I think it is fairly obvious to most keen observers of the changes in the promotional pen industry that the lines between being a trade supplier of personalised pens and an end-user supplier are becoming blurred. As discussed in an earlier news item more and more distributors are becoming trade suppliers whilst at the same time demanding that their own suppliers remain trade-exclusive. An onerous aspiration if ever I heard one as it is fundamentally unfair. I believe a number of seemingly trade exclusive suppliers of personalised pens are not standing idly by and are finding their own route to market through the following mechanisms

• Overtly opening or buying a distributor business and using that to secure route to market. This is seemingly like shooting yourself in the foot but in reality there is little downside to running with the hare and hunting with the hound. This will be the topic of a future article related to the trade sales of personalised pens.
• Working hand-in-glove with existing distributors on an exclusive or semi-exclusive basis. This is like a half way house and of course there is nothing wrong with the practice but it is a policy that is designed to curry favour with a particular distributor (usually influential) on the basis of excluding other distributors. It is a matter of opinion whether this is an acceptable practice for selling personalised pens and the two opinions on the matter are probably governed by whichever side of the fence you are sitting on.
• Cloaking: The practice of overtly selling personalised pens to the end-user through a distributor business that is covertly owned or sponsored by the seemingly trade-exclusive supplier. There is no hard evidence this is happening but there are plenty of indicators to suggest it is being used as a strategy, particularly where online business is concerned. Opinion on this will be divided on the lines of whether it is right or wrong. Distributors will clearly feel betrayed and many trade exclusive suppliers will quietly be thinking ‘not for me at the moment, but I will keep my options open’.

Does this mean that I believe we will have umpteen trade-exclusive businesses going direct in a covert fashion somewhere down the line? I don’t know is the answer but  I do know that The Pen Warehouse has a strategy in place that will secure our position as trade-exclusive supplier forever.

However, in an industry such as ours, where there are no trade associations with regulatory teeth it was always going to be an inevitability that trade-exclusive suppliers would be forced to resort to desperate measures. If it is happening we should blame nobody but ourselves for sitting on our hands and allowing our industry to be largely unregulated. That will also be the basis of a future news item on personalised pens.

Stay tuned in to our daily news desk here at The Pen Warehouse – The Home Of Personalised Pens.

In an earlier post I touched on the importance of being a trade-exclusive supplier of pens and personalised promotional pens in particular. This has been a subject of debate long before I came into the industry and no doubt it will carry on long after I have gone. It is a contentious issue and I suppose as humans we want the best of both worlds, supplying to the trade and also supplying to the end-user.

We are seeing an increase in the number of distributors that are also becoming trade suppliers as well and as such are our competitors. It is a one-way street, seemingly, as there is no evidence of trade-exclusive suppliers abandoning their treasured status although many would like to in adjusting to the new paradigm. The temptation to jump-ship is certainly increasing for many trade-exclusive suppliers as their trading policy is proving to be their achilles heel. There is nothing worse than being constrained by a set of rules whilst at the same time not being protected by them. In other words, trade suppliers are accountable to their customers but it does not work the other way around. That is a fundamental that is difficult to reconcile for any human being and is the stuff of many revolutions.

Like so many revolutions, they rarely happen overnight; there is usually a gestation period of underground covert activity. I believe that there is strong evidence that sort of covert activity is now in place for a small but growing number of trade-exclusive suppliers. Of course I am focussed on the printed pens industry but there is no reason to suggest that it is not happening across the whole industry. I would refer to this as ‘cloaking’ because there are numerous trading companies appearing on the internet selling promotional items and personalised pens in particular that seem to be exclusively allied to one particular trade supplier. Any attempt to make an appointment to see them with a view to getting our pens on their website is denied in various ways – and a small number actually refuse to even discuss the issue. One seemingly independent distributor based very close to our head office recently stated that their eco-biased website was no longer actually being proactively used and was virtually defunct – yet they were paying for sponsored advertising on Google with that very site. I suffer from a degree of paranoia like any other driven entrepreneur but what is unmistakable is the increasing level of secrecy behind internet-based companies. Most are who they say they are but there is a huge question mark over many because their openness to competitive alternative products is totally lacking. In a capitalist system where your very survival rests with your competitiveness why would any business owner not pay close attention to all sources of supply, particularly those that would seemingly provide a trading advantage?

Well what is The Pen Warehouse doing about it? You will have to wait for my next news item here at pens.co.uk – the home of personalised pens.

I remember reading a mailing that went out to the trade some years ago with the title ‘Are Your Suppliers Your Competitors?’ Although this was not anything to do with pens, or perhaps I should say personalised pens, the tenor of the mailshot was that if you are a wise distributor you should be careful who you buy your promotional gifts from because they may be connected with an end-user selling arm or may be openly selling to both trade and end-user. It is an irony that very company some years later fell into the same boat themselves.

I remember when reading it that the message could be seen as ‘scare’ tactics and could backfire. I believed then as I do now that I have to live in the world as it is and not the way I want it to be and as long as distributors are making a conscious decision based on the full knowledge of the security issues surrounding passing their customer’s details to a supplier that is ‘running with the hare and hunting with the hound’ then that is their prerogative. In all fairness to the mailshot in question I think the message was a valid one as it was intended as thought provoking.

I am always wary of making claims publicly about issues such as these because a small part of me screams that I am trying to gain advantage by claiming some sort of moral high-ground and I could not reconcile that with my own values, so I kept quiet – like most other people. My general view is that Distributors are capable of making up their own minds and you cannot blame any supplier for trying to sell to whoever they want – that is capitalism and enterprise and if you rob people of that you will also rob the industry of some of its leading lights.

You may at this point wonder why I am bothering to write this news item, apart from the obvious one of putting important keywords relevant to promotional pens in here and there (…see I’m at it again), well it is because I am beginning to notice a very worrying trend – that of the seemingly trade exclusive supplier selling to the end-user through ‘cloaking’ companies.

That will be the subject of my next article in pens.co.uk – The Home of Printed Pens, so keep tuned in.

Since its inception over 12 years ago The Pen Warehouse has been a trade-only supplier of pens or more to the point Personalised Pens and promotional pens.

We are now the leading pen supplier to the trade, particularly in the UK  and we owe our success to the loyal support of our distributors spread across the length and breadth of the country. Our success is based on trust and we believe that this will hold us in good stead for the future. We are certainly in a very changing world as far as the distribution of promotional gifts go, particularly because of the internet. My own sales training many years ago was based on customer-facing skills and how to turn leads into orders. Today, as far as the internet goes those skills are largely irrelevant as online business is very impersonal. Today, success on the internet depends on a different skill-set; largely technical because of search engine optimisation and everything that surrounds it. Our job as a trade supplier however, remains the same as it is largely a backroom supporting role for our distributors. It is true that certain adaptations had to be made to support the type of distributor that trades online but fundamentally things have not changed at all. It still boils down to good service, great prices and choice. However, it is easy to get carried away with the importance of online business as it is still a very small percentage of the total business being done. Distributors, in the main have a good rapport with their customers and enjoy a good percentage of repeat business where prices are less sensitive. Whether you trade online, sell through traditional means or a bit of both it matters little to us here at The Pen Warehouse – it boils down to the fact that our pedigree as a trade-exclusive supplier is unrivalled.

We are beginning to see the emergence of several ‘cloaking’ companies on the internet purporting to be independent distributors but are in actual fact end-user arms of trade suppliers that don’t wish to be seen jumping ship – just yet anyway. That may be the subject of a future article so keep tuned into our newsroom here at www.pens.co.uk – the home of printed pens for business.

Walking around trade shows one cannot help but notice that pens and in particular personalised pens are now the promotional giveaways of choice for most exhibitors. The Pen Warehouse is ideally placed to help our distributors exploit this market because of our extensive range of low-cost promotional pens and pencils. (Cheap in other words)

I remember being an avid watcher of  ‘Tomorrow’s World’ when it was a popular television series because , like many others I believed they were giving us a glimpse of the future. In reality virtually all the weird and wonderful predictions never came true. We all thought that by now we would only need to get up each morning and point our robots in the right direction, load them up with the tasks for the day and then go and lie on the beach. Funnily it never happened; but then a small part of me never believed it would. We are working longer and harder than ever, even though technology has eased some of our burdens we have managed to create must-have desires for umpteen gadgets and general trappings of the modern world that we actually have less time to enjoy them. A great example of this is the ridiculous notion of  ‘The Paperless Office’. I first saw this idea on ‘Tomorrows World’ and I remember thinking to myself that I should not take the programme too seriously. We have never used so much paper and you need pens to write on it so there is no realistic prospect of paper and pens disappearing until we become telepathic. That is precisely why people give out printed pens at exhibitions. You will notice that there isn’t a single mention of a giveaway stylus for your PDA – no Siree!

So here’s to good old cheap plastic pens, the world revolves around them and any predictions to the contrary is just plain balmy! Give us a call for free samples and we will guide you through the selection process….Just an afterthought – why not have a look at our range of  Spectrum ball pens; you can have them printed in full colour – now that is something for Tomorrows World!

The original concept of Lecce Pen Company to develop a hybrid post-consumer recycled material for the production of pens and in particular promotional pens has now opened up a more widespread application for this new and unique material – EcoAllene. Here is a list of products currently available or are under development.

• Recycled Personalised Pens: These products form the backbone of The Lecce Pen Company. The latest and most innovative product available is their range of Envirostick Ball Pens. This is a unique product in that it features a completely recycled pen refill, the world’s first and only pen to actually have one.
• Recycled Pen Refills: A truly unique product that is now finding its way into many personalised pens.
• Recycled Yo-Yos: Available with imprintable paper discs in up to full colour.
• Recycled Desktop Items: This includes tape dispensers, visiting card holders, pen pots, rulers and many more in development
• Recycled Shopping Bag Handles: Reusable handle to ease the carrying of polyethylene carrier shopping bags
• Recycled Costume-Jewellery: This include hair bands, clips and ties
• Recycled Hotel Giveaways: These include mirrors, combs and sewing kits.
• Recycled Games: These include spinning tops and puzzles
• Recycled Doorstops: Wedge-shaped door stop made from EcoAllene
• Recycled Storage Cases:EcoAllene is proving to be a great material where continual flexing is required and the lids of low cost storage boxes are proving to be a very useful application for this material.
• Recycled Waste Bins: Everything you could want from a recycled material, durability, low cost and eco friendly.
• Recycled Keyrings: These are now available in a variety of animal shapes and also as recycled promotional keyrings with imprintable inserts.
• Recycled Golf Items – A small but growing range of recycled products such as ball markers, pitch forks and golf tees.
• Recycled Building Materials: We are beginning to see the emergence of a huge range of building materials using EcoAllene, from doors to decorative trim.

The list is almost endless but the important point to remember is that thisrecycled material is unique and certifiably post-consumer. Therefore its credentials are beyond reproach and as such will shape the future direction of The Lecce Pen Company.

Keep tuned in to more informative news on developments from The Pen Warehouse – The home of promotional printed pens and pencils.

Picking up from where we left off in part 3, Lecce Pen’s new and innovative development of EcoAllene, it is clear this new material and the patented process surrounding it will shape the future direction of the company and its involvement in the promotional pen industry.

Over seven years in the making, the development of a material that uses spent drinks cartons has not only produced a finished material that is unique but also an entire production plant that is now being sold throughout the world as a turnkey solution to the problem of waste drinks cartons. Already almost twenty million Euros has been sunk into the project to not only develop the material but also a system of replicating the results. This plant is on a large-scale basis and requires significant levels of investment for each installation. A number of plants are already under construction across the world under license from Lecce Pen. The company retains its sole right to manufacture personalised pens but it seems that EcoAllene has such wide appeal for the production of a large number of consumer and industrial products that promotional pens will be a minor proportion of its applications.

The main obstacle in the production of EcoAllene was finding a method by which the aluminium component of the drinks carton could be homogenised with the polyethylene component so it could be injection moulded. This required the development of, not only large-scale plant but also specialist dies for the final moulding so that the flow characteristics of the new material could be exploited. The level of R&D required could not simply have been resourced by a single organisation as cross-platform synergy required the involvement of several previously unrelated manufacturing, scientific and political bodies to work closely together, sharing knowledge with the ultimate aim of solving a very old problem associated with one particular area of recycling – that of beverage cartons for milk, juice and numerous other similar containers.

The products that are now emerging from EcoAllene will be dealt with shortly, so keep an eye out for the next article coming very soon from The Pen Warehouse – the home of Printed Promotional pens.

The changes that Lecce Pen embarked on several years ago are now coming to fruition and the best example of this innovative approach is apparent in the commitment to ground-breaking product development of promotional eco friendly pens. The following is a list of innovative pens that Lecce introduced to the market as world’s firsts

• Biodegradable Pens – For over 25 years now, Lecce Pen has been manufacturing biodegradable pens for both retail and promotional markets. Long before we were aware of the impending social pressure to conserve and recycle Lecce Pen company embarked on the development of personalised pens based on corn starch – a natural material adapted to suit injection moulding. These were collectively known as the green pens range and they are still great sellers today. These can be overprinted with your corporate logo or message in up to six colours here at The Pen Warehouse and an optional express pen printing service is also available.
• Recycled PET Pens – These were the world’s first recycled plastic pens and they were manufactured from recycled PET water bottles. Sadly, the product was discontinued but The Pen Warehouse embarked on a project of their own to make a range of recycled plastic pens, the most popular of which is our Panther Eco Extra Ball Pens. These have been great selling pens now in the UK for several years with the benefit that they are available at prices very similar to normal plastic pens.
• One of the main reasons Lecce Pen Company decided to discontinue their range of PET promotional pens was because they wished to channel their resources into the development of a plastic material based on recycled drinks cartons. Whereas there was a burgeoning market for recycled PET bottles, no recycling process existed that could recover a usable material from used drinks cartons. This was a category of waste that had to go to landfill and it was not biodegradable and this posed a huge ecological problem for the most eco-friendly minded scientists. This moral obligation to develop a process to effectively recover all the materials used in drinks cartons so it could be recycled fell to Lecce Pen and Tetra Pak. The material that ultimately came out of many year’s of R&D culminated in the development of EcoAllene, a truly innovative material that is now being used in a small but growing range of promotional items.

This will be dealt with in a future article coming to you very soon from The Pen Warehouse – The home of printed pens

In the past ten years we have witnessed unparalleled changes in the stationery business  and probably the most severe changes have been felt by European manufacturers of pens in general and promotional pens in particular.

Lecce Pen Company, like all other major European manufacturers of personalised pens has not been immune to these changes as they fight a losing battle with Far-Eastern manufacturers with much lower cost bases, lower taxation and less restrictive legislation. In the majority of cases European manufacturers of both plastic and metal pens have either closed down, entered into collaboration with Far-Eastern manufacturers or simply scaled back their operation as they adjust to this new playing field that is far from level. Lecce Pen Company is no exception but ‘distribution’ is powerful and Lecce’s well-executed approach to adapting a large organisation to these new changes has set the standard for other European pen companies. Their approach can simply summed up in a single word; ‘innovation‘.

As Euro politicians sat on their hands and watched their non-interventionist policies decimate so many European manufacturers across practically every industry Lecce Pen recognised very early on that their salvation lay, not with Brussels, but in their very unique ability to evolve and innovate. They set about building on their pedigree as the world’s original manufacturer of environmentally-friendly products  by developing materials that had unquestionable credentials with regard to recycling and biodegradability. There were numerous projects that led to ground-breaking developments, never seen before in the stationery industry with regard to sustainability. This was at a time when the rest of the world had not woken up to the problems facing our planet and ‘environmentalism’ had not touched the lips of our politically-correct masters in Europe.

The changes that Lecce Pen embarked on several years ago are now coming to fruition and will be addressed in an upcoming article very soon. Please keep tuned into our news items on this popular website –  the home of promotional printed pens.