MMI, Spokane, Wash., recently announced it has begun selling remotely updatable USB drives with inside branding that also provide usage statistics. These will be available with two-to-five day delivery from in-house stock, at a lower price than overseas products requiring two-to-three weeks delivery.
Herb Nelson, president of MMI, issued the following statement:
“We’ve been selling USBs for 10 years now. The promotional USB flash drive market has been an extremely successful business. In 2013, over 24 million USB flash drives had a logo stamped on the outside, and were delivered by thousands of the biggest brand names in the world to their customers. Talking to distributors, it’s because people love their data, and they want it with them, plus, these low-cost durable devices now have the capacity to hold thousands of documents.
“As the USB market has matured, these devices are being used by companies as a method to distribute product information by adding files before shipping. The problem is, businesses need to change their information all the time, and once the USB was sent out, it essentially became stagnant, and in some cases a liability with old information on them. So in talking with our customers we came up with a solution we’re really excited about. We now offer with all our USBs with a service that enables the end purchasing companies to update information on their USB drives after they have handed them out, and to also generate usage reports. This is included free on every style of USB we offer and is exclusive to MMI. It’s a great solution to the problems companies have today with maintaining their information with their customers.
“As a founding member of industry group QCA-Quality Certification Alliance-we have become acutely aware of how unreliable the manufacturing processes of many Chinese factories are. For years prior to that, we played the same game as everyone else. Flying over to China, visiting different factories, selecting factory partners, but in doing so, we realized that most of these factories were filling orders as fast as they could and were paying very little attention to quality, safety, social and environmental responsibilities and security. Because of the inherent risks associated with their practices, we felt we would take a different approach. For the most part, we buy PCBA’s that have been assembled under the most rigorous and strict manufacturing conditions and assemble the drives ourselves. We use best practices to control the use of dangerous materials in all the drive components, test 100% of the drives for functionality and feel our drives are the best in the industry.
“We still order some of the custom and specialty drives from China, and that works for us because of the quality control processes we have in place there. By buying mass quantities of components and avoiding the mark-up, we are able to pass that savings along to our customers. The end result is faster turnaround and with very competitive pricing. That’s what our customers need, we’re just responding to the market demand.”
For more information, visit www.mmiline.com.
