Don't Underestimate the Power of Using Promotional Items to Boost Your Company’s Brand

In Marketing Your Business, Don’t Underestimate the Power of Using Promotional Items to Boost Your Company’s Brand

If you're a business owner or manager responsible for customer service, sales or marketing, you know about the importance of establishing a marketing plan for your business. An article on Inc.com says, “Marketing – whether advertising, public relations, promotional literature, etc. – is an investment in the growth of your business… Do your homework and create a smart marketing program.” We agree! Your marketing plan probably includes branding tactics to help boost your company’s brand.

You may be saying to yourself, “Branding is for those big companies… I run a small business…” But whatever the type and size of your business, it’s still important for you to promote your company’s brand. Branding always matters.

An article published by The Marketing Donut says, “If you’ve got a business, then you’ve got a brand. What you do with it is up to you… If you were to replace the word ‘branding’ with ‘reputation” it might get your attention. You care about your reputation, right?” Branding is all about the impressions you make. It can keep your company’s name at the top of your customers’ (and potential customers’) minds so that they come to you when they’re ready to buy.

Part of what we do at Stamar is provide our customers with promotional items to help them with their marketing and branding efforts. As we like to say, at Stamar we have promotional products covered. Half of our business is focused on promotional merchandise and packaging products. (BTW, in case you don’t know, the other half of our business is focused on corrugated.)

Ready to promote your company’s brand? You can learn more about the promotional products Stamar offers, and you can check out our flip-through catalog by visiting our website. Or give us a call at 877-782-6273 and we'd be happy to tell you more.

How Just-in-Time is Just What’s Needed for Saving Time and Money

These days, efficiency is a big buzzword in business, and for good reason; creating ways to maximize efficiency means major time- and cost-savings, and better business all around.

Within this umbrella term, just-in-time falls under the category of one of the best ways to maximize efficiency. It means sending and/or receiving something just when you need it—and not earlier—in order to save space, time, and money.

To that end, Stamar Packaging happily offers just-in-time (JIT) warehousing, which is a very large and popular aspect of our business.

So how does this work? Simply put, we can store your items for you until you need them. This allows you to free up your warehouse and manufacturing space, for items that make you money. Warehousing your excess products in our facilities for weeks or even months, and shipping them to you until when you are ready to use them.

By utilizing our JIT warehousing, you eliminate the costs and hassle associated with storing hundreds of different items, while freeing up and simplifying your inventory and storage system. This improves your cash flow and allows you to focus on the more important responsibilities of running a business.

You not only benefit from our space, but from the years of experience and expertise that we have, which are an instrumental and invaluable money-saving resource.

Finally, our fast, reliable, efficient delivery means you get your products as soon as you need them—and always on time.

In business, every second, inch, and dollar count. You can free up your clutter and boost your efficiency in one fell swoop with JIT warehousing. 

Stamar Celebrates the Blackhawks

For the third time in six years, Chicago hockey fans had a lot to celebrate when our Blackhawks once again won the Stanley Cup Championship. In Chicago, we work hard and play hard, and we're a very proud city. This was certainly evident as two million people joined in the festivities along the celebratory parade route.

At Stamar Packaging, we were no exception. We are proud members of the Chicago community—and huge Blackhawks fans!—and like any good, close-knit group, we all joined together to celebrate the big win.

In fact, we had an entire Blackhawks Day, dedicated to the team, and everyone here wore Blackhawks gear and joined in the fun. We're always emphasizing teamwork and comradery, and this extends to our sports. After all, we all work very hard together, making sure we produce the very best products and deliver the highest quality service. But like any good Chi-towner, we love to let down our hair and celebrate all the things that make our city great—including the Blackhawks.

After all, like our local sports, we are all part of a team dedicated to success, and we celebrate together as well as we work together. We can’t wait for the next Chicago win!

Introducing On-Demand Packaging®: The Right-Sized Box, Every Time

Today’s businesses have their work cut out for them. We're living in an instant-gratification world, and clients and consumers demand immediate results. From information to entertainment, insurance discounts to data, the theme of business has to be instantaneous.

Enter On-Demand Packaging®.

Yes, it’s as good as it sounds, and frankly, it’s revolutionary. We at Stamar have teamed up with Packsize to bring our customers their innovative packaging system that produces the right sized box every time, for every product.

The Packsize system prints boxes made-to-order, completely customized each and every time to fit the product they are containing. This means a box or corrugated design will fit your product while speeding up your entire packaging, shipping, and order fulfillment process. Combining WMS integration capabilities with unlimited design flexibility, packaging waste shrinks as your profits grow.

Let’s look at the specific benefits that come from this offering:

• Minimize void fill: Packaging is made to fit your product, with no wasted space
• Reduce box management: Eliminate the need to stock and manage multiple packaging options
• Increase throughput: Orders are turned around much faster, making room for more to be fulfilled
• Minimize damages: Made-to-fit means made-to-protect, which also means higher customer satisfaction rates
• Increase sustainability: Less material, less waste, smaller footprint, and a happier planet
• Reduce shipping costs: You’re only paying for the exact size you need, and have the ability to negotiate better rates

While enjoying this innovative packaging method that’s designed to increase efficiency and better optimize your supply chain, you’ll continue to benefit from the proven experience, history, and expertise of Stamar Packaging. Anyone who’s worked with us knows we are not a supplier—we are a packaging partner—and this partnership in success is only enhanced by our On-Demand Packaging® offering.

In this need-it-now, less-is-more world in which we’re living, On-Demand Packaging® can take your business to the next level; we’re happy to help bring you there.

The Many Benefits Of Working With Fulfillment Services

There are several benefits in partnering with fulfillment services for businesses & manufacturers.

Many challenges arise when fulfillments are conducted within the company.  The advantages of partnering with fulfillment services are vast and include better bottom lines, improved security, customer satisfaction, and lower inventory & distribution costs.  Not to mention using fulfillment services can save many headaches along the way.

When a company tries to carry out the duties of fulfillment services they begin to face several roadblocks. Disorganization of orders, over compensated inventory levels and the ongoing changes of delivery expectations are just a few of the factors that challenge orders.  Of course customer satisfaction to a business can often determine their success or even survival.  Because of the challenges and needs orders require it only makes sense to leave fulfillment services to the professionals.  Ultimately, leaving it to the experts allows for more productivity on your end, because it allows more focus to be centered on other areas like product development and growth.

Why is it so challenging for companies to complete orders?

One key finding from a study of 589 supply chain execs’ discussion was that many industries face the same problems including those in manufacturing, high-tech, and retail. Across the board, they have claimed that fulfillment orders have become more complicated because customer demands have heightened, and order processing is a narrow road.  Many companies usually have a fragmented multifaceted system in place.  For example, they may have a retail store, a customer care phone line, e-commerce and electronic data interchange services in place. With all these varying channels, it makes it difficult to have a systematic way of tracking all orders.

As one vice president of supply chain operations responded: “Currently, we do not have the ability to create one invoice for a customer that has placed multiple lines of shipping from different facilities. The adoption of new technologies could help give us a better picture of what types of orders are coming in, what our average size is by volume and length, and streamline our invoicing process.” To get a hold of all the data of orders and streamline, it is not cheap either. 

Other problems that occur when businesses don't have a partnership with a fulfillment service provider, is that many companies give unrealistic delivery times, store higher than needed inventory levels, and face high supply chain costs. Also, it is only becoming more rapidly complex to complete orders due to increasing globalization & high e-commerce demand.  All of these challenges threaten the bottom line.

Here’s’ where utilizing a professional fulfillment service can save the day.

1.    Integration & streamlining all orders.  Order complexity was another key challenge for supply chain professionals when managing order fulfillment. This difficulty in managing orders efficiently and accurately has been caused by a number of factors, including the explosion of order capture and fulfillment systems that many companies now operate.  Fulfillment services can integrate the different channels the orders are being placed into for a more efficient outcome and, as a result, track better inventory levels. Companies benefit because it can help lower costs, increase margins, and greatly improve customer service.

2.    They have the capabilities to forecast higher accuracy on delivery.  They are experts and they can determine with greater veracity when the end customer/retailer will receive their order. Naturally this will improve reliability and customer satisfaction that was one priority for those respondents in the study. “39 percent of supply chain executives named inaccurate order promise dates as a top inventory management challenge.”

3.    Better demand management by utilizing capabilities that establish a demand-driven organization with higher service levels and sales, more satisfied customers, and lower inventory and distribution costs.

4.    Continual monitoring.  Fulfillment services will continually monitor your orders and inventory- taking away this responsibility can lead to more productivity in other areas of the business like product development, marketing, and growth. 

To find out more about how Stamar Packaging can provide fulfillment services contact us at custserv@stamarpackaging.com or (630)282-5400.

The Benefits of Custom Corrugated Boxes

If there’s one instance in which a book can and should be judged by its cover, it’s with packaging. In fact, the packaging of a product is almost as important as the product itself. When a company ships an item to a customer, the box in which it’s contained is the first thing the customer sees.

Therefore, it’s a very good idea to consider custom boxes for your products, as the benefits are numerous and significant. They range from aesthetics to economics, and much in between. Here are just some of the many advantages to using custom boxes. 

Size and Pricing

Chances are, your goal is to run your business in the most efficient way possible. So why would you package a product in a box that’s too big? It doesn’t make sense, and yet so many people do it. Instead, shipping items in boxes custom-made to their appropriate size means the elimination of wasted space and shipping materials. Furthermore, as we’ve recently written about, the new dimensional weight pricing method being used by all major carriers is based on package size, with larger packages costing more, regardless of weight. Therefore, custom boxes mean you won’t be charged more than you should be.

Protection

What good is the delivery of a quality item, if it’s broken once it gets there? If you use a custom corrugated box, it’s specifically made to house what’s in it, taking into account the strength and durability requirements. This ensures your product reaches your customers safely every time.

Branding

Once again, before your package is ever opened by your customer, the box is being seen—and not just by the client, but by countless people along the way. The package is the first—and often best—way to get your brand out there, and it’s an opportunity for visibility that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Eco-Consciousness

Eliminating wasted space and materials is great for the bottom line, and it’s also great for the planet. Custom boxes that are efficient have a smaller environmental impact, and take up less space on vehicles, making the transport more efficient as well, which saves fuel. It’s a win/win!

Want to know more about our custom corrugated boxes? Visit our website and contact us anytime for more information. 

Happy Holidays, From Our Family To Yours

For those of us in the packaging industry, this is one of the busiest and most exciting times of the year. The holiday season is especially demanding for us, but once again, we’ve been more than up for the challenge.

That said, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank our loyal customers for their continued support, and wish you all a very happy holiday season.

We’d also like to take a look back at the year, which was a very successful one for Stamar Packaging. Of course, we couldn't have reached this success without our amazing team of dedicated professionals—truly the best in the business. We believe one of the many reasons our employees are so great is their commitment to teamwork and collaboration, both within our facilities, and outside of them.

One of many examples was our participation in the ROC Race in July; even during a torrential downpour, our team members kept smiles on their faces, while running and cheering each other on, and raising money for The Challenged Athletes Foundation.

Whether it’s a fun and charitable activity like the ROC Race, our spring and fall barbeques, or the everyday team- and morale-building, the Stamar Packaging family is dedicated to each other and to our clients.

So as another year comes to an end, we’d like to thank everyone for making it such a good one, while wishing all of our friends and family a very healthy, successful 2015!