For a number of years manufacturers of promotional merchandise have been subject to more and more stringent safety testing processes. The following 5 tips in this article explain how to make sure that any promotional items you supply will pass these tests.
1.Get to know your local testing laboratory
Getting to know your local product safety testing laboratory is an important step in the whole process. Fortunately even if this lab has not done much testing of promotional merchandise in the past there are set guidelines and procedures that they will have details of. Once they have performed tests on a few promotional items for you they will get to know how you work, what requirements the industry needs and things become much easier.
2. Find out what products require which testing procedures.
Your target audience will very much determine which tests your particular promotional items need. A good example might be promotional bottled water or even leather conference folders. It's not just the water that would need testing for any impurities, the bottle would need to be checked to make sure it is safe from any dangerous substances. And you may be surprised to learn that the label would be checked as well.
3. Discover as much as you can about all the entire testing process
It is much better to try and iron out any potential design problems in a new product whilst it is on the drawing board. A knowledge of what tests may be required will save you lots of time and money later. If you were to consider making a new electrical device such as an MP3 Player or even a new sort of flash drive. These would have to have entirely different tests compared to the first two examples above. Another sector entirely like promotional clothing would have different tests again. Take promotional jackets, embroidered polo shirts or even printed T-shirts, in fact any sort of corporate clothing, all these items would be subjected to tests to make sure the colour dyes did not run.
4. Learn about product labelling
Product labelling is another area that is really important when it comes to safety testing. Each and every promotional gift you give away must be labelled so that they are safe for the audience they are aimed at. There are labels for every promotional product that you can think of and if they can't go onto the actual item itself, say in the case of a small promotional keyring, then they go on to the plastic bag that it is supplied in.
5. Go on specific training courses
You cannot take any chances with product safety testing. On-line courses are now available, they are inexpensive and will cover the basics but they will never be as good as face to face courses. If you belong to a local trade organisation they may be able to help. Failing that talk to other traders in the same field as you at exhibitions or conferences. It's in everybody's interest to maintain good standards in their respective industries.
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