There was a time, perhaps about ten years ago many sectors relied on inexpensive capped ball  pens to promote their business, but sadly in recent years we have seen a decline in demand for this type of pen. After casual observation over the past five years it would appear there are a few reasons why this trend seems to continue unabated.

• Price: Retractable Pens such as our range of Harrier Extra Ball Pens are now as cheap as most capped ballpens.
• Seminars & Conferences often opted for capped pens because of the distracting noise that retractable ballpoint pens make. Retractable Promotional Pens are now, in the main very silent in operation
• Environmental Issues. Many establishments such as hotels consider the environment and are opting for Recycled Pens or Biodegradable Pens and these tend to be retractable.
• Child Safety. Many consumers are worried about the cap blocking airways

Here at The Pen Warehouse, we believe that the trend is applicable to all pen suppliers as we see less and less of capped promotional pens in Distributor’s catalogues. Being old-school I love pens with caps because I believe they are still better value for money compared to retractable promotional pen – for the simple reason that the refills tend to be much longer and therefore your corporate message remains in front of your target audience longer.

Don’t worry about , child safety, environmental issues, price or cap noise because our range of  Envirostick Ball Pens are an all-in-one solution to these problems.

• It contains a large breather hole to comply with child safety standards
• It is very inexpensive
• It is made from recycled and fully certified EcoAllene material derived from Tetra Pak drinks cartons.

So, there is absolutely no reason that we should not see a resurgence in demand for the good old capped ball point pen. Give us a call for samples – you will be overwhelmed!

Harrier Pens is a trademark of Tancia Ltd

It would seem that the days of 3 weeks delivery for promotional pens have gone out the window in favour of last minute ordering. Distributors now enjoy 24 hour service and sometimes same day service on printed plastic pens.

None of us are getting any more money for this service as suppliers and distributors fight for a share of the smaller by-the-day pot! What can we do about it? – very little I fear is the probable answer. The problem is exacerbated by the direction our industry is going with more and more trade suppliers having an end-user selling division. This hand-in-glove partnership is designed to shut out competitors both supplier and distributor and is a highly effective strategy as it recognises the achilles heel of the traditional method for achieving distribution.

Is The Pen Warehouse worried about the direction that events are turning? Not even slightly is the answer because we made provision a long time ago to diversify into new and inventive products and services as we picked up on the warning signs long before they could have a negative impact on our sales. We are exclusively trade, we intend to remain exclusively trade in support of those distributors that appreciate the stance we have taken…. and our promise to you is that you can look forward to many new groundbreaking  initiatives over the next 12 months to ensure that healthy supplier-distributor relationship is preserved.

One of the more common comments we hear from our distributors is ‘it is a pleasure to use your product  images’. It seems that the average standard amongst trade suppliers is their images are not up to scratch.

Here at The Pen Warehouse, we pride ourselves on our photography. All images are created in-house using the highest quality photographic equipment. We employ experts at every stage from the point of shooting right through to manipulation. We don’t care how long it takes to make a good photograph, sometimes we will spend 3 or 4 days on just one shot just to get it right.

The photography itself is only one stage in the whole process. Behind each session are a dedicated and permanent team involved in image manipulation to ensure the full potential of the high resolution images are exploited. The average image size is in the region of 120Mb and is capable of being printed full banner size without pixelation. Each image usually involves at least 4 separate shots to make one final harmonised photograph. The result…. we produce better images than the leading brands that grace our catalogue pages. For that reason we do not use any other pen supplier’s images because the difference between our photography and theirs is noticeable on our pages. It is little wonder that one leading brand recently asked us to shoot their new range of pens to the standard that we shoot ours.

Photography is just one element to help improve publicity for our customers. We produce banners, displays POS material and own-label pen website to make life as easy as possible for our distributors. All images, incluing vector images are available on one DVD so that you have a single point of reference. Just call us for your free DVD today for The Pen Warehouse Difference

With so many new ways in which pens can be personalised we often tend to overlook one of the most time-honoured methods of achieving the printed message.

Engraved Pens as a promotional medium goes back many decades and in the early days this was achieved using a high speed rotating fine cutter on a mechanical machine that operated on a pantograph mechanism which mimicked the master pattern. I spent many years involved with this form of engraving and its simplicity coupled with its ability to produce repeatable high-quality results has endeared me to the process. this machining process was usually followed up with hand-filling the infill colour and the whole process was more of a craft than a science – absolutely brilliant!

One of the main disadvantages of machine engraving was ‘speed’. Great for one-offs but hopeless at producing engraved images quickly and cheaply, particularly when a lot of intricate detail is involved. Then along came laser engraving and it seemed the answer to many problems but in its early days it was a fairly blunt instrument. Over the last few years the process has evolved and machines now exist that can produce high quality at speed. The advantages of modern-day laser engraving are as follows

• Fast and relatively inexpensive
• Set-up time is minimal
• Repeatibility
• Perfect for fine detail
• The engraved finish can be the natural colour of the base metal or chemically ‘blacked’.
• Great for small orders as well as large ones

Like all processes it has its limitations and here at The Pen Warehouse we like to point these out as well just in casesome of our more excitable  distributors get carried away with enthusiasm and sell something we can’t deliver.

• Colour filling is not possible. You are limited to natural base metal colour and sometimes black
• There is very low relief in the engraved image and does not appear as three-dimensional as machine engraving
• Peripheral printing on round objects is best limited to line-of-sight. There are good technical reasons for this and certain logos can be fine but as a rule of thumb it should be avoided.

Well we hope the above gives you an idea of what laser engraving can do for you and whether you opt or traditional machine engraved pens or Engraved Pens you can be sure that the image produced will be a permanent one.

We are all familiar with plastic promotional pens that are screenprinted but a lot less is known about transfer printed pens. Hopefully this article will shed some light on the subject.

Advantages

• Full colour printing is possible
• The whole barrel area can be covered
• High Gloss finish
• Fine detail is no problem

Disadvantages

• Minimum order quantity is 500
• Not as cheap as screenprinted pens
• Express service is not possible
• Overlapping seam will appear on the back of the printed pens.

So you see there are pros and cons to transfer printed pens but if you want it in full colour then there is very little option. Have a look at our range  of Abacus Ball Pens if you want the best the market can offer on transfer printed pens.

However, if you would like a range of  full colour promotional pens on an express service with none of the limitations of transfer printed pens have a look at our range of  Spectrum Ball Pens

We often get asked how we do our printed pens so we have compiled a short list of processes that we have in-house, here at The Pen Warehouse

• Screen Prinnted Pens. The most popular type ofprinting for  personalised pens available in today’s promotions market. Ideal for printing promotional Plastic pens, Promotional Metal Pens and wooden promotional pens. Considerations; The printed area must be regular, such as a cylinder or flat. Suitable for short and long runs.
• Pad Printed Pens. The second most popular method for printing pens. Great for compound irregular shapes. Can be used for printing metal pens, plastic pens and wooden pens
• Laser Engraved Pens. Only suitable for metal pens or wooden pens. The colour will be the same colour as the base material. Peripheral printing is popular on cylinderical pens but it depends on the type of artwork being used
• Gravure Printed Pens: We use this for very large print runs. Quality is high, registration is accurate but the process is limited to plastic promotional pens with regular barrels
• Transfer Printed Pens: This is suitable for round barrels and flat barrels. Benefits are that images are in full photographic colour. Only suitable for plastic prnted pens.
• Flexography Printed Pens: We use this for very large orders in multicolour line colours. Ideal for the own-label market and less critical print quality
• Foil Blocked Pens: Limited use for us these days and suitable only for flat items.

We hope the above gives you an insight into how promotional plastic pens are personalised

In an Industry dominated by Plastic Pens it is refreshing to see a new age dawn with regard to metal printed  pens.

Traditional promotional metal pens are made from brass and are electoplated with either nickel or chromium or they are stove enamelled (painted). This is fine but there are a number distinct limitations with this type of combination

• They tend to be expensive because of their brass composition and also electroplating produces a high level of rejects
• Laser engraved metal pens made from brass means that the resultant engraved finish is gold in appearance and does not match the silver finish of the rest of the metal pen.
• Painted brass pens are not easy to laser engrave as the coating thickness varies and consequently uniformity in surface edge definition is difficult to achieve.
• Brass based pens tend to be heavy and therefore not very universally acceptable to both genders.

Anodized aluminium pens on the other hand suffer from none of these problems. They are relative inexpensive, easily laser engraved, the engraved finish matches the silver trim and they are reasonably lightweight. They also have one other major advantage in that they come in a range of dyed finishes that is unique to the anodizing process and this brings a new dimension to their use as promotional pens particularly because of their contemporary ‘look’.

So, next time you are considering a conventional brass pen spare a thought for the new kids on the block – The Range of Anodized Aluminium Promotional Pens

Promotional pencils in general are becoming more popular than ever before and we think this is due to their low price point when compared to printed pens.

As Europe’s leading supplier of promotional wooden pencils we have a long pedigree in, not only the supply of these promotional items but also in how they are printed. Most distributors are convinced that wooden pencils are restricted to single colour printing and it is difficult to break this perception. Here at The Pen Warehouse, we usually overcome technical obstacles with ease but it is much more difficult to convey to our distributors the sales potential of offering little-known services. If you can learn to exploit the full potential of this you will create greater margins and drive demand. Have a look at our page on multi-colour printing of pencils.

Within the huge wooden pencil range that we hold in stock are some real gems in terms of the potential they hold for increasing interest and margin. A very good example is our range of Black Wood Pencils. This exquisite range of promotional pencils comprise the Black Knight Wooden Pencils  both with and without eraser. They are great for training rooms, seminars and hotels. They have a high perceived value and leave a lasting impression for the recipient. Research has shown that the target audience is more likely to keep a unique printed promotional pen or promotional pencil for personal use, thus allowing the advertiser constant exposure for their advertising message or logo.

Promotional Pens should not only be capable of carrying your message to your target audience though its large print areas but in the best-case-scenario should be talking points in themselves.

This is certainly no easy task as everything in the promotional merchandise market seems to have been done to death with many distributors resorting to churning out the same old stuff over and over again – selling on price for commodity items. The conventional sales skills I learnt as a young man in terms of customer empathy, body language, punctuality, relationship building etc are largely irrelevant in today’s internet business. You are now judged on website content, layout, speed, backlinks and the occasional slight-of-hand so that you are visible to internet traffic and the actual selling part is very-much of secondary consideration. After all if the search engines can’t find your website you have nobody to sell to. It is therefore of primary importance that you find a method of bringing traffic to your website and this article is not intended to help you do that but more about what you should do once you get an enquiry for printed pens.

Presuming you have attracted traffic by some means or other here is a short list of tips to help you maximise your chances of converting that enquiry.

–          Reply immediately. Research has shown that those that respond to internet enquiries fastest will get a higher percentage of orders.

–          Walk the client through the selection process, preferably by telephone.

–          Recommend a promotional item that is unusual in some way that will have an intrinsic appeal. Robotic pens such as the Transformer Robotic Pen or the Reflex Robotic Pen are ideal as they are a talking point in themselves – Labour that point with your client. This approach will also give you a much better chance of earning a better margin on the sale.

–          Offer a small free gift that will have appeal to the individual placing the order

–          Keep in contact with your client if they do not place an order immediately

I hope this helps with your internet sales. Browse the website for a huge range of ideas to help you turn ideas into orders.

It’s a niche market – The security business as far as Promotional Pens go but nevertheless an important one.

Take our Stealth UV Marker for instance, it sits at the back of our current catalogue, page 90 and is lost amongst a sea of vibrant promotional pens. Perhaps it’s living up to its name as an invisible pen? ….Only joking of course – it’s a ‘Cracker!… and some Distributors are doing very well out of promoting it…you know who you are!

The Stealth UV Marker is brilliant for the security industry, the police and local authorities. The pen writes with an invisible ink (invisisible to the naked eye that is) but when exposed to UV light the image is fluorescent. Fantastic for marking household goods discreetly and is one of those functional items no household should be without.

The barrel is made from Polypropylene to ensure maximum life of the liquid ink as it is a non-porous casing and we can print up to 6 colours, matched to your requirements.

 HOT TIP FOR DISTRIBUTORS

Why not go to Yell.COM, look Up Security Services, (or a similar term) in your area and send them an image with your selling prices … and you’ll make a fantastic margin.