For the Marketing Insomniac
E-commerce may be booming elsewhere, but businesses sourcing premiums for their incentive programs or corporate identification campaigns still like visits from distributor reps so they can personally inspect merchandise.
Yet Alcone Marketing Group is betting that these corporate premium buyers – or anybody else buying premiums to motivate business or consumer audiences – will begin turning to the Web in droves. The Irvine, CA-based promotional product maker and distributor is featuring more than 500,000 items and a variety of premium search-related services at a new Web site. Alcone bills its PromoCity.com site as “the largest promotional merchandise store in the virtual world.”
“It’s a way to search for merchandise without incurring the time and hassle of a salesperson. And you save money,” says vp-promotional merchandise Nancy McGlinn. “Buyers can see any item with full specs at any hour of the day or night, comparison-shop, make a purchase, and transmit their art in a matter of minutes without leaving their desks.”
About 80 percent of the featured merchandise comes from Advertising Specialty Institute supplier members. Some of it is Alcone-sourced or custom-made. The site has services for putting together a merchandise catalog and custom-designing products. An idea section organized by industry helps users plan premium promotions and is designed to become an informational database.
The site’s “Virtual Consultant” provides specific ideas for a customer’s program. Alcone says it will soon feature the InstaSample, which will allow customers to view an item with their logos superimposed. The site offers Alcone services such as fulfillment, warehousing, and FedEx delivery tracking, too. A toll-free number lets customers reach reps for ordering. Customers can e-mail art that can be stored in a database for quick downloading whenever an order is placed.
“They are showing a complete catalog of standard industry merchandise. The question is, are people going to use it,” asks a source at a competing distributor. “How comfortable are you ordering a product online that is going to represent your company?”
That’s a good question. But Alcone says it’s already getting lots of action on the site.
“This is where the business is going. More of our clients want this type of service online, says McGlinn. “You are getting products at a glance, and you can do it anytime. We are seeing a lot of hits over the weekend, with the orders coming in on Monday.”
