Flash Drives for Sale – Balancing Price and Quality for Your Marketing Budget

Flash drives for sale at the right price and quality for your marketing dollars is a balancing act that big corporations, small and medium business and scrappy entrepreneurs must make during each purchase.  You can find flash drives for sale everywhere online.  But how do you get the best deal for your budget?

We are going to give you the “open kimono” honest to goodness truth about how this industry works in simple terms but with enough detail that YOU can make the best decision for you. So here is the Cliff’s Notes version in bullet format.

“…most good to high quality 1GB to 8GB flash drives will cost about $4.00 – 7.00 per unit…”if you see prices greater than 40-50% lower than other competitors BEWARE  — low quality or “fake capacity.”

 

Cliff’s Notes Basics on Getting the Most Flash Drive for Your Money (Price ranges based on current market, 18 Oct 2014)

• Assumption 1:  You are a business, entrepreneur, business professional, representative of a larger group, non profit organization, government entity, school, college university — someone NOT looking to pay retail prices for flash drives for sale at a local retailer — online or offline
• Assumption 2:  You are looking to buy more than 15 or 20 units, not just one or two; you are not demanding some specialized colors or custom shaped styles or data loaded
• Brief Background on Industry.  Flash drives are commodity products and flash memory is sold on open “spot markets” with big players like Apple (iPads, iPhones), Samsung (smartphones, tablets, phablets), GoPro (cameras) setting the price since they buy lots of flash memory in bulk.  As a result most good to high quality flash drives are going to be in the same price range.  The highest quality flash memory is often just not within the budgets of many organizations — and so good enough quality (Tier 2 quality) is what many of your competitors buy since these are often used as promo or giveaway products.
• General Rule 1:   1GB to 8GB flash drivesn will cost about $4.00 – 7.00 per unit.  When on a sales promo, you may get a 1GB drive in the $2.49 – $3.29 range.  If you want the best performing flash drives, be honest with yourself and be willing to pay at least $5.25 to $5.59 per unit for 2GB USB drives.
• General Rule 2:  When on sale, lower cost flash drives of good quality can be purchased for as low as $1.89 or $1.99 for 64MB to 512MB flash drives.  But since fewer manufacturers are making these low capacity USB drives, their prices are usually in the high $2 to high $3 range ($2.59 – $3.99).
• Recommendation:  Get quotes from 3-4 vendors; review their website for potential red flags; call them and talk with a live person that shows they are interested in helping you solve your problem within your budget range and not just treating you like another quick sale.  Take everything — not just price alone — into consideration and then go with your best judgment.