ASI Expands Discount Program with UPS

June 10, 2004, Trevose, PA – Advertising Specialty Institute, the largest member organization in the promotional products industry, today announced that its affiliation with UPS, the world’s largest package delivery company, has expanded to include discounts on third-party and freight collect shipping.

Third-party shipping, or drop shipping, occurs when distributors place an order with a supplier and have the supplier ship directly to the distributor’s customer, rather than back to the distributor and from there to the customer. The same is true for suppliers who ship from manufacturers directly to distributors.

On the other hand, freight collect shipping allows charges to be billed directly to the receiver of the goods. For example, a distributor can order from a supplier indicating that the distributor’s UPS account be billed for the shipment. Suppliers can order from manufacturers in the same way.

Depending on shipping method, weight and volume, the discounts could amount to 40% off standard UPS shipping rates.

“ASI has a large package of benefits for our members, such as free admission to ASI shows, discounts on artwork and credit card processing, as well as access to over 300 free education and training sessions each year,” says Andy Cutler, membership services product manager. “Since we announced the UPS discount benefit in January, several thousand ASI members have chosen to enroll and many have reported substantial savings.”

Starting June 10, 2004, ASI members who have already signed up for the UPS discounts and wish to take advantage of third party and freight collect discounts may go to the registration page on asicentral.com: Member Benefits.

ASI Customer Service will also be contacting currently enrolled members to welcome them to the new program.

The ASI discounts with UPS include additional discounts based on the volume calculated over a rolling 13 week average. Members who are already enrolled in the program will restart their 13 week discount on the day they re-enroll.

Current program participants who do not have a need for the additional discounts are not required to switch to the new discount program. These program participants have the option of remaining on the current discount program with their established average weekly revenue.

Members who are not yet enrolled should call UPS at 866-279-7485 to open a UPS account and/or sign up for the new discount program.

ASI members in Canada will receive a separate discount package that includes sending and receiving documents and packages between the U.S. and Canada. ASI is negotiating with UPS to extend these discounts to intra-Canadian shipping as well.

For a complete list of ASI member benefits, log on to: Member Benefit.

Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, with a membership of 20,000 distributors (sellers) and suppliers (manufacturers) of promotional products. Suppliers use ASI print and electronic resources to promote their products to more than 17,000 ASI distributors. Distributors use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 650,000 promotional products, to locate supplier products and to promote their services to buyers of promotional products. ASI was founded in 1950 and employs a staff of 500. The company offers catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and provides a variety of interactive business, marketing and selling tools.