Beechies Gum spearmint flavor

Since being given the official go-ahead from Richardson Brands to sell Beechies Gum on my domain (again), I’ve been wracking my brain trying to integrate all of the features I think are necessary in a promotional products shopping cart. Beechies gum, available with a custom imprint on one side or the entire box customized, is typically used to promote an event, reinforce a company’s brand or communicate a message. It is, frankly, a delicious promotional product. (Yes, that is a Shameless Plug delivered before the content.)

Selling promotional products online presents unique challenges relative to selling a different type of product like a book or a Size 6 Black Dress.

Typically, promotional products are sold at a price based on quantity; each quantity or “quantity column” has a different per piece or per unit. And, almost every promotional product has a minimum quantity greater than one, so a web developer has to develop a shopping cart that barks at a shopper when that shopper only wants 1 of an item with a greater minimum quantity.

So, we need to implement either a quantity price (This Price for That Quantity) or a quantity discount (a Base Price with a discount for increasing Quantities). With Beechies Gum, we do not need to implement a minimum quantity for businesses that want their logo or imprint on one side only. The minimum quantity for this item is already as low as it can get: 1 case.

For the Whole Box program, where the entire box is customized, we need to implement a minimum quanity of 65 cases. Thus when a shopper tries to enter a quantity below 65 cases for this particular product, the Beechies gum shopping cart should reject the quantity and re-state the minimum.

Furthermore, many promotional products have optional imprint colors – and limits – for products that are hot-stamped, pad printed or screen printed. And, with each imprint color selected, there is usually a set-up charge, a plate charge, a film charge, a screen charge or some combination of three of the previous potential charges.

The Beechies gum shopping cart needs to be “smart enough” to know that there is a 2 color maximum on orders less than 65 cases. It needs to “know” new orders have a plate charge but no set-up charge and re-orders have no plate charge but a re-order set-up charge. An additional color running charge must be calculated for each color in addition to the first color and it must know that, if there is a 2 color imprint, 2 plate charges must be accounted for. Finally, it needs to be able to display the stock imprint colors (only 4) along with an option to capture a Customer’s custom logo colors (referred to as a PMS color).

Your out-of-the-box shopping cart cannot do this.

What will an under-capitalized, tech-savvy promotional products distributor do? She’ll roll her own, of course! You can see the Beechies gum promotional products shopping cart in action at BeechiesGum.com.