Custom USB Flash Drives – Where to Buy Them From

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

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

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.