5 Tips to Get Promotional Products Orders on Time

Had an important concern come in from one of our Promo With Purpose Today subscribers: Getting promotional products orders in timeframe promised. That’s a loaded issue! But we’ll expose some secrets about promotional product ordering so you can be in the know.

PRODUCTION TIME

When you look at various promotional item descriptions, you’ll often see a “Production Time” estimate listed. What does this mean? That is the actual time it takes for a manufacturer to physically round up the items from inventory, prepare the imprinting equipment and apply your artwork to the items. This is NOT the entire time it takes to complete the order. Typically, the “production time” clock doesn’t start ticking until the order and artwork are received and approved by the manufacturer from your promotional product distributor. And usually, the production time begins the day AFTER the order is received by the supplier.

Many manufacturers also have daily cutoff times for receipt of orders. For example, let’s say a manufacturer has established a 2:00 p.m. CST cutoff for receipt of orders to be placed into production the FOLLOWING business day. Let’s also say that in this example the order is received by the manufacturer at 3:00 p.m. CST on a Monday. That order will not go into production until Wednesday. So if there is a 3-day production time on this example order, it would not normally ship until late Friday.

On top of that, it may take your promotional distributor a day or two to check and prepare artwork and place the order. If your artwork is not in a native vector-based electronic file (a Encapsulated Postscript .eps or Adobe Illustrator .ai file are industry standard), it could take several additional days to prepare your imprint for production. Click here to find out what is “good” artwork for imprinting

And I need to emphasize that production and order processing time are BUSINESS days, not including weekends or holidays.

Agreed, this is very confusing for customers. Unfortunately, published information fed to promotional shopping sites from manufacturers states only the in-house production time.

TIP #1: Add at least 4 days to the published production time to complete your order, if your artwork is production-ready; more if it is not.

PRODUCTION EXCEPTIONS

There are some special scenarios in regard to production time:

Rush Service – Many promotional distributors offer a rush promo service so you can get your promotional items fast. But there are caveats. First and foremost, you must be able to provide production-ready correctly-sized artwork for your distributor. If you do not have that, there will be additional time (and usually expense) required and rush service will not be available for your order. As well, watch for cutoff times. For example, we have a 9:00 a.m. CST/US cutoff. If not received by that time, it will be processed the following day. Shipping time needs to be added to this and will depend on the type of service you choose (ground, 2-day, overnight, etc.). TIP #2: Watch for cutoff times on rush order service, add shipping time and click here for 4 More Tips for Handling Rush Orders
Holidays – From October through December, promotional holiday gift suppliers (particularly for food gifts) are up to their eyeballs in orders, often doing double and weekend shifts to meet demand. They will attempt to meet published production times, but often physically cannot. Therefore, your production time could be extended by up to 5 to 7 working days during the holidays and express shipping may be required to meet any in-hand date you might have. TIP #3: During the holiday rush season of October through December, prepare for longer production times (add at least a week) and/or more expensive shipping to meet your target dates.

SHIPPING TIMES

This is where it gets very confusing for customers. People often like to buy local and will place an order with a local promotional distributor. This may be a shock to many, but promotional product orders are rarely physically produced by the distributor you place the order with. Your distributor may be working with dozens or even hundreds of suppliers/manufacturers from coast to coast, or even overseas, depending on the item. Though some might, rarely do distributors have promotional item stock on hand at their office or shop. So the order you place with your local distributor in New York may actually be shipping from California. Therefore, for ground shipping, it could take up to 5 business days (in the continental U.S.) after the order is produced to ship via ground to you.

TIP #4: For shipping within the United States, estimate at least 5 shipping days for domestic orders placed within the continental U.S., more for Alaska or Hawaii.

DOING THE MATH

Okay, let’s walk through an example. You’re browsing through a U.S.-based promotional product site and the item you want has a production time of 7 days listed (no cutoff time is noted).

Prep time to process order by your promotional product distributor and manufacturer: Allow up to 4 business days, starting the day AFTER you place the order if your artwork is production-ready. If you do not have production-ready artwork, that prep time could add several days.
Production time: 7 business days.
Shipping time: Allow 5 business days if you are in continental U.S. (more if in Alaska or Hawaii).

So to receive this item, you would need to place this order at least 16 business days prior to your target in-hand date, provided that your artwork is production-ready.

With that, I’ll leave you with the best tip of all…

TIP #5: Plan ahead, it’s later than you think.

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