I often have customers contact me wondering if they can buy logo'd flashdrive memory sticks at the same cheap pricing you can see in a retail store. For instance one customer recently saw a 1GB Flashdrive advertised at Best Buy for $4.95each. I wanted to share some education on the challenge of comparing cheap retail USB flashdrives with the units available to corporate buyers. It’s really not an apples to apples situation and here is why:
Firstly, retail buyers are buying in HUGE volumes (100,000 units for a 400 store chain) and they are buying generic flashdrives meaning they don’t need a custom logo like a company does. Most companies that buy flashdrives will order 100 to 1000 flashdrives. Any order larger than 1000 units would be unusual. So, this is the first issue that makes corporate flashdrives more expensive than retail.
Secondly, electronic retailers treat flashdrives as a loss-leader meaning they will sell them at BELOW their cost just to get you in the computer department. It’s the same way in the Golf industry golfballs are sold at a loss just to get you into the store and trying out shoes, clubs and the rest of the high-margin product.
Lastly, the flashdrives most corporate buyers request are Grade A quality which means they have less than a 1% failure rate and contain Samsung or Hynix brand memory chips. Grade B flashdrives are no name brand and have 10% or higher failure rate. Grade C flashdrives are sold by the pound and have 30-40% failure rate. Lastly, Grade D chips are fakes or knock-offs and could be of any quality. I only sell Grade A flashdrives (full guarantee, etc) and they happen to be more expensive. Contact me to find out more, see an example of a flashdrive I designed for Vancouver Island Conference Centre: