Ive just been buying them local as I need them for now. I can get 8g for $6.99. I ship in my own cute packaging, I have these metal heart tins I bought in a wedding section at a party store. I wrap them up pretty in tissue paper that is as close as i can get in their wedding colors. The drive is easier for transport to show friends and family.
I personally dont worry about my clients erasing the drive. They know to copy it somewhere for back up. Some computers are coming out without a disc slot. The new masc dont... I still have their photos backed up I can give them again if it fails or they erase them by mistake. Discs will soon be obsolete.
USB flash drives have seen an increasing demand over the past year. Clients are opting to receive their image files, slideshows, videos, album spreads, etc. on a flash drive over other media storage types. We now offer Customized USB Drives in 8MB or 16MB capacities to hold a wide variety of projects.
These USB Thumbdrives can be ordered in the Press Products catalog of our Black River Imaging - ROES software. Check out the website today for pricing.
Details: USB drives are sold with engraving on one side. Tin storage cases and second side engraving are available for an additional fee.
USB flash drives have seen an increasing demand over the past year. Clients are opting to receive their image files, slideshows, videos, album spreads, etc. on a flash drive over other media storage types. We now offer Customized USB Drives in 8MB or 16MB capacities to hold a wide variety of projects.
These USB Thumbdrives can be ordered in the Press Products catalog of our Black River Imaging - ROES software. Check out the website today for pricing.
Details: USB drives are sold with engraving on one side. Tin storage cases and second side engraving are available for an additional fee. ...Show more →
+1 for Pexagontech. I get customized USBs from them and then I have a set of generic branded ones from USBDirect (though some of my clients have had issues with a handful of files being corrupt on arrival which is disconcerting).
We just got a sample drive and box from PhotoFlashDrive (Pexagon) and are really happy with the product. Quick related question for those who provide these: do you custom order one for each client and add their names/wedding date, or do you buy them in bulk with your logo?
I purchasd a 50 custom usbs. Paid for upgraded components. Had at least half of them fail. The transfer speeds on the ones that work are pathetic.
I have a hunch they are ALL made from rejected memory.
Your best bet is to buy Sandisk USB3 drives and place them in a custom branded box.
I'm serious about professional presentation, so this advice isn't easy to type... But it's the best advice on the market right now...
I've had (mostly) good luck with custom USB's. The company that does them for me also does the presentation box and other items so they take care of me. In the 4 batches of 8gig USB2 sticks I've received (lot of 50 each) I've only had one go bad, but they replaced quickly.
I have no idea who the end company my branding vendor uses is (does anyone actually know who's making their memory?) but they stand behind their sub contractor so I guess I really don't care.
ZachOly wrote:
The custom USBs I've checked out are always so pathetically cheap.
And anything of high enough quality, you're close to being able to buy a portable harddrive.
I can't imagine charging $4k + and handing over the images on a 50 cent thumb drive.
You are probably looking in the wrong places. The ones we use are custom branded with our logo and run about $9 each for us. Our clients love them, and we have had 2 fail in the time we have used them (which they were DOA, so I knew they were dead before the clients received it).
I don't want to do digital-only delivery for weddings. Hard drives are not the route I want to go.
I am migrating from DVD (lightscribe) delivery to USB drives. I just ordered a custom engraved wood drive and custom printed wood box from WHCC. I'll report back if it is any good and worth the $$.
I had looked at the standard drives customized for business logos, but I really prefer the idea of having an individual drive made for each client that is more of a keepsake, like the box as well. It does cost more for sure though. Customized bulk wood drive can be had for around $10 from lots of places. This drive engraved on 2 sides and with a custom printed wood box was $43 shipped. We'll see...
I just tried Artsy Couture (http://www.artsycouture.com/) for the first time and so far so good. I bought one of their custom photo USB drives and I thought it came out nice.
I used to buy custom USBs from pexagontech.com - but their drives were sooooo slow when transferring files (probably USB 1.0).
whuppinstick wrote:
They're all coming from China anyway. But I'd be happy to order them from China then sell them to you over here if they'll make you feel better.
Exactly what I was about to say and somewhat amused no one has said it sooner.
I have bought USB's from China in the Hundreds at a time and got different designs for my event work. I pick one for the boys, one for the girls and a generic one that is non descript. Biggest batch was 500 and they sent them to me free.
All these other companies are just buying from china and putting their substantial markup on them. I was buying 4G sticks for well under $2 and never had a problem with them.
I could buy 1G sticks, custom styling ( hamburger, fish, car, whatever, there is a million of them) for under $1.
The company I was buying off had a min order of 50 but I did get an initial sample order of 20 with no problem.
Buying off these other companies makes no sense to me when You can get them just as easy from china for so much less and have them inside a week anyway.... Often for free if you order enough.
Unlike US suppliers, Postage from China is not insulting in it's cost and airmail and rapid delivery on these things is very affordable. Not that you'd need it if you were ordering 50 drives so you had some in reserve.
I recently ordered 10 of the card-style flash drives from Paper & Camera. I like them. They are plastic, but they go in a wallet, so the plastic is to be expected. I bought them while they were having a special and paid less than $10.00 each. My logo printed out just fine and I rather like the idea that it's something they can keep in their wallet.
