PPB August 2020

trends, product safety and quality assurance form the principal strategy: to provide the most innovative, highest quality and safest products available to the promotional products industry. When asked about the key attribute that contributed to winning the Supplier Star award, he says it’s likely the company’s customer-first focus. “When distributors do business with us, they are trusting us with their hard-earned client relationships,” he says. “At every communication, we do our best to not only help distributors maintain client relationships but improve them. We pride ourselves with a wide variety of quality imprinting techniques and on-time delivery.” $10,000,001 - $20,000,000 Supplier Star CPS / Keystone Line Erie, Pennsylvania CPS/Keystone has supported the promotional products industry for more than 25 years, providing value-priced, bestselling items ranging from water bottles and keytags to kitchen items and those for golf events. CPS has a robust product safety compliance program and delivers first-class service, free rush and has a team dedicated to the industry. Kippie Helzel, MAS, vice president of sales, shares its key to success. “We have always believed that you can deliver the ‘holy three’ tenets of a great promotional products company: quality, price and service. An early tenet from our founder was, ‘You don’t need to be greedy; work on a fair profit margin and keep your costs in line in the back end and you will have a winning formula.’ Our purchasing and quality assurance teams work hard to assure we have the best quality on every item, even on our least expensive products.” Helzel says it took the company 24 years to earn its first Supplier Star award. “We are working hard to ensure we have every opportunity to continue to earn that recognition every year moving forward.” She adds, “We always remind ourselves that we are only as good as our last order; in other words, loyalty is earned by not doing one order well, but by delivering consistently with every order, every day. We rarely miss a ship date thanks to our outstanding production and customer service teams, who understand that going above and beyond for standard ship or free rush orders is the hallmark of our reputation. Our excellent management and supervisory teams are hands-on, overseeing their respective areas to make sure all order details are accounted for.” $20,000,001 - $35,000,000 Supplier Star Starline USA, Inc. Grand Island, New York Starline specializes in quality, high-end gifts, including trusted name brands JanSport, Black Clover, Oneida, Stanley, Pelican, Urban Peak and more. Brian Porter, senior vice president of sales and marketing, describes the company’s philosophy of doing business. “Starline is focused on quality and innovation driven by technology,” he says. “That focus encompasses the quality of our product, our award-winning decoration and delivering a seamless experience to both our distributor partners and their end users.” He says the key to consistently delivering the top-quality service, products, communication and decorating required to earn a Supplier Star rests largely in technology and is closely tied to the dedicated team of employees. “Starline is heavily invested in the continued development and industry implementation of PromoStandards. The technology plays a key role in our success, from the very start of the process with real-time inventory and accurate information to the distributor, all the way to the end of the process with error-free inbound orders and reduced supply chain friction. In addition, we have an in-house team of developers constantly innovating new technology to allow our clients to react quickly to requests and present cutting-edge presentations.” The employee element is also critical to success. “We all consider each other an extension of our own family, and we consider our distributor partners an extension of our sales team,” he says. “We know that our success is dependent on our customer success, and we strive to produce an end product that they will be proud to present to their end users. We know a distributor’s experience on every order will determine if they’ll want to continue to partner with us in the future. We take that very seriously, and it’s reflected in our long-lasting and rich distributor relationships.” PPAI Supplier Stars | FEATURE | AUGUST 2020 | 19