Vernon Victorine, founder of Naperville, Ill.-based distributorship Vevco Inc., has been in the printing business for 25 years, but he hasn't sold a plastic product. He has sold integrated documents so well, he's never even attempted to offer plastic products--until now.
Today, when it's almost impossible to find a business that doesn't offer a plastic card for identification purposes, as a customer incentive or both, plastic product neophytes are a dying breed. With increased nationwide security, plastic cards are playing a significant role--so significant that the smart card industry alone is a $3.5 billion business worldwide, and North American sales rose 34 percent in 2002. A smart card contains a device (usually a computer chip) that stores personal information about the cardholder. (Read "Not So Sci-Fi" on page 74.) Clients, such as a small, non-profit organization that approached Victorine, now expect distributors to offer a variety of plastic card solutions.
"The demand comes from businesses looking for ways to buy incentives," says Neil Trowbridge, a sales representative at the Tulsa, Okla., office of distributorship Global DocuGraphix Inc., based in Chicago. With 25 years of printing industry experience--the past 10 in plastic cards--one vendor called Trowbridge a "black belt" in plastic products. He has sold cards to insurance companies, museums, zoos and other organizations.
Trowbridge says plastic products have a higher retention rate than any other product he sells, including forms, pressure sensitive labels, promotional products and office supplies. "More membership-type clubs want to distinguish themselves by offering a quality card," he says.
Cards Give an Edge
End users can distinguish themselves by using trendy products creatively, Trowbridge says. Distributors can present their clients with "so many options like 4-color process, bar coding, laser printing on front and back," he says. Today, distributorships are expected to provide imaging, cards with consecutive numbering or cards affixed onto a letter--one of Trowbridge's most popular offerings. Clients "want to attach value to the card and to make their customers feel special," he says.
Trowbridge also likes to give new twists to old concepts. He keeps a portfolio containing a variety of items developed by distributorships worldwide, then builds on those ideas. If he's working on membership cards with a zoo in Oklahoma, he shows to the client cards used by zoos from London to California. "Everyone is interested in what's going on," Trowbridge says. "By showing what other end users have done, [clients] get a feel for what's hot."
It's possible that a client can't afford plastic products with special features, so it's important to discuss the cost toward the beginning of the sales process, he says. Two-way communication is equally important, he says. "Don't go in saying, 'here's what you need to buy,'" Trowbridge says. "Listen to your customer."
Victorine did just that. Recently, a client asked him to switch its membership cards from a 2-up integrated document to 30 mil plastic cards. Victorine gathered information from various distributorships familiar with plastic products, including Nova Card in Detroit and Brandt Affixing Inc., Carrollton, Texas. He found that a
30 mil plastic card could raise several issues such as added bulk and difficulty in working simultaneously with a card manufacturer, a carrier manufacturer and an embossing equipment supplier.
Victorine suggested to the client that it could use a thin plastic card affixed to a carrier, but knew the solution would introduce the issue of matching the ink on the carrier and the card. He discovered a thinner (10-20 mil) card called LaserWell® from Fenton, Mo.-based manufacturer FormStore Incorporated, which had no ink-matching problem. Although LaserWell is "truly an excellent value-added product", it costs more than the integrated document my customer is currently using," Victorine says. He offered the non-profit two options: a thin, plastic affixed card on a carrier with black ink, or remain status quo. The customer now is deciding between the options.
Companies Can Anticipate Challenges
Even the most experienced document pros sometimes experience glitches with plastic products. Rich Meyers, president and founder of Milford, Conn.-based distributorship Sterling Forms & Computer Supplies, has sold plastic cards for approximately six years. He started out by selling to libraries simple plastic cards with offset printing on one side. Two years ago, a customer requested plastic library cards with detachable, bar coded key tags.
When he sent the 8,000 cards to the customer, the bar codes on the key tags started to rub off. Meyers shipped the key tags to another supplier, which applied a protective coating on top of them. Meyers, who ran into a similar problem earlier with bar codes, found out the supplier wasn't providing best-quality key tags. "You have to be absolutely sure that the supplier you're using is a quality source," he says.
Another challenge when selling plastic cards, Trowbridge says, is a longer selling cycle than most other products. "With design, decisions and testing, the selling cycle is often longer than regular forms," he says. "It can easily take six months." But this can help distributors form long-term relationships with their clients. "A client isn't going to want to go through [the selling cycle] again with a competitor, and is less likely to change companies," Trowbridge says.
Thanks to Pilgrim Plastic Products Co., Brockton, Mass., and Brandt Affixing Inc., Carrollton, Texas, for assistance.
Not So Sci-Fi
The film Minority Report depicted a futuristic world of constant surveillance, courtesy of retina scans that reveal personal information to a Big Brother-like government. While retina scanning doesn't yet disclose personal information, a simple swipe of your smart card can.
The credit card-sized plastic cards embed computer chips that allow fingerprints, photos and facial recognition information to be stored on a central database. The chip also can give a cardholder building access and records entry and exit times. A photo on the card can provides visual verification, and an added hologram can prevent counterfeiting.
The cards are gaining global popularity for personal identification, mobile phone personalization, credit/debit functions, satellite TV security, health care records and other applications. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, smart cards are becoming the first line of defense in protecting computer networks and office buildings from hackers and terrorists. "More and more people are asking for identification," says Neil Trowbridge, sales representative at the Tulsa, Okla., office of distributorship Global DocuGraphix Inc., based in Chicago. "As technology develops, more information will be captured on the cards."
Government agencies and large corporations have successfully used smart cards for a few years. Now, smaller companies are beginning to following suit. Trowbridge says distributorships are going to be "right there to promote them and sell them."
