Prices and Anxiety Levels are Rising
Well, you can’t say we didn’t tell you! As we get closer to Chinese New Year things are starting to get interesting in the promotional USB stick market. Prices are rising; anxiety amongst businesses trying to source USB sticks against tight deadlines is increasing and something close to panic looks set to ensue over the next week or so.
Ironically it happens every year and every year, starting in December, we try to make as many customers as possible aware of the likely issues and encourage them, where possible, to place their orders early. The benefits are; cheaper prices and assured, stress free delivery.
Understandably not everyone is in a position in December (or early Jan) to know what USB sticks they might need but it is nevertheless surprising just how many businesses leave things right until the last minute.
The core problem is that the Chinese New Year holidays last around 2 weeks and during this time pretty much everything comes to a standstill. No factory that produces USB sticks wants to be taking new orders right up until the start of the holidays so they draw a line in the stand about a week before the festivities commence. This year the actual day of the New Year is the 10th February so expect factories to stop taking orders a week or more before this.
When the factories re-open they then typically take a week or more to catch up with the backlog of orders that have built up so “normal service” can be disrupted for about one month!
If you’ve been caught up in the delays brought on by this years Chinese New Year break in production then your best bet is to find a local supplier of USB memory sticks that holds stock and has the capability to personalise this stock in the UK.
Most UK suppliers are just intermediaries and won’t carry UK stock of their own or if they do they’ll typically have a very limited range of models and memory sizes to chose from. At USB2U we’ve seen our fair share of challenges during Chinese New Year over the last 10 years and we now make sure we bolster our stock holdings during this time.
So, if you are beginning to worry about whether you will get your promotional USB sticks in time the best advice we can give you is to pick up the phone and call us – one of our team will talk you through the range of models, memory sizes and colours we hold and they’ll talk you through a range of delivery options that include our Rush 24hr service.
