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.

Of all the people surveyed by the BPMA nearly half (45%) said they would most like to receive a USB stick in preference to any other promotional product. Usefulness was cited as the primary reason for wanting a USB stick and after a Promotional Mug USB memory sticks were kept the longest.

Having proven their “promotional pedigree” over the past few years in 2012 the expected trends for this popular produce are likely to be:

1. Continued increase in the number of units sold – it seems people, businesses and schools just can’t get enough of USB Flash Drives.
2. Continued cannibalisation of the CD/DVD market – these old storage products are now considered “dated” and simply don’t convey the right image as a medium for handing out data.
3. The Twister or “Swivel” model as it is sometimes referred to is predicted to top seller again. It’s held this position
   

   Promotional USB Sticks

   for a number of years now because it’s a small, capless and colourful product that takes print well.

4. Memory will get cheaper and the default promotional USB drive given away by the end of 2012 will have at least 4GB of storage compared to the typical 1GB drive that is given away now.
5. USB 3.0 (also dubbed SuperSpeed USB) will start to gain momentum during 2012. Intel’s entry into the market in early 2012 will mean that most PC’s from the summer of 2012 will ship with USB 3.0 on-board. This will drive demand fore USB 3.0 peripherals and storage products.
6. Custom (fully bespoke) USB flash drives will grow in popularity as the price differential between them and a “standard factory” design reduces.
7. More customers will take advantage of pre-loading the USB flash drives with their own content (sales brochures, media files, web links etc.)  before the USB sticks are handed out.

Unfortunately we also expect to see more fraud and more sales of “masked” and sub-standard USB flash drives. The growth in the market is encouraging more companies to try and cut corners and buy from sites like Alibaba or direct from China. This is fine if you have the time to undertake appropriate checks and you’re confident you have a way of getting your money back should things go wrong otherwise it can be very risky. Don’t become a fraud statistic in 2012.

We say it every year and every year we end up with disappointed customers who wanted a specific USB flash drive and in a particular pantone matched colour. In 2012, the Year of the Dragon, the holiday break is going to be even longer than normal with lots of factories closing from the 6^th January to the 4^th February – during this period nothing gets produced and nothing gets shipped. Nada, zip, nothing!!

Even when the factories return to work it take a week or so before things start to get back to “normal” but there are always the inevitable backlogs to deal with so typical leads times of 7-10 days can be stretched to several weeks.

Promotional USB Flash Drives

If you know you have an event, show, seminar, press launch or any other activity for which you need printed or promotional USB flash drives during January to mid-February then you need to be placing your orders now! Don’t put it off because Christmas is looming or you think you’ll be able to “sort it out” in the New Year because you might find you can’t.

Having been through the trauma of Chinese New Year factory shut-downs for the last 9 years we now do all we can to ensure continuity of supply to our customers even it the supply is limited to a small number of flash drive models and colours. But, with a limited supply in the market and lots of customers chasing the stock the tendency is for the prices to shoot up (partly because UK print costs are higher and partly because of usual supply/demand economics) – so, whilst you may find some stock your model choices, colour choices and memory size choices are likely to be very limited and you’ll end up paying a premium for your failure to plan ahead.

Without wishing to sound like a broken record we strongly urge anyone who is likely to want printed USB sticks to plan ahead now and get any order(s) in early. You don’t have to pay for them when you order them, you’ll get exactly what you want and you’ll save yourself money – pretty compelling arguments to get any internal (early) approvals you might need.

Understandably this is not always possible but at least armed with an understanding of the issues/challenges you can hopefully find a way to work with the situation.

If you are too late then don’t forget that USB2U hold thousands of USB sticks in stock and can deliver them (printed) in as little as 24hrs – you may have to compromise a little on model and colour but at least you’ll have something!

“If it seems too good to be true – it probably is,” he said.

“It’s a business that costs Britain £1.3bn a year and it’s really serious at this time of the year when people are doing lots of shopping, especially online shopping.”

The general thrust of his message is that “across the board someone somewhere is trying to con you by trying to sell you some counterfeit goods.” In doing so they will attempt to evade duty and VAT and potentially put consumers at risk by importing potentially dangerous and unregulated products.

Unfortunately we’re seeing more and more of this is the promotional USB memory stick market.

Some suppliers (and we know this because we often have to pick up the pieces) offer what they claim to be Grade A, Hynix or Samsung flash drives only to then supply flash drives that are assembled using recycled or Grade B flash memory chips. Sometimes they’ll also have cheap flash controllers inside and increasingly they’re being made using “masked” USB flash memory chips – this is where a rejected flash chip of say 600MB has been “masked” to look like a 1GB!

Externally these fake and substandard flash drives look great and they might even come with a lifetime guarantee but, it’s only when you use the flash drives that you’ll notice how slow they are, how many failures you get and how data seems to magically “disappear” after its been loaded (this is common with masked flash drives). They also have a nasty habit of failing after just a couple of months and if you try and claim against the lifetime guarantee you’ll often find you can’t get hold of the company you bought them from.

Suppliers (and we use this term loosely in this context) get away with sending out these flash drives because they know in lots of cases they’ll be given away at trade shows and people won’t care if a few fail (ironically it can be a very high percentage that fail but because they’re given away free no real data is collected).

Our advice is really just the same as the Minister’s – “Check, double check and check again to make sure what you are buying and where you are buying from is the real deal,” he says

A QR Code Printed onto a Branded USB FLash Drive

As with everything in business nowadays ‘Quick Response Codes’ is often shortened to ‘QR codes’.  They work in a simlar way to a barcode, once scanned with a QR scanner the code is read and the relevant information is produced.  They were first used in tracking parts with vehicle manufacturers but their uses have more recently moved to marketing on devices such as mobile phones and computers.  QR readers can be downloaded onto smart phones or computers using apps such as QR Reader, KAYWA reader or i-nigma reader.  When the code is ‘scanned’ by taking a picture with the phones camera or the computers web-camera the code can direct the phone to do a variety of things such as open a website, display text, show some text, write an SMS message, show a location on Google maps and many more things.  These QR codes have been used on marketing campaigns, on billboards, in newspapers, on business cards and even on chocolate.

QR codes are free to generate and can be made on sites such as www.qrcode.kaywa.com and www.qrstuff.com.  The issue however with QR codes however, is that mobile phones and computers do not come with QR reader software already installed, an application must be downloaded onto the devices before the code can be read.  Despite this QR codes are great for marketing because they mean that static, traditional advertising such as billboards and magazine adverts can become digital and mobile only by taking a photo.

Now, with our recent job printing QR codes onto the branded USB memory sitck, even devices like USB flash drives, which have both digital and static marketing benefits can become that little more digital and mobile.  We think that this job was a great idea and should be very effective as a promotional USB memory stick.

Of course, the idea that a device can open a file, a website or a location on a map has been around for while with branded USB flash drives.  With the auto-run feature that will automatically open certain files when plugged into a computer can be installed onto our promotional flash drives.  To find out more about the auto-run feature visit the USB duplication and data-loading page.

If you are new to QR codes try ‘scanning’ the QR code to the left and see where it takes you…

Promotional USb Compass

Looking at this device, it has to be asked how many times you have recently used a compass or even needed to use one.  With technology nowadays there is little need for devices like compasses.  If you are the outdoors type and love hiking or rambling etc. it’s doubtful that you’d risk successfully returning to your camp on a compass USB flash drive, you’d probably have a little more sophisticated kit.  Even if you do decide to use a the USB compass flash drive for a both of it’s purposes as a data storage device and a compass there are very few times that you would need both in the same day.

So if the Compass USB flash drive doesn’t double well as a compass, what is it for?  This particular design would be a great promotional tool for certain companies.  Boat builders, consultancies or outdoor retailers are a few companies that would largely benefit from using this branded compass USB.

On another note, this USB flash drive reminds us of the difficulty that consumers can have buying branded USB flash drives in the slowly crowding market.  Navigating your way through the numerous company websites to find the right branded USB supplier can be tiring and tedious.  To help with this we have created a small list of things to check when shopping for your branded flash drives:

1. The company is reputable and has a valued client portfolio.  To view some of our previous clients visit our branded USB testimonials page.
2. Ensure that all branded USB memory sticks are fitted with grade A chips.  All of our flash drives are fitted with grade A chips and go through a virus check and quality control process.
3. Understand all of the costing upfront and keep it as simple as possible.  At USB2U we have made the costing simple by offering free UK delivery, free printing, free data load, free lanyards or key rings and free gift boxes.  To find out more visit our why choose USB2U page.
4. Good quality product visuals are important to ensure that your logo flash drives will look exactly how you want them to.  We have an in house design team that provides impeccable quality visual mock-ups.
5. Fell the quality of the product yourself.  We send out free samples of our products so that customers can witness the top quality of our products first hand.

With these coordinates in mind we are sure that you will navigate past all other branded USB flash drive suppliers and always buy your promotional USB flash drives through USB2U.

Lego Custom USB Memory Stick

Searching ‘cool USB drive’ on Google Images is not the most effective way of keeping up to date with new USB flash drive news but can certainly be an entertaining 5 minutes looking at some wacky things that people have come up with.  Nintendo Wii remote controls, Lego bricks, wine corks, cars, clothes pegs, vegetables and figurines are a small number of the shells that people have made to case their USB flash drive in.  We think that these flash drives are certainly cool and deserve some kudos, some of them can even make you laugh or have you stare in amazement at the level of attention and detail.  These novelty drives, although extremely imaginative, seem also very impractical.

One of the greatest benefits of USB flash drives is that they are portable and can be stored with a large amount of data for their size (up to 256GB for one specific flash drive).  It has to be asked how often some of these novelty USB drives would be used for what they were made for, or how much they would sit on a desk as an ornament.  I’m sure many of us have had the situation where our USB flash drive fit into our laptop or the back of a computer tower because they pack the USB slots so close together and our flash drive is a little too bulky to fit between the leads and existing USB connectors.

A Selection of Our Custom USBs

We also sell a variety of novelty branded USB flash drives disguising themselves as other things.  Although in most cases our Promotional USB memory sticks are not as bizarre as some that can be found on Google but fortunately, they are much more functional.  Take, for example our USB mini people which can be customised to our customers requirements.  Our USB pill drive, not surprisingly resembles a pill, the credit card range are almost exactly the same size as the real thing and our USB key drive disguises itself nicely on a key ring.  We sell many more in our standard range of Logo USB memory sticks; metal and plastic USB bottle, USB pen range, USB bottle opener, the list continues.  All of these drives are easily portable and extremely functional.  If however, a custom USB flash drive really is what you are looking for then we have just the thing for you.

We can cater for your custom USB needs by customising the shape, colour, size, almost everything about the USB flash drive.  Contact us via telephone, email or via our quote form so we can work with you to produce your perfect custom USB and who knows, maybe your USB will be seen in our next search for ‘cool USB drives’ on Google Images.

New Standard Offer

We now have a standard, permanent offer that includes the following:

• FREE Delivery to one UK mainland address
• FREE 4 Colour spot printing
• FREE Data load up to 100mb
• FREE Lanyards or Key Rings
• FREE Gift box
• Minimum Order Quantity of 25 units

These great offers apply to apply to every standard order regardless of USB style, quantity, or memory size.

USB2U Offer

Free Delivery
Yes, standard delivery to one UK mainland address is FREE.  This applies to all standard orders regardless of order quantity, style or memory size.  We think that free delivery reduces the complication of different added costs and that it is good to know up-front how much your branded USB flash drives will cost.  Standard delivery is sent first class however; any times deliveries such as guaranteed next-day delivery will be charged for.

Free Printing
All of our flash drives now come with free colour printing up to four spot colours.  Multi-coloured logos and complicated designs are not a problem either as we are also offering free Resin Dome Stickers on our most popular USB model, the Twister.  To find out more about the Resin Dome Stickers click here and to see the Twister USB flash drive in more detail click here.

Free Data Load
We’ll load or copy any data you want onto the sticks for FREE. The only constraint is that the data must be less than 100MB otherwise a small charge will apply. We have our own in-house professional USB data duplication equipment so we can load you data right at the last minute if you struggle to get the data ready till then.

Free Lanyard or Key Ring
With all orders we are offering a selection of free coloured lanyards and key rings to accompany your USBs.  Our lanyards come in a range of 8 different colours, Black, White, Grey, Blue, Green, Orange, Red and Yellow.  Lanyards and Key Rings are ideal for School’s giving the USBs to their students.

Free Gift Box
With every order for branded flash drives we can supply free gift boxes. Please remember to ask for these, as we know not everyone wants them. As well as these free standard boxes we offer a wide range of presentation boxes and tins for your branded USB flash drives and these can be branded up with your logo as well to really compliment the memory stick. Ask for samples if you’re not sure. These can be seen here: USB Packaging.

25 Unit Minimum Order Quantity
Unlike some promotional companies, our minimum order quantity for printed flash drives is set at a realistic 25 pieces. If you just want plain (unprinted stock) then you can order from 5 pieces upwards.

New Homepage

To accompany our new great offer we have also just launched a brand new homepage that looks better, loads quicker and offers easier navigation.

Better Looking
We think that the new style of the homepage is much more tidy and sharp, the same way you feel when you have had a haircut.  The modules separate the different areas and links featured on the homepage easier on the eye and the new slider banner is much sleeker.

Quicker at Loading

Our homepage changes don’t only have an aesthetic appeal; it is now also quicker at loading.  This will make it much more convenient to visit our site and browse through our wide range of USB drives.

Easier Navigation
The new homepage has been revamped so that you can find what you want faster.  We have organised modules so that the more important and more frequently used sections of our site such as the product range, 48 hour rush service and Quote page are more accessible.

So, to see what all of the fuss is about and to view our new homepage click here.

One piece of advice stood out above the rest.  It gave advice on how to most effectively use handouts to accompany a presentation.  The article said that handouts should never be given out at any time during a presentation.

We all know what happens if handouts are given to us at the beginning of a presentation.  Even if you haven’t given a presentation recently, you’ve most likely been in one where this has happened.  Eyes go down, everyone reads ahead and if you’re lucky they are sometimes on the right page.  It’s more likely that your audience are trying to calculate how much longer they will be sat for by the amount of pages and slides.

As we all know, if handouts are to be used, they should be provided after a presentation to add value or accompany it as opposed to being a competitor for your attention.

We all have a stack of paper from previous presentations on which we took notes, never to read or refer to again, yet we cant bring ourselves to put them straight in the bin in case we need them in the near future.  Months later on the cycle of the blue moon when we come to tidy our desk, we dig out these presentation slides and have no hesitation in throwing them away.

Clip Style USB Flash Drive

‘What has this got to do with logo USB flash drives?’ I hear you ask.  Well, if handout information should be something that adds value to a presentation, but if people don’t refer back to the information, what’s the point in the handout?  Wouldn’t it be much more effective if you used an impressive company branded USB memory stick?

Think about the change in attitude of your audience when at the end they are given a useful USB flash drive.  It’s more likely that they would get back to their desk and plug the flash drive into their computer to find out what has been saved.  They could find a PDF version of your presentation, the hand out document, web links taking them directly to the Internet pages that you referred to and anything else that you found necessary to give the added value that your presentations deserves.  Referring back to your presentation information will become interesting.

Our new Clip USB flash drive is a small, sleek and professional looking memory stick that is perfect for this purpose.  It can double as a paper clip holding documents together or sit nicely on a suit or jacket pocket.

Using a branded USB memory stick can add value and make that impression that your presentation needs to secure the job, win the pitch or impress your boss.

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 29^th 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.