics have also suggested that the Intel has been dragging its heels to allow its own high-speed connection technology called Thunderbolt to get established. Thunderbolt is twice as fast of USB 3.0 and is a joint development with Apple on whose products it is already being shipped.

Mainstream PC’s with Intel’s Ivy Bridge chips onboard and support for Superspeed USB 3.0 are expected to start hitting the shops in May/June 2012. From this point on things will start to get interesting because all of a sudden USB 3.0 will be within reach of most people buying a PC, in fact within a few months it will be the de facto standard on any PC purchased.

With Intel’s support in 2012, USB 3.0 will move into the mainstream and the peripherals and cables that we use with our PC’s will also start to move over to the new Superspeed standard. It won’t happen overnight because un the short term USB 3.0 products will inevitably carry a price premium but within a couple of years USB 3.0 will just be the expected standard and referred to not as USB 3.0 but USB.

For the Promotional USB Flash Drive sector there is unlikely mass change to USB 3.0 flash drives simply because in the short term (next 12-18 mths) they will carry a price premium that most companies won’t want to pay for a “give-away” product. Equally, there is little point paying for a premium high-speed product until you are sure that most people you give them to are able to benefit from the higher speeds on offer. We’re some years away from the ubiquitous use of USB 3.0 and until that time or until the factories stop manufacturing USB 2.0 sticks the standard for promotional USB flash drives will be USB 2.0 – after all, these will still work on USB 3.0 PC’s they just won’t work at the high data transfer speeds.