Imprinting Options Blog

Album Options New Wedding Designs

Dear Friends,

Thank you all for your comments about the new digital ordering system, It has proved to be a very good thing!

New wedding dies and albums have been posted, check out the site to view all. I just love the flower bouquet albums, We are able to color coordinate the flowers beautifully from your customer's photo. Another note on custom coloring, did you now that we can make the original Wedding Rose album a custom color too? We also can change the blanket color in the Baby Shoe album to a colored blanket, we have done it it in soft yellows, pinks and greens and they look great.

I feel like I am preparing for a wedding myself as we are busy planning, decorating and preparing for the Summer CHA Trade Show. We have doubled our space so our normal show booth set up just doesn't work anymore , so with that, a whole new look and design is in the works. We will have some very, very, and I mean very exciting opportunities at CHA. Mark your calendars for July 28-30 in Orlando, Florida - Orange County Convention Center - Booth 1318

Pam

Album Options - New Digital Ordering System

Dear Friends,

With the growing demand for the digital albums, we've streamlined our ordering process. Effective immediately, all custom digital albums should be processed through our online ordering form. This new system provides efficient production and will serve as a check off system to make sure you are submitting all pertinent information for your project. You will use this form for both initial orders as well as to make a changes to an order already submitted. You may bookmark this page (Click Here) or anytime access this page by logging into your account. Emailed orders will no longer be acceptable as this new system is in place for various employees to work simultaneously through our server.

A few other changes have been made on the ordering page, you will now be able to input album quantities before reaching the shopping cart, don't worry you can still change the quantities right up to the last minute at checkout. Each album is a "clickable " image to download a zip file of that image or collection of images.

A few other tweaks will come into play in the coming weeks but nothing major, please feel free to send us your comments or questions on the new system.

Pam

It's A Proud Day In America

It is a proud day in America and I am excited to debut the New President Obama Custom Album. It's pretty customary to make and keep scrapbooks and photo albums to document important dates and events...now what is bigger than today. Enjoy!

 

Album Options - New For 2009

Dear Friends,

First of all I would like to wish everyone a healthy, joyous and prosperous New Year! I get almost as excited for a new year as my boys do for Christmas.  It’s a fresh start, a fresh perspective and a time to set and reach new goals.

This year will be a year of change in so many ways as we continue to guide ourselves and our businesses through economic clouds.  Use these times in positive ways, enforce and implement new ideas, new products in ways you’ve never done before. A quote form former President Ronald Regan, “ In tough times the path to success is taking massive and determined action.” Rest assured we are doing just that! We are very proactive and have stepped up our efforts to remain focused on our most valuable assets: you, our customers.

 We are implementing some positive and productive changes in 2009. To summarize a few:

New E- Commerce Site: With its introduction just a few weeks ago we are pleased with such positive response and look forward to your online success. Our goal as a manufacturer is to provide tools necessary for that success. This ready to go E-Commerce site lends you the opportunity to concentrate on your customers not websites, html and all that technical jargon. Throughout 2009 we will continue to listen, improve and implement new ideas.

Eco-Thin Dies: We’re all watching our budgets closely and know that every penny counts, with that in mind we are thrilled to offer cost saving options for imprinting dies. The new Eco-Thin system is easier, faster and more accurate for small run imprinting than the traditional Honeycomb set up, which is widely used in longer run set ups, i.e. Imprinting 1000 + napkins.  To use the Eco-Thin dies simply use our semi-permanent heat bond - double sided tape to adhere the die to the re-usable bases. Immediately after use split the two apart and you are ready to go on to the next job. The Eco-Thin dies saves an average of 45% costs vs. the traditional mounted dies, now that is a huge savings you can profit on! We call them Eco- because they are not only economical but they are ecological friendly, by using these dies we are both doing our part on saving the resources to manufacture them. Make it a greener world all around and start using them; you’ll love the space they don’t take up!

Custom Albums: Aren’t these the talk of the town….pheww …they are the cream of the crop and your customers have become to love them! We’ve made some nice changes on the manufacturing process.

First.. is the back cover and spine will be made using our Select Line textured black material with white being  the exception for the three baby albums and an option for the wedding album. Doing so presents a richer more luxurious impression and feel to this unique one of a kind album.  Your customers will also appreciate the more flexible spine and will still have the opportunity for you to foil imprint the spine to match their previously imprinted albums.

Second… Your proof will be presented to you in a way that you will easily be able to show your customer the completed rendition of the “final-all put together” album. The proof image is at a size easily to resize and manipulate, with your customer’s approval use them in an online photo gallery. We have seen so many beautiful creations...share them.

Store Branding: More important than ever you need repeat business. Put your name on EVERYTHING! With every album order of $200 we will personalize for FREE the back inside cover with your store name upon request. Your customers are walking advertisements for you products, remind them where they purchased it from!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Pam

New E-Commerce Site for You!

Hello Everyone,

As I look back on the December what’s new page…pheww…. there was a lot of new stuff out there. You know what they say, if you want to get something done, give it to someone who is busy.. if you think we were busy in December…. wait until you see what we have cooked up for the new year!

Yes…I am already looking forward to the  new year. Let’s hope we do see some of that “Change “ we’ve been hearing about! I know many of you are, and have, and will be struggling with business decisions with this uncertain economy.

Some good news is this…. In recessionary times people stay home more,  family time and family values become more important and families will be spending more time together. I was watching a morning business TV program and they were listing some industries that probably will not feel the economic effects at all. One was video games and equipment and another was home based businesses.   As for the video games and equipment, it’s a small cost that brings the entire family entertainment value. As for home based businesses, another relative small cost for supplemental income. In respect to the scrapbook industry, yes I see there is definable decline in sales across the board, but…. I do believe and have seen that core products are still very much in demand. The album Options Line has been exponentially increasing in sales each month. Consumers may be not buying  a lot of fluff right now but they are still buying albums and imprinting.

With that in mind we are ecstatic to introduce the E-Commerce solution for you. For those of you who don’t have online purchasing easily and readily available. You definitely need this! We have developed a complete site for you, fully functionally with all the images and shopping cart in place, you literally have to do NOTHING. Take a look at the sample site, it’s quite impressive and so simple. Just like every Scrapbooker, we want all the tools  so we know that you will love this. It’s even a wonderful tool for our brick and mortar stores to utilize, let your customers buy the basics online!

 Let us know what you think.

Pam

New Holiday Dies 2008

Hello Everyone!

Sure feels like the holidays are here in South Florida, I woke up to the chilly 40’s today. We usually don’t see this weather but a handful of times and is usually in late January, I’m loving it!

I’m also loving these new holiday dies, especially the Holiday Sleigh, it’s a classic. My next favorite are the long round ornaments which are so very versatile. Have fun mixing them up with different foil colors and imprint positions, don’t forget you can imprint vertical down the sides.

In the retailers download this month you’ll find all the new digital design images, 4 sheets of the new die designs, images for the Pre-Printed album specials as well as a promotional flyer for the digital albums.

We will be packaging new Bonus Page Packs for the Custom Digital Albums. Everybody loves the digital line…that is for sure…but it is sometimes easy for consumers to procrastinate the sale as they ponder what album they want to do, especially at events. This way the customer commits to the sale and goes home with a Bonus Starter Page Pack, receives Priority Production and a follow up email the next day to remind and instruct them on the photo requirements. Another great idea is to use these Bonus Packs for Gift Certificates and increase Holiday Sales.

Customer service should be your number one goal and priority; it is the core of every successful business. We want to help you. For the rest of the year, each week we will be posting either a new die, a new product or a new sales tool for you to promote and stay in touch with your customers. Let us know if you have any suggestions.

See you next week!
Pam

Autum Dies and Slide Show to Share

Hello Everyone,

We just listed a lot more Autumn dies you are really going to enjoy and will imprint in versatile ways. I look forward to hearing your feedback on them. Halloween is so much fun. This will be my first year that I can't make or bribe my boys to dress up. ...so sad how fast they grow, I have seen a million Halloween dies go out for Costume books and I am going to make one myself this year.

 Also note that we have listed a short slide show to share and post on your own sites.  This slide show focuses on the Custom Digital albums. We will be posting more on various aspects of imprinting and albums in the future.

New Products and Business Resources

Hello Friends,

It’s been a HOT summer, September marks that the worst is over, now we are left to deal with all the hurricanes floating so close around.  Let’s hope Ike stays away! Most of you know that we are located on Florida’s south east coast; if you see Lake Okeechobee (the big hole in the state) we are right to the east of the lake on the coast. 

I wanted to share not only the new products and dies this month but also a great business resource and inspiration with you.  I encourage all of you if presented the opportunity to hear Rick Segel at a business seminar to take advantage of it. I have been to hundreds of seminars and heard ton’s of business speakers, none of which I have taken so much from than Rick Segel.

Rick speaks largely to Independent Retailers - Take a look here on what he has to say about today’s economy, http://www.theretailersadvantage.net/?p=16   I’m sure you will find his site very enlightening.  The one site is brand new, The Retailers Advantage, stay with it… I’m sure it is going to be great, I wouldn’t expect anything less.

We are also so pleased to hear so many downloaded last month’s Newsletter Image to forward on to their customers; this is something that is going to be available every month. We are keeping them pretty generic so they will work for everyone and at any time – Enjoy!

August

Hello Friends,

 Yeah…School is back in session…  I say this with so much excitement for so many reasons. First of all my two teenage boys need the routine back in their lives…. did you catch that… I didn’t say mine and second of all, for this industry and many others, business is back to usual.

Through the summer I have had a chance to talk with many of you concerning the economy and what it means to our businesses.  Are you the type that looks at the glass half full, when one door closes another one opens?   Think about this…it just might make a difference in not only your business but other aspects of your life as well.    It’s important for all of us to stay on top of our game, keep the creative juices flowing  and work smarter. Your best asset is one you already own not the one you are seeking, your customers!

Offer your customers something new and exciting and offer it ALL the time not just now in a slow economy.  

Be proactive to opportunities all around you. The time is now …school projects, fundraisers, Holiday events and special projects … the busy season is right around the corner.

Send out your newsletters……it’s so easy! So what if you only have one new die to announce! Get it out there and show it off, stay in front of your customers, they may not need you today but next month they will remember oh yeah…my imprinter/reatiler can do that.  We have a newsletter version spin off from ours, just a bit more generic.. ..USE IT

There is a lot in our “What’s New “this month so read on and enjoy the new stuff ans services. There's more is to come!

New Vacation Dies You'll love

I hope  you love these as much as I do!  The new vacation dies are made to imprint a large area, they look great on 12x12 albums and the 8x8's. You can imprint in a staggered fashion or all lined up. You may possibly have a graphic that you can imprint  as the "O" in vacation already  The inserted images are also the perfect size for spine imprinting. So....there you have it.... a very versatile set to complete you summer vacation albums.

Also new this month is a really really cute pre- imprinted Firefly Blue Capri album. The princess albums were such a huge hit, it was only a matter of time for the boy's version to come out. We didn't pre-apply the crystals on these but the graphic was chosen with that in mind. It' so simple to add the "light" of the firefly on to these if ou choose so. We made the decision not to in case anyone thought it might be too much sparkle for a boy.