Business Essentials offers more than 70,000 products to support an office, facility, people and organizational brand. As a member of Office Depot’s federation of dealers, Business Essentials is a single partner for sourcing everything an organization needs while saving time and money.
Challenge
Business Essential’s wide-ranging customer base demanded the ability to easily order a large number of apparel items in minimal quantities through ecommerce shops. As organizations need to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, the desire for unique items and designs was growing.
To offer customers an easy online shopping experience, Business Essentials partnered with Regency360, an ecommerce platform provider. Regency had recently signed on Dubow to decorate, fulfill and ship apparel orders for partners such as Business Essentials.
“When we first partnered with Regency and I learned that Dubow could offer heat transfers and direct printing on apparel, that got me really excited,” said Brett Smith, branded products account executive at Business Essentials. “It’s a capability I need for my customers to place one-off and on-demand orders, but not many decorators offer it. It opened up more marketing opportunities for my customers."
Solution
Dubow is a global leader in diverse decorating offerings for apparel and hardgoods. From one piece to one million, the team creates beautiful and unique products through embroidery, applique, laser etch, digital printing, heat transfer, dye sublimation, screen printing, pad printing and more. Dubow’s proprietary decorating and order tracking technology gives customers control over every order: changes, cancelations, visibility into key dates and artwork status. Changes are communicated to Dubow so the team can respond quickly to customers’ needs.
Results
Today, Business Essentials relies on Dubow’s embroidery services for its customers. “I moved my stores to Dubow; they’re the go-to decorator for my biggest apparel customers,” said Smith. “They can handle large-scale projects that some of our smaller decorating partners can’t. Another big selling point for my customers is the fast turnaround time and a seamless flow of orders through the website. Dubow’s proximity to our offices and to our customers helps speed up the process.”
Business Essential’s customers appreciate Dubow’s ability to print in unique ways that make their brands stand out. “They want to put their logo in locations like a sleeve, for example, rather than the typical left chest,” explained Smith. “Or maybe they want something printed vertically. Because Dubow offers lots of imprint locations and sizes, I can offer my customers new concepts that are appealing to their employees.”
Though office product sales saw a downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic, promotional product sales have enjoyed a boost. “Branded products are a big area of opportunity and growth for us,” said Smith. “We need good partners like Dubow to take advantage of that.