If you sell promotional products but haven’t ventured into durable labels, you might think these products are too technical or outside your wheelhouse. But here’s what most resellers don’t realize: The easiest durable label sale is to a customer who’s already experienced label failure, and that happens more often than you might think.
When labels fail, customers become frustrated and anxious. They worry about compliance issues, lost inventory, unreadable barcodes and damaged reputations. Especially if it happened recently, they’re actively looking for someone who can solve the problem their current supplier can’t.
That someone could be you. You just have to ask the right questions.
Listen for the Pain
When you ask your customer about their pain points around labels and their answer has to do with label performance (labels fading, peeling, falling off or failing in the field), you’ve found a golden opportunity.
The opportunity is golden because that customer has already lost trust in their current supplier. You can become their new trusted source by leaning on the right trade label manufacturer for their expertise. An expert supplier will walk you through the right questions to ask to bring them the solution.
Here are a few of those questions:
- “Do your labels get exposed to sun or weather? Have you noticed fading or peeling?”
- “Are your products stored in coolers or freezers? Do your labels fall off bottles or containers?”
- “Do your labels contact chemicals, oils, or cleaners? Have you seen them breaking down?”
- “Have you recently changed packaging suppliers? Did your labels stop sticking after the switch?”
- “Where are your labels applied, and what conditions do they face?”
- “What material are your labels made from? Do they tear, crack, or fade?”
- “Do your labels get scratched or rubbed off during shipping?”
- “How long do your durable labels need to last?”
Click here to read the technical details behind each question.
Why This Is Easy Business
We call these sales “easy” because customers with label failures are actively seeking solutions. They’ll pay premium pricing because label failure costs them real money. Once you solve their problem, they become loyal, repeat customers. Best of all, you don’t need to be the expert.
Partner with the right trade-only manufacturer. Send them samples, describe the environment, and let their experts engineer the solution instead. Your job is simply to maintain the customer relationship and margin.
Durable label failures happen every day – in cold storage facilities, on outdoor equipment, in chemical plants, on packaging lines. Selling into these accounts doesn’t require specialized equipment or deep technical knowledge. Sometimes it just takes a conversation.
Will Prettyman is General Manager of Wise’s Labels Plant in Anderson, SC. Wise manufacturers industrial/prime labels and tags, traditional forms, and digitally printed products and services for resale only. For more information, visit www.wbf.com or email Will at [email protected].
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