– Nigel Harris

The holidays are quickly approaching and as companies continue to grapple with supply-chain issues, the threat of a U.S. railroad strike added another crisis to the mix. Distributors are looking to promo suppliers for relief and assistance. For months, the industry press has been warning distributors to plan ahead and order early for holiday gifting, but even the best-laid plans can go awry. That’s when suppliers really need to step up.

At PowerStick, we have known about the supply chain issues with factories and carriers for well over a year. With this much notification, it was up to us to plan accordingly—and we did. We paid attention to key indicators that were pointing to a huge rebound in Q3 and particularly in Q4, and we prepared accordingly.

For example, for products that were previously shipped to our Canada factory by ocean, we shifted to air freight and either raised our prices slightly or absorbed the cost difference. We believe our distributors have a right to expect us to be there for them and their customers, and to carry sufficient stock to accommodate their orders ahead of the holidays and year-round. That is how we are managing their expectations.

In addition, we want distributors to know that we are fully prepared to handle their orders this holiday season, and those orders received in Q4 will be processed with the same speed, efficiency and accuracy as always. Our customers can also expect PowerStick to be upfront with them as to when they can expect their shipments and we will do everything in our power to meet their in-hands dates. If, for any reason, we foresee a delay, we will proactively advise the customer ahead of time.

There is a lot of concern about available inventory in this industry, and rightly so, but if suppliers have done their jobs over the past six months, distributors and their clients should not be compromised this holiday season. PowerStick is fully stocked with new and best-selling products across all categories, and distributors can be further reassured by checking the Deep Inventory tab on our website: https://powerstick.com/we-are-stocked. It is updated every few days.

You may wonder what gives PowerStick such a striking advantage—it’s our in-house team of industrial designers, engineers, assemblers and branders in our Ottawa, Ontario, factory who design and manufacture the high-quality, tested and certified personal tech products we sell. It’s also worth noting that PowerStick is the only company designing and manufacturing portable chargers in North America. In addition, we offer a full complement of services that make PowerStick a one-stop-shop including premium custom packaging, drop shipping, free PMS color matching, personalized insert-cards, variable data printing and custom-molded products.