Introducing Flags!

When I look back on it, it was a bizarre set of coincidences that led me into large format printing and starting Venture Banners (a story for another time!), but when we were setting up the business all those years ago, whilst doing my market research, the one thing that struck me was how difficult it was to get a price on a banner from anyone.

Banners are pretty straightforward, yet I came across various companies, all of whom used a seemingly unfathomable formula to calculate the price. What was more, is that the formula seemed to change almost on a daily basis, making consistency for resellers impossible.

So that would be our unique selling point: to have a transparent, concise menu pricing system. Not unsurprisingly, it has worked very well—no one likes having to use a Captain Midnight Decoder Ring just to get a price on three metre by one metre banner. And you may have noticed most of the other companies have followed suit. We have used that policy as the corner stone of our business and on all new substrates that we have launched; Self-adhesive Vinyl, Backlit Banners, Digital Canvas and Foamex to name but a few.

The one substrate we didn’t get involved with was flags. Apart from the fact we didn’t have a dye-sublimation printer, the flag market was a complete mystery to me. I heard stories of companies using printers in Poland and others importing them from China. And the prices—good grief! Even Captain Midnight’s Decoder Ring would struggle.

The annoying thing was our customers were asking us, almost on a daily basis, if we produced flags and we don’t like to let people down. People liked the way we operated and wanted to see flags in the product line-up, but if we couldn’t do it properly, then we wouldn’t do it all.

But we’ve been working on it. The brief was simple: a good quality product, a transparent, competitive price, and they must be produced in the UK.

Well, after some considerable time, we’ve done it. Flags are now a part of the line-up at Venture. We are expecting great things, as flags and banners compliment each other perfectly. Our trade customers can benefit from our consistent, competitive price and have another excellent revenue opportunity.

I think we can make Captain Midnight redundant.

We are starting with standard flag printing and a few flag products. These flag products include a Teardrop Flag and a Feather/Sail Flag, which come with various base options.

The flags and flag products will be available to trade customers first and provided the whole order processing goes as planned then we will be adding it to our retail site shortly after.