I remember a time when only baseball players wore baseball caps, and these days lanyards seem to have gone the same way – in fact, their popularity has increased so greatly that people are regularly calling up suppliers and asking for single custom lanyards! That is, they want a one off, unique custom lanyard with their name, logo, or design on it just for their own use. With lanyards being used in every environment, nowadays, we see them around the necks of school teachers, students, office workers, holiday makers, children, adults and even occassionally a dog. Where a lanyard has been custom made with a trendy logo or design, they become collectibles in their own right. Brand loyalty is often a factor, just think about who you have recently seen wearing a Nike or Oakley Custom Lanyanrd around their necks!
But the problem everyone soon discovers, when searching for a rpovider of single custom lanyards, is that they are difficult, if not impossible to find. The lanyards you see on a day to day basis are those that have been produced using industrial machinery and largescale production techniques and these systems simply cannot produce one-off items. Imagine asking a farmer to grow one cabbage in his field, and you get the idea.
But where there is a demand, surely there is a supply of some kind? I looked into this recently and tried to consider the various options that someone might be presented with if they truly wanted only one single custom lanyard. This is what I discovered:
Searching for Single Custom Lanyards
My first thought was perhaps the most obvious, but also, perhaps, so obvious that many people might not consider it: Find a supplier with a low minimum order, and a low price. Most suppliers these days offer a minimum order of between 50 and 100, but if you look hard you can find suppliers who will do as few as 25 as a minimum.
So, what you do is you order the supplier’s minimum amount. Of course, you are going to say that you don’t want 25 or 50 or 100 lanyards, you only want one. But look at it this way: the systems and machinery that print and produce lanyards were designed to make large quantities cheaper – that’s industrialisation in a nutshell – and creating one off, unique items using the industrial manufacturing process is therefore expensive. So you just need to think about it differently – if the smallest minimum order you can find is for 25-50 lanyards at a total cost of £100 or $100 or 100EU, then your single custom lanyard is going to cost you £100/$100/100EU. The fact that you end up with 25 or 50 just means that, unlike those jeans or shoes you bought recently, when you buy an individual lanyard with a unique design, it comes with spares!
Now I do understand that you may not be looking for that answer, and 100 of any currency might appear to be too expensive regardless of how many spares it comes with, so I have some more options for the unsatisfied reader – and I really don’t like to leave my readers disatisfied : )
Custom Lanyards at Etsy.com
Have you heard of Etsy.com? Especially if you are looking for a personalized lanyard, this is the way to go. This is a site dedicated to bringing together craftspeople and creators of unique items, with people who are looking for something more personal. Depending on what kind of lanyard you are used to using, you may or may not realise that handmade custom lanyards is a cottage industry of sorts. And many hobbiests enjoy creating them. If you go to Etsy.com and do a search you will find many examples of handmade and one-off personalized lanyards for sale. If you don’t find what you are looking for, go to the home page and click on ‘Alchemy’, this is where you can actually create a request for an item, and describe exactly what you want, and see if anyone can create it for you. If you have a specific idea of what you want your single custom lanyard to look like, and what material you want to use, then you can create a detailed specification here as a starting point for a discussion with a supplier on Etsy.
If this approach interests you, why not visit the Etsy.com website at: www.Etsy.com
Handmade Single Lanyards
If the Etsy.com approach interests you, there are other similar sites that might be worth taking a look at also. The handmade, crafts and bespoke industry is far more accessible now through the internet: where it used to be that you had to know someone, or know of a local supplier, these days there are forums such as Etsy.com where you can access a wide variety of suppliers who can custom make you almost anything you can imagine – including personalized lanyards.
Artfire.com
Artfire.com is another such site, with more of an emphasis on art and design producers. It works much the same way as Etsy and you can browse what’s available or create a specification for sellers to bid on.
The Artfire website is at: www.artfire.com
BuyHandMade.org
BuyHandMade.org is more of a listing, where sellers can add their link to a growing list. This is a bit mnore hit or miss, where you simply have to click on a lot of links to find the websites of sellers, and find out if they have what you are looking for. It’s kind of fun to see what’s available, but maybe not as useful as the first two suggestions. Probably more an advertising forum for sellers.
You can find BuyHandMade.com at their website www.BuyHandmade.com
Dawanda.com
Looks more like a standard ecommerce store when you first land on the homepage, but DaWanda.com is more in line with Etsy and Artfire in what it offers and the way it offers it. But appeals more to larger scale designers and suppliers, than the handmade Etsy producers. Currently, there is even a January sale on!
Dawanda.com can be found at http://en.dawanda.com
You’ve probably got a good idea of what’s available now, if you are looking for single custom lanyards and one-off items. If you want more options, you can also take a look at 1000Markets.com, Folksy.com, PoppyTalkHandmade.com, Blissen.com, CutxPaste.com
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