Free Personalization - Is it really Free?

Free Personalization

Is personalization really free?  Well, yes and no. Most folks would say that it's not really free. All they are doing they will say is including the personalization effort or labor to do so into the price of the product. This is partly correct and I will explain. Let's first talk about technology and what effect this has had on the gift personalization industry. Prior to the introduction of the laser, rotary or tool engraving was all that was available at least for the true engraving market. Engraving meaning that the product surface is actually etched by the tool, and not to be confused with sublimation (printing). These rotary engravers required a considerable time to setup and had not digital or computer to help design the layout and guide the engraving tool through the design therefore considerable time was spent on this process. Now we have lasers that are computer interfaced, and the software to help with the design. The software too has continually been improved for most tasks including the processing of a photo for engraving onto your choice of materials. You used to, and still do, find personalized gift businesses that still charge you by the number of characters used, or by the number of lines of text you want engraved. The truth is that the laser is so fast and efficient, that doing 1 line vs. 5 lines of text is negligable with respect to the time it takes. So why are companies still charging this way? Well, because the customer is not educated! Does it take time for us to layout and engrave a product? Yes of course, but it is for the most part a small fraction of the total cost of the product. Many engravers like us have chosen to truly make a profit on just product itself and focus primarily on customer satisfaction in order to have the luxury of having the customer come back to us for their next gift purchase. The engraving and personalized gift market is very competitive too, so offering a quality product at a competitive price does become challenging. Our approach is "one customer at a time" We have been in business almost 5 years and because our customer is #1, we manage to get the return business time after time. We can afford to "not charge" for personalization because we have the return business we need, and this was the most important aspect of our business model. That is why we can work with any customer who wants a fully customizable product where the design is from scratch, and work with them until they are completely satisfied with the design. It does not matter how many designs the customer may request. We will continue to modify the design until the customer is completely satisfied. This has shown each customer that we do care, and they are truly, our most important asset!