Choosing The Best Corporate Gift Supplier In Malaysia
In the realm of corporate gifting, choosing a trustworthy and capable supplier holds immense significance to the success of your events and initiatives. More often than not, they could mean leaving your stakeholders in awe or left in disappointment. When you select a reliable supplier, you possess the potential to unlock a world of ideas and opportunities to strengthen relationships with your stakeholders.
In this article, we delve into the roles played by corporate gift suppliers for your branding initiatives as well as crucial factors to consider in ensuring that they leave a lasting impression on your stakeholders.
1) Quality Of Products
When selecting a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia, one of the most critical factors to consider is the quality of products. The quality of gifts your stakeholders receive directly correlates with your business and its reputation and thus requires significant attention before signing off that quotation.
A reputable corporate gift supplier understands the significance of quality and its impact on your internal and external initiatives, thoroughly considering the manufacturing process to ensure that their corporate gifts are of the highest standards.
They should also possess the necessary experience within the PR and branding field, which gives them an understanding of your company’s inner workings. With this, your corporate gift supplier is able to play a more active role in providing relevant corporate gift suggestions in line with your internal or external initiatives.
Assessing the quality of products from your corporate gift supplier in Malaysia is a fairly straightforward process. You should always take the time to review product samples sent to you and pay close attention to the following when selecting your corporate gift supplier:
- Assess the quality of their previous projects
- Take note of the material used for corporate gifts
- Printing methods and printing quality
2) Product Variety
Opting for a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia with a large variety of options ensure that you’ll find the types of products which align with your initiatives. Corporate gift suppliers who possess a large inventory of items are also representative of their experience in the field, being able to provide customisation options for a myriad of items.
Furthermore, having access to a comprehensive list of corporate gifts eases your planning process, where an experienced corporate gift supplier can provide input for items suited for your initiatives. Their website also serves as a good reference point for your business cases, providing you with a database of pictures and an estimated cost section with more accurate pricing.
As the information contained within websites may not be the most up-to-date, you can always request a catalogue from your corporate gift supplier in Malaysia, ensuring that you receive the most updated information available. As always, when in doubt, don’t hesitate to reach out to their representatives if you have any questions.
3) Customisation Options
Customisability of corporate gifts is equivalent to the success of your initiatives, after all, what is the meaning behind your gifts if they aren’t branded with your company’s logo or motto? As such, you would want to opt for a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia who provide you with the option of customising your corporate gifts.
From our years of experience on the corporate side of things, the most successful corporate gift suppliers are ones that are able to provide flexibility in the forms of customisation they can provide. In a previous article, we highlighted the importance of branding and how they influence brand recognition and product purchases.
While we don’t mean that you should go all out with your corporate identity by incorporating your brand colours in everything, a subtle addition of your brand in any form can be an elegant way to implement this. For this, you must ensure that any corporate gift supplier in Malaysia that you partner up with has the capability to do so.
There are many types of customisation options available and to name a few, printing methods include silk screen printing, embroidery, UV printing, sublimation, heat transfer etc. You can even go the route of full customisation where you can select the types of material, its colours, and what sort of compartments you want for your corporate gifts.
4) Pricing
Pricing is one of the most important factors when selecting a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia. As ex-corporate communication practitioners, we understand that a limited budget for corporate gifts and an endless KPI list is a bane for preparing a compelling business case.
We also understand that there are just so many corporate gift suppliers who operate in Malaysia that tend to overcharge their customers, leading to an unjustifiable price point for your initiatives. As such, in the interest of saving time, we’ve written an article on the importance of integrating a database of corporate gift suppliers in Malaysia into your inventory system to ensure that everyone in your team is in the loop with updated pricing.
5) Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ)
Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) is the smallest number of units a corporate gift supplier is willing to sell to you at once. Many corporate gift suppliers in Malaysia have a set minimum number of units for an item, but regardless of how in the black your company profit reports may be, an order of a thousand laptop bags is highly unjustifiable.
This, however, depends on the types of items being ordered. In a previous article, we explained the differences between standard gifts, premium gifts, and VIP gifts. Standard gifts comprising pens, notepads, and non-woven bags usually have the highest MOQ while premium gifts like name card holders, laptop bags, and leather desk mats possess the lowest MOQs.
The reason for this is that most corporate gift suppliers in Malaysia sell their products on a tight margin which requires a large volume to break even. For most customised corporate gifts in Malaysia, setting up a production run requires considerable up-front costs, especially for the manufacturing and printing process.
6) Delivery Timelines
Any experienced PR and branding practitioner will know that timeline is of the essence, and events are only as good as their deliverables. Nothing spells disaster more than showing up at an event empty-handed, which means that partnering up with a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia which respects your timeline and is able to deliver your products on time is essential for the success of your initiatives.
There are, however, cases of non-essential corporate gifts which are based on recurring event schedules with a high reordering threshold that gives you some breathing room between orders. In these cases, you should instead focus on getting the lowest price point.
7) Reputation
The reputation of a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia is built on its track record of meeting deadlines, providing excellent customer support, and the quality of its products. Their reputation is often reflected in positive reviews, testimonials, and the level of industry knowledge they possess.
A reputable corporate gift supplier will prioritise a transparent process with open communication and will take the time to understand your specific needs and be thorough with SOPs to prevent malpractice. They’re also used to providing expert advice in their areas of expertise, offering a personalised experience that sets them apart from competitors.
8) Industry Knowledge
Possessing knowledge of the ins and outs of PR and branding practices is crucial for effectively implementing your initiatives. There is a stark difference between a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia who possesses industry knowledge of the client it serves and one who does not.
A corporate gift supplier with adequate industry knowledge is able to cater to your in-depth procurement procedures, ensuring that no required documents are left out. A complete understanding of the inner workings of your organisation also ensures that they can provide relevant suggestions for your internal or external initiatives.
9) Customer Service And Support
Product attributes are only one part of a purchase or repurchase decision. The total experience of a product from purchase and use, to problem-solving after the sale also matters. Let’s face it, the term ‘vendor management‘ wouldn’t be a common term for corporate communication practitioners around the world if it’s as simple as ABC.
Communicating with corporate gift suppliers is just a day in the life for corporate communication practitioners. The repetitive task of requesting updates on that quotation or artwork can take a toll on any employee if there’s no transparency in communication between all stakeholders.
On top of this, a passive corporate gift supplier can spell disaster for your department in the form of miscommunicated specifications, missed deadlines, and delayed initiatives.
As such, appointing a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia that understands the importance of open communication and who take a proactive stance in providing updates is crucial in ensuring the smooth implementation of your initiatives, especially when you’re chasing tight deadlines.
10) Experience And Expertise
Last but not least, the experience and expertise of your corporate gift supplier in Malaysia play a role in how effectively they can meet all your expectations above. It’s a combination of all the above which makes for the least amount of hiccups in your work processes.
There’s a caveat to this however, experience does not equal competence, and should not be used interchangeably when assessing the capabilities of your vendors. More often than not, at least in the case of the corporate gift industry in Malaysia, is that most vendors simply do not have experience in the field when it comes to the way large corporations operate.
In fact, most of them operate individually in their own capacity without knowing what’s going on behind the iron curtain. There’s a reason why having a list of large corporations in your resume matters during an interview, it’s because they operate on a whole different spectrum when it comes to red tape.
While getting the best of both worlds is pretty far-fetched when it comes to choosing a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia, as practitioners of our respective fields, we should at least try to strive to find someone that fits the above criteria.
Conclusion
In conclusion, selecting the right vendor in the corporate gift industry is tantamount to the success of your initiatives, and to ensure that there are no stalled projects down the road for the year. From our experience in the field, there’s no magic key to unlock the secrets to effective vendor management, and it’s often a two-way street where both parties are required to take proactive measures to reach out to each other.
But by considering the factors outlined in this article, we hope that we’ve helped in some way for you to make informed decisions before appointing a corporate gift supplier in Malaysia.
