Moving Toward One-Stop Suppliers?

The promotional products industry has been moving toward a one-stop-shop model for years, with distributors looking to make things as easy as possible for their customers. That’s made it even more important for promo suppliers and decorators to offer a variety of products, preventing their distributor customers from having to source products from multiple suppliers just to fulfill a single order. Add in ongoing inventory challenges and shipping delays, and the single-source approach has become critical.

Equipment manufacturers are responding to this with new equipment designed to meet that need and give promotional products printers the ability to decorate more products with a single machine. One example is Roland DGA (Booth C8930), whose Roland DG VersaUV S-Series flatbed printers come in multiple sizes with an expanded printing-height allowance. That makes them able to print vibrant graphics directly onto a huge variety of substrates, including metal, plastics, foils, film, wood, canvas, vinyl, paper, and more.

Up to date technology.Top view of diverse personal accessory laying on the pink background

“The LEC2 S-Series printers offer companies wanting to decorate promotional products a full 7.87" of height allowance, which vastly expands the range of products that can be printed on,” says Jay Roberts, product manager, UV Printers for Roland DGA. “In addition to traditional promotional product hard goods such as water bottles, golf balls, and power banks, the S-Series can print on industrial or light industrial products. It can even be used to customize items with unique shapes, such as industrial fixtures, product packaging, or even guitars.”

The S-Series also offers an expanded color gamut, as well as a vertical table format that allows users to print and load products at the same time. Combined with capabilities like White-Space Skipping, Generic Distance Mode and a touch-panel control tower, these features allow promotional products printers to increase capacity and production efficiency even as they expand the number and type of products they can decorate.

“The promotional products space has become increasingly competitive, so staying aware of the latest techniques and features can help you maximize your impact on the market,” Roberts says. “Excellent color management is a critical advantage as companies seek to maintain color consistency across printing platforms. The seven different ink configurations offered with the LEC2 S-Series printers include new orange and red ink options, which dramatically increase the available color space. In addition, customers value the pure opacity of Roland DG’s EUV5 white ink and the clean look of its gloss.”