Promotional Products, Advertising, Marketing and Business Blog

Update on ProMart Database Development

David Dawson — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:59:36 +0000

We have had a lot of interest in our data standardisation and promotional products portal. I’ve outlined on linkedin the various features that we are looking to incorporate. After discussions with various suppliers we have altered some of the initial specs and data fields.

As per my last 5 posts we are looking to rebuild our database to incorporate a standard set of fields that will be used in all the data feeds, XML, CSV and a HTML version of product data. What this means is that we are set back slightly while we rebuild the database it’s self and remap all the fields on the product pages and within the quotation system it’s self.

Whilst I appreciate that suppliers and product portals are eager to get on board with the new system I feel it’s important that we build a system that works properly from the offset. We can already export the data from the portals in the standard format but cannot receive data using the fields that we have assigned to each field. It’s a lot of work to get everything upto a launch point. Baring in mind we are fronting all the development costs ourselves and are providing the service free of charge.

I’d like to be ready to start rebuilding the portals within the next 4-5 weeks. But as these things go it may take longer as we don’t have a team of developers working on it. Just myself designing the system and my developer in Vietnam trying to work at a ever increasing pace with my constant alterations!

I am excited at the prospect of having a constantly updated feed of product data. I can’t wait for my sales team to be able to quote a client without picking up the phone to first obtain and verify a products price.

About the Author: David Dawson

I work here at Promo Gifts as Technical Director. We are a Wholesale Promotional Products Supplier. I built and maintain the website and I deal with all the Artwork and Visuals that we produce in house. If you have a technical query or a problem to be solved it's generally me you will speak to. Please do visit our blog or website to make any comments or get a quotation.

Standard Industry Format – Special Flags and Unique Fields

David Dawson — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:36:29 +0000

I have added this section as an ongoing list that we will build into over time. The reason for this is so that we can build additional markers and flags that signify certain things.

If you look below you will see the kind of flags we are aiming for. If you wish anything to be added into the list please post below and I will review it and add it in.

Column Title	Format	Description
flag_express_24hr	Y/N	Available on 24 Hours Express
flag_express_48hr	Y/N	Available on 48 Hours Express
flag_express_72hr	Y/N	Available on 72 Hours Express
flag_express_7_days	Y/N	Available on 7 Day Express
flag_on_special	Y/N	On Special Offer
flag_end_of_line	Y/N	End of Line Item (When it’s gone it’s gone)
flag_uk_manufactured	Y/N	Made in the UK
flag_full_colour_print	Y/N	Full Colour Print Available
flag_best_seller	Y/N	Best Selling Product
flag_eco_product	Y/N	Eco / Recycled Product
flag_fair_trade	Y/N	Fair Trade Product

About the Author: David Dawson

Standard Industry Format – Stock Levels

David Dawson — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:44:05 +0000

Showing upto date stock levels online is hugely useful. It saves masses of time and makes you look highly professional. Only the major suppliers seem to have the technology to do this at the moment. However, if you can make your system output a stock report as a csv file we can import it automatically.

I have outlined the format that ProMart will use when outputting the stock data. Please note the stock level data is exported every 30 mins rather than once a day. This will give us greater accuracy without having a permanent server process running.

Stock Levels

Stock Title	stock_level_1	stock_level_2	stock_level_3	stock_level_4	stock_level_5	stock_level_6
stock_title_1	stock_1_1	stock_1_2	stock_1_3	stock_1_4	stock_1_5	stock_1_6
stock_title_2	stock_2_1	stock_2_2	stock_2_3	stock_2_4	stock_2_5	stock_2_6

All additional stock levels and title are submitted using +1 i.e. stock_title_3 – You can also add extra “stock_level_” numbers

Why is this laid out like this?

When displaying stock levels there can be a huge amount of data due to varying sizes and colours and other misc product variations. The naming convention is designed to be scalable and usable by anyone. An example is Below.

	Small	Medium	Large	Extra Large	XXL	XXXL
Green	25	60	58	89	22	0

This can also be displayed another way, as below.

	Green	Red	Blue	Yellow	Pink	Brown
Small	22	15	68	59	78	25

It does not matter which way you supply this data. Just be consistant.

About the Author: David Dawson

Standard Industry Format – Images Files and Documents

David Dawson — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:35:46 +0000

Most of the issues with images is that everyone supplies them differently. I’ve started adjusting my previous posts on setting up product data to line up with the new posts about SIF (Standard Industry Format) Please read this post on how to setup images in your product data.

It covers some import aspects about how the pictures should be supplied. I personally prefer to have all the different colours of a product on one image.

It makes it easier to maintain and that way a quote will always have the right colour product on it. Personally I would not add any extra images at all. But I have allowed for it in the SIF (Standard Industry Format) so that those who use it have a standardised way of supplying it.

Product Images

Column Title	Naming Convention	Notes	URL Path
product_full_image	product_sku.jpg	450 x 450 Pixels in jpg format.	/productdata/images/fullsize/
product_thumb_image	product_sku.jpg	110 x 100 Pixels in jpg format.	/productdata/images/thumbs/
product_hires_image	product_sku.jpg	Any size in jpg format.	/productdata/images/hires/

Additional Images

Column Title	Naming Convention	Notes	URL Path
extra_image_2	product_sku_2.jpg	450 x 450 Pixels in jpg format.	/productdata/images/extraimages/

To submit further additional images please +1 to each column title and file name.

ProMart Stores and Exports upto 20 additional images

Product Files and Documents

Column Title	Naming Convention	Notes	URL Path
product_pdf_visual	product_sku.pdf	Any size PDF file set to scale – NO TEXT – NO BRANDING – NO EXTRA DETAILS – Just Product + Print Area in MM	/productdata/files/visuals/
product_spec_sheet	product_sku.pdf	A PDF file containing all specs of a product - NO BRANDING	/productdata/files/specsheets/
product_zip_file	product_sku.zip	A zip file containing all the images and other related spec sheets and visuals - NO BRANDING	/productdata/files/zips/

If you are supplying data on disc you should use the same folder structure as the URL paths.

About the Author: David Dawson

Standard Industry Format – Product Pricing

David Dawson — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:15:54 +0000

OK onto pricing. Everyone seems to do this a different way. Lets move on from that and get an approved SIF (Standard Industry Format) First off we have limited to 5 price breaks.

Having done some internal research on enquiries we have worked out that 93% of all enquiries could be quoted instantly if we had a minimum of 5 price breaks. This is from data collected over a 6 month period.

As with all the product data formats I have allowed for scalability. The standard titles would be Plain, 1 Colour Print, 2 Colour Print, 3 Colour Print, 4 Colour Print, Full Colour Print. However by adding the ability to define a title we give ourselves much more versatility in what we can use the fields for. Engraving/Embroidery or whatever you want to use them for.

Click Here to Download a CSV File that contains all the column headers from this article.

Price Breaks

	price_quantity_1	price_quantity_2	price_quantity_3	price_quantity_4	price_quantity_5
price_plain_stock_title	price_plain_q1	price_plain_q2	price_plain_q3	price_plain_q4	price_plain_q5
price_title_1	price_title_1_qty_1	price_title_1_qty_2	price_title_1_qty_3	price_title_1_qty_4	price_title_1_qty_5
price_title_2	price_title_2_qty_1	price_title_2_qty_2	price_title_2_qty_3	price_title_2_qty_4	price_title_2_qty_5
price_title_3	price_title_3_qty_1	price_title_3_qty_2	price_title_3_qty_3	price_title_3_qty_4	price_title_3_qty_5
price_title_4	price_title_4_qty_1	price_title_4_qty_2	price_title_4_qty_3	price_title_4_qty_4	price_title_4_qty_5
price_title_5	price_title_5_qty_1	price_title_5_qty_2	price_title_5_qty_3	price_title_5_qty_4	price_title_5_qty_5

Further Price Break Titles are submitted using +1 i.e. price_title_6 and so on.

ProMart stores and exports 10 titles each with 5 Price Breaks but only displays the titles above.

Delivery Costs

	price_quantity_1	price_quantity_2	price_quantity_3	price_quantity_4	price_quantity_5
delivery_title_1	price_del_1_1	price_del_qty_1_2	price_del_qty_1_3	price_del_qty_1_4	price_del_qty_1_5

All further Delivery Costs are submitted using +1 i.e. delivery_title_2 and so on.

ProMart stores and exports 5 delivery titles each with 5 Price Breaks but only displays the titles above. It’s recommended that you use delivery_title_1 for the one UK address cost. As this field is used when calculating final selling prices.

Origination + Additional Costs

	price_quantity_1	price_quantity_2	price_quantity_3	price_quantity_4	price_quantity_5
origination_title	price_orig_1	price_orig_2	price_orig_3	price_orig_4	price_orig_5
add_cost_title_1	price_add_cost_1_1	price_add_cost_1_2	price_add_cost_1_3	price_add_cost_1_4	price_add_cost_1_5

All further Additional Costs are submitted using +1 i.e. add_cost_title_2 and so on.

ProMart stores and exports 10 additional costs each with 5 Price Breaks. But we only use the origination costs when calculating selling prices.

Click Here to Download a CSV File that contains all the column headers defined on this page.

About the Author: David Dawson

Standard Industry Format – Description, Specs and Print Position Data

David Dawson — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:11:48 +0000

This is my first post on standardising industry product data. It’s been a long time coming and so far I have the backing of several suppliers and 2-3 of the main product portals.

When I have managed to get all the product data fields assigned and created I will use this to build a new database on ProMart.

Each of these fields will then be able to be exported using scheduled tasks into both csv and xml feeds for all distributors and all the product portals to use.

Product Codes

Field Name	Description	Note
product_sku	Your Part Code	The product code that you use for the product
product_mpn	Manufacturers Part Number (MPN)	This is the part code that is assigned by the Manufacturer: See here
product_gtin	Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)	Special: See Here
product_upc	Universal Product Code (UPC)	Special: See Here
product_alt_sku_1	ProMart Product Code	This is the code that we use for our internal systems. It won’t generally be published anywhere.
product_alt_sku_2	Trade Only Search Product Code	The code used on www.tradeonlysearch.com
product_alt_sku_3	Sourcing City Product Code	The code used on www.sourcingcity.co.uk
product_alt_sku_4	Sourcing Machine Product Code	The code used on www.sourcingmachine.co.uk
product_alt_sku_5	BPMA Sourcing Product Code	The code used on www.bpmasourcing.co.uk

Each additional product code is submitted using +1 i.e. product_alt_sku_6 and so on. the first 4 numbers have been assigned to UK portals and systems. If you wish to assign product sku numbers to particular systems then please contact us to make a request.

Product Categories

Field Name	Formatting	Description
product_category	Category Name	The category that you put the product into. (In Title Case)
product_category_path	/Main Category/Sub Category/Sub Sub Category	The Path to Category you put the product into. (In Title Case)
product_industry_category	790	The industry category that the product goes into. (as a number)
product_google_category	Office Supplies > Office Instruments > Writing Instruments > Pens	The google product category that the product goes into in XML formatting. (i.e. using ASCII Codes for special characters. > for > etc etc)

Product Specs

Field Name	Description	Note
product_title	The unique name of the product	Max 70 Characters
product_desc	The full length detailed product description	Max 1000 Characters
product_s_desc	Short description of the product	Max 156 Characters
product_weight	The weight of the individual product	In Grams
product_width	The width of the individual product	In Millimeters
product_length	The length of the individual product	In Millimeters
product_height	The height of the individual product	In Millimeters
product_min_order	The minimum order quantity for printed goods	Also known as MOQ
product_min_lead_time	The minimum time that printed goods can be produced in	In Working Days
product_max_lead_time	The maximum time that the printed goods can be produced in	In Working Days
product_country_origin	The country where the product was made	Not where it was printed
product_colours	The colours the product is available in.	Comma separated, no spaces. multi-colour displayed with a “/” i.e. “white/black”
product_sizes	The sizes the product is available in.	Comma separated no spaces.
product_brand	The product makers brand	i.e. Regatta, Fruit of the Loom, etc

Print and Branding Specs

Position Title	Width	Height	Print Note
print_position_1	print_position_1_w	print_position_1_h	print_position_1_note
print_position_2	print_position_2_w	print_position_2_h	print_position_2_note
print_position_3	print_position_3_w	print_position_3_h	print_position_3_note
print_position_4	print_position_4_w	print_position_4_h	print_position_4_note
print_position_5	print_position_5_w	print_position_5_h	print_position_5_note

Each Extra Print Position is submitted using +1 i.e. print_position_6 and so on.

ProMart Stores, Exports and Displays 10 Print Positions

Packaging Specs

Field Name	Description	Notes
pack_per_carton	How many products in each carton
pack_weight	The weight of each carton	In Grams
pack_height	The height of each carton	In Millimeters
pack_length	The length of each carton	In Millimeters
pack_width	The width of each carton	In Millimeters

About the Author: David Dawson

Boom! Slapped by the Penguin, Google’s Latest Algorithm Update.

David Dawson — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:41:17 +0000

Well in our new continuing fashion I’m adding blog posts that actually matter to us. And probably to quite a few others by the look of my internet and seo news feeds. I’ve not really taken a huge amount of notice to google algorithm updates in the past.

They have never really effected us. But not this one. We have been booted below top 50 listings for our main search terms. Well I call them our main search terms although they have historically given us the least traffic. A month or 2 ago we were No1 for “promotional products” and No2 for “Promotional Items”. I could finally sit back and bask in the glory and gloat over my own accomplishments.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I’ll be honest and say:

The top spot was not really worth all the time and effort in getting there.

I’d have to check the records but I believe we were getting about 120 queriers a week for “promotional products” and the conversion rate on the “the industries most competitive keyword” was abysmal. We get a much better conversion rate when searchers are looking for something specific.

From what I can see a lot of other distributors have been effected.

I won’t name names as I don’t want a law suit! You know who you are! You got caught up in the fairly cheap “set and forget” blog networks that I did. And hey I don’t blame you, they worked didn’t they

Feeling fairly happy with myself I switched my efforts to internal order processes and building a better customer service to our clients. We now produce all visuals in house and offer pre-quote visuals to all prospective clients. It’s a huge amount of work but now we are doing it I don’t think we could ever go back to the old order process.

The long and the short of it.

I was lazy building back links. I did not get the time to change out our keywords in the “linking systems” we used and therefore had an unnatural backlink profile. Unlike 750,000 others we have not received an unatural backlink warning in google’s webmaster tools. I kind of wish we had because then I could start to make amends and request a reconsideration from google. I have so far requested the “linking systems” to remove our links and am going to start the laborious task of rewriting a lot of our content.

The face of SEO changes at a rapid rate. Apparently our pages may now look like spam. I was always under the impression that you have to have at least XXX words on a page with keywords in your title tags and bold/underline/italic keywords in the overall content. Once you have done this you do your best to get backlinks. All these things tell the search engines what’s on the page and what you want people to find.

Well now Google don’t want “over optimised pages”

From what I can gather from reading they want SEO to play less of a role in a businesses marketing strategy. Which thinking about it… I’m all for. Massivly for in fact. I would love to spend ALL OF MY TIME updating products and adding PDF visuals and adding new categories and adding new search features and improving the overall speed of the site and generally adding super useful content.

I’m 100% for devoting all my time to improving the website.

In Fact that’s what I’m going to try to do. If I get enough time inbetween producing visuals and developing our new quote system, I’ll find the time, (probably late at night) to write honest and informative blog posts. I’ll share both the positive and negative aspects of running a promotional products website.

Anyway google if your reading this. I’m going to be a good boy now.

Gareth if your reading this, Yes you were right, I never doubted you

About the Author: David Dawson

What is Laser Engraving and How Does it Work?

David Dawson — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:03:09 +0000

Laser engraving uses lasers to mark or engrave objects. It is a very exact process and can be very technical. Often, the process requires a computer. The computer system would be used to drive the laser head.

Most laser engraving work is done by a laser engraving machine. The machine has a laser, surface and a controller.

There are three types of engraving machines.

The most commonly used one is the X-Y table. This table is stationary and the laser moves in an X and Y fashion to do the drawing. Sometimes, there are exceptions. Then the engraving machine is used specifically for odd-shaped surfaces, in the promotional products world there are many odd shaped branded items!

The laser then can be turned on and off to produce the right image. The third machine has the surface and laser stationary. Then, galvo mirrors will reflect the beam onto the table. It can be done in raster and vector mode.

The point where the laser touches the surface is the focal point. Only this point is affected by the laser. The surface under the laser changes and thus creates the engraving. If the surface is vaporized, blowers are need to remove fumes and also the debris.

The laser is efficient because the beam can be focused to do the engraving process.

The controller can be programmed to engrave a variety of patterns or logos.

The trace is programmed to achieve the removal depth of the material. It also controls the speed of the laser which is needed to create engraved patterns.

A good reason why laser engraving is used so much is the production line. The laser is directed towards a vibrating mirror. The mirror moves to trace out characters onto the surface. Laser engraving is faster than hot stamping and pad printing.

Some surfaces have different heights, so the auto focus system is used. This means the laser’s parameters are changed constantly, letting the beam adapt to these changes. The auto focus system needs work with pilot beams or lasers, such as infrared, ultrasound and visible light.

Only a few types of material can be used for laser engraving. They are natural materials, such as lumber, coated and uncoated metals, stone, plastic and glass

Some of the Promotional Products that can be lazer engraved are the following:

Laser engraving is very versatile and can be adapted to nealy any material. With differing effects.

About the Author: David Dawson

Tips on How to Fix Poor Artwork and Convert Raster to Vector

David Dawson — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:17:03 +0000

I’ve just read through a great article on thinktraffic called “write epic s**t“. It’s basically a guide on how to write useful articles that people can use as a reference point when completing particular tasks.

Hence the reason for this article, and hopefully many more to follow. It made me think, “what do I know that could be really useful to someone else”. One of my main tasks at promo gifts is creating artwork visuals for clients.

Over the years I’ve found a few amazingly useful resources and methods that help me to create decent artwork from jpgs word documents and even scans of business cards. If your a designer like me then you will know what I mean.

How to Identify the Font that is Used in a Logo

One of the most difficult things for a designer to do is trying to figure out what font has been used for a particular logo. Sometimes it’s easy and you can do it from memory or looking through a font library.

When I’m really stuck, I often find myself using a website utility called “what the font“. It’s a fantastic utility that can direct you to either the exact font that was used or to one that is very similar that you might be able to get away with.

Another website that I have used is identifont. This works slightly differently by asking your questions about the font that you are looking for, and uses a drill down method to get you close to what you need.

If those 2 methods fail and you have a bit more time to find the font you need then why not ask in the forums at typophile. 10,000 minds is better than 1 eh?

Can’t find the Font? Why not just find the actual Logo instead?

There are a few fantastic sites out there that have tons and tons of well known company logos in vector format. I have a couple of favouries.

Just be aware that most of these logos have been redrawn by a designer and uploaded to the sites. Sometimes they do not follow the companies brand guidelines. They also rarely contain any pantones references.

Obtain an Official Company Logo from Online PDFs

I often start off with this method of obtaining vector artwork for larger companies. Often we deal with small branches of a larger organisation. Often these small branches will not know where to get their own firms artwork from.

You can do this easily using a google search for just PDF documents. just include in your search

“filetype:pdf”

(without the speech marks) so for instance.

“NHS Brand Guidelines filetype:pdf”

This will find all the PDF documents that match your query. Often you can’t find the actual brand guidelines online, but sometimes you can find a PDF file that you can open in Illustrator and pull the vector logo off to use in your own artwork.

Some organisations will have entire websites dedicated to their brand guidelines. E.G. the United Kingdoms NHS (National Health Service)

If you can find a site like that then all your problems are solved. Brand Guidelines usually have the vector artwork, fonts and pantone colours used.

Using Illustrator and Photoshop to Automatically Produce Usable Artwork

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

At a company I used to work at I took over from a designer. This designer showed me a great way to produce artwork that could be used for screen printing without having to redraw the whole thing from scratch.

Please use this method with caution as sometimes it can produce unexpected results.

Please also note that this only really works with a single colour logo.

We take our low resolution JPG and open it in Photoshop.
We then increase the canvas size by 10% (this is to make sure that we have the artwork within a clearance area)
Menu >> Image >> Image Size
Within the same popup we then change the resolution to 500-700 DPI Feel free to alter these settings as you see fit as this process is not a “one size fits all”
Then we blur the image using gaussian blur.
Menu >> Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur - The amount that you blur here is really upto you. It’s a trial and error process depending on the image that you are trying to vectorise. What we are trying to do is blur the edges so that the lines are smooth and not pixilated.
Once you have finished with the blur filter we then need to run a threshold.
Image >> Adjustments >> Threshold… Again this is a bit of trial and error as we want to retain as much of the information in the logo as possible without it looking completely wrong.

There are 2 ways you can do the next step. Try both of them and see which works best for you.

Method A – Exporting Paths from Photoshop

Using the Magic Wand tool with contiguous turned off select the black area.
Goto your “Paths” Window and click the drop down menu and select “Make work Path…” the tolerance amount is again trial and error.
Export the Paths to illustrator.
File >> Export >> Paths to Illustrator…
You will then need to open the saved file in illustrator and delete the border and bits you don’t need and make a compound path out of it.

Method B – Saving a JPG and Auto Trace in Illustrator

Save the file as a hi res jpg.
Open it in illustrator
Use the autotrace tool within illustrator
Object >> Live Trace >> Tracing Options…
You then have the option to preview it before you run the autotrace.

My preferred way of doing it is Method B, this is because you get a chance to actually preview the path that is being created, where as with the export paths methods you don’t see a preview before the vector lines are made.

Pay Someone Else to Recreate the Artwork.

If you don’t want to spend the time redrawing a logo then you can easily just pay a designer to do it for you.

There are some brilliant out sourcing vector redraw companies out there.We often get emails from such companies touting for business. Many offer a redraw service from £3-£5 (dependant on the logo).

Often your time could be better spent, I know mind could!

Here are a few links for some companies that have contacted us for redraw work. I believe all of them offer a free redraw as a trial.

About the Author: David Dawson

What are Origination Costs?

David Dawson — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:55:17 +0000

We get asked this one all the time so I thought I would go into finer detail about what origination costs are. We don’t charge directly charge any of our clients origination fees or setup costs. We prefer to give you the final unit cost of your products to save any confusion. We do however have to pay setup/origination fees to our factories/printers when we print your job. Therefore the charges do relate to your final unit cost from us…

So What are the Setup Costs?

Setup costs can be various different things when printing on promotional products.

In litho printing there is the cost of creating the plates.
In screen printing there is the cost of creating the screens.
In digital printing there is the cost of setting up the machine to print.
In embroidery there is the cost of setting up the disk that is used to tell the embroidery machine where and what to stitch.
With engraving there is a cost to setup your design.

In most of these processes the cost is defined by how many colours are in your logo. e.g Litho Printing /Screen Printing /Pad Printing. This is because each colour is printed separately.
Some of the processes are a set one off fee for origination. e.g. Digital/Engraving is a one off fee to setup the machine.
Embroidery is based on the amount of stitches in your logo. The higher the stitch count, the longer it takes to create the disk, and subsequently the higher the price. (the amount of colours is not used)

There are also other costs that make up your final unit price. These can be delivery costs and also rush fee costs.

About the Author: David Dawson