Save the Earth! Save Money! In honor of Earth Day, we’d like to share five simple ways you can tap into your supply chain for eco-friendly, sustainable options for your point-of-purchase (P.O.P) campaign needs.
1) SUBSTRATE/MATERIAL SELECTION
Heavier is not always better. You may consider specifying a 10pt vs. 12pt cardstock, a 10oz vs. a 12oz vinyl or .040 vs .060 styrene to reduce your printing, packaging, and shipping costs.
Size of your final printed piece. You may get a better yield on the substrate sheet and/or on press by altering the finished size of your P.O.P materials or your merchandise display dimensions for best fit and for cost effective shipping purposes. The latter is just as important considering the newer DIM weight shipping rules.
Eco-Friendly Options. Pre-consumer recycled materials are available for screen, offset, large format and small format digital printing methods with varying recycled content up to 50% depending on the print process. And, there are many alternatives to petroleum based (PVC) plastics and vinyls available that are biodegradable and degradable.
2) ONLINE P.O.P PROGRAM MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY
Still using spreadsheets? Customers that utilize our custom online web-to-print portal, called INTELLITRAKTM are able to simplify and streamline the process of purchasing, proofing, producing and re-ordering their print, display or branded promotional product needs. Not only does this vital business tool speed up the process and avoid unnecessary errors, it reduces the amount of paper consumed – currently estimated at 10,000 sheets per office worker per year.
Reduce waste with Intelligent Store Profiling. With INTELLITRAKTM you can order exactly what you need for any particular store location and eliminate the waste of unusable items. The CMO Council estimates that 50% of retail marketing consumables go straight into the trash. View our Case Study to see how Store Profiling reduces waste for this quick-serve restaurant chain.
Track your green efforts. With INTELLITRAKTM we can identify the products you order that have recycled content, build custom reports that show you the tonnage and your spend on these products.
3) PRINT ON DEMAND
Print on Demand (POD) is state-of-the-art digital technology that allows you to print content as you need it, producing more timely and targeted campaigns. POD reduces printing, storage, and shipping costs, as well as pollution and waste. With digital printing technology, you can print only what you need, and reduce your carbon footprint by using UV inks.
Did you know that 50% of the contents in landfills are comprised of paper and packaging?
4) VARIABLE DATA PRINTING
Variable Data Printing (VDP) is a value-added service that offers a more effective way to convey messages with greater relevancy, clarity, and impact. VDP has emerged as a key enabling technology that makes personalized one-to-one marketing communication a reality, producing a customized message for each recipient.
It takes about 68 million trees per year to produce the piles of no-name mail that Americans receive annually. Nearly half of this mailbox clutter is thrown out unopened.
5) P.O.P FULFILLMENT
Don’t ship twice. There is no need to ship P.O.P kits or overs to another warehouse location just to have them re-shipped to individual store locations at another date. Customer’s utilize our state-of-the-art warehouse facilities for their fulfillment needs. Orders placed before noon will ship the same day.
As for kitting and packing, consider using glue-less packaging made from biodegradable paper. Or bypass a box all together. For example, our Case Study illustrates how we shipped several thousand P.O.P kits for a major bevco in poly bags and placed them in large gaylords to consolidate tons of space, saving on shipping, box costs, and local distribution. And, we all saved some trees in the process!