We’re in the era of “branding.” Personal branding, company branding, rebranding – anything and everything can be presented in just the right way.
Accordingly, you’ll find print and promotional products distributors referring to themselves as “solutions providers.” But it’s way more than creative window dressing; it’s an accurate representation of the modern distributor’s role in the industry.
Consider that end-buyers are looking to streamline their buying process. They want to get all of their branded products from one source, so distributor firms have added capabilities like print and decoration in addition to promotional hard goods and apparel. And as the means of delivering products evolves in the online age, distributors continue to expand their services to meet their end-users literally where they live.
Data from the Counselor State of the Industry report backs up that idea. The percentage of distributors offering company stores and kitting have increased each of the last two years. Meanwhile, half of distributors sell signage, 60% sell printing services and nearly three-quarters offer graphic design.
Other Services Provided by Distributors
Distributors are increasingly offering add-ons like company stores and kitting.
This is the “one-stop shop” model that distributors aim for. But not all of them are uniform. What can a one-stop shop look like, and how do the various distributorships achieve it?
At Counselor Top 40 distributor American Solutions for Business (ASB, asi/120075), the one-stop model has evolved. In the 1980s it meant expanding from print business forms to promotional products; later, the philosophy led to creating e-commerce platforms for company stores.
“A one-stop shop makes it easy for customers so they can go to one source for everything that they need,” says Amy Spychalla, vice president of strategic operations and support for ASB. “Our founder, Larry Zavadil, often talks about our sales associates being an extension of the customer’s team without being on the payroll.”
ASB has further adapted its online and e-commerce solutions to meet the growing capabilities of print-on-demand, creating a sort of hybrid model where customers can order some items in large quantities and others on an as-needed basis to avoid dead stock.
“A single program may include core print and promo items in inventory, logoed apparel that is ordered one at a time as needed, along with custom print with variable information, such as business cards, custom brochures and postcards,” Spychalla says.
Become a “One-Stop Shop” With ASI
With its suite of technology and services, ASI is enabling the modern promotional products distributor to tend to all of their clients’ needs. This year ASI launched ESP+ Stores, a seamless end-to-end e-commerce store solution that lets distributors create branded online storefronts that are integrated with ASI’s ESP+ sourcing and technology platform. In addition, ASI is offering a dual membership with its strategic partner, PRINTING United Alliance, to help drive the continued convergence of promo and print, and enable promo distributors to expand their offerings. Visit programs.asicentral.com/dualmembership for more information on ASI’s and PUA’s dual membership. To learn more and sign up for ESP+ Stores, visit programs.asicentral.com/stores.
There are different routes distributors can take to get to this point. One can invest in new equipment if they were to, say, begin offering print and signage capabilities, or hire graphic design staff. They can also find reliable third-party partners to handle the nuts and bolts of production while acting as broker agencies.
Others can go the route of acquiring businesses that already perform these tasks and integrate them into the larger company, as was the case at Taylor Corp., which among dozens of other companies owns Taylor Promotional Products (asi/333647), another Counselor Top 40 distributor. This can provide a challenge in itself, though, as you now have to homogenize the different branches for customers.
“Taylor Corporation is a company that’s a group of companies,” says Rick Roddis, business unit president for Taylor Promotional Products. “Many of them were acquisitions. Knitting those things together as a single offering can be challenging. I think we’ve come a long way in the last three to five years really improving that process so that the customer sees a seamless offering of products.”
By doing so, Roddis says, Taylor is focused less on print and promo, and more on “business essentials,” where the customer isn’t even aware they’re buying from two different ends of the product spectrum. And if the customer does have gaps in knowledge of either medium, he adds, a well-versed distributor can step in to educate them.
“I think expanding your services is a large competitive advantage.”Lisa Hubbard, The Vernon Company (asi/351700)
The ultimate goal of the one-stop shop is efficiency for the end-buyer. But distributors adapting their own model should explore what services and product offerings suit their business model, too.
Lisa Hubbard, vice president of sales and marketing for Counselor Top 40 distributor The Vernon Company (asi/351700) and a Counselor Power 50 member, looks back on the history of the Newton, IA-based company and notes where it’s made smart investments, rather than throwing anything at the factory wall to see what sticks with end-buyers.
“There’s always risk when you go out and broaden your horizons,” she says. For Vernon, in addition to its in-house decoration capabilities, it has found scalable success with its graphics printing division, but part of that success comes with the fact that the firm also has a 55,000-square-foot warehouse to fulfill jobs.
Reasonable expansion into other services can be a difference maker in an increasingly competitive market. “I think it’s a large competitive advantage,” Hubbard says. “Customers only have one call, one source, and you can bring everything into an e-commerce site or website for someone who’s looking for those solutions.”