In the world of challenge coins and custom poker chips for the military a quarter may cost you hundreds of dollars!
One of the most common questions we get from “internet” shoppers is “Well I can save a quarter from another company.” To start, my definition of an “internet” shopper is someone who has stumbled across our site. Because if you have met us at an event or touched our product 1st hand, you will see and feel why our product(s) are the best in the world.
I will tell you for a fact, Warrior Chip built the custom military poker chip industry and I promise you, you WILL get what you pay for shopping elsewhere! Our flagship 1.75″ Warrior Chip was launched in 2009 and was developed to replicate the same diameter and thickness of a traditional metal coin. You may ask, what can be so different about poker chips? Well my friends, where do I start…
First, customer service. My company has a physical brick and mortar location, we don’t work out of our parent’s basement or tinker around on the internet waiting for orders to come in. We have a full staff of managers and designers manning 5 phones lines and 4 cell phones. I work 15-18 hours a day and my Sales Manager, Tara, is obsessed with ensuring she is a call or email away for her customers. We commonly hear our competitors are slow to respond (if they do at all), won’t talk on the phones and/or aren’t very knowledgeable. Well, I would like to thank all of our competitors who continue to make us successful!
Next, product selection. Since our launch of the 1.75″ Warrior Chip, we have designed & developed various shapes and sizes such as the PENTAGON, DOG TAG, OCTAGON, TRIANGLE, 2″ Round, GUIDON (Rectangle) and OVAL chips. The selection is unmatched by any of our competitors. All our custom products are at least 33% heavier and have 40% more graphic surface area than like products. Our custom color profiles and resolution are the secrets that no other company can replicate.
Speaking of colors. The art of graphic design and color profiling is very scientific. We have yet to find a competitor who has come even remotely close in creating a design that renders a perfect print. Don’t be suckered in by claims of “Print Ready Artwork” is good to go! Due to the nature of the manufacturing process, colors, fonts and lines are significantly affected by time, temperature, humidity, pressure and altitude. Whether you send us a hand sketch on a bar napkin or send us “Print Ready Artwork” our designers always have to put time into the design. We know exactly how the colors will look on the final product because our monitors are calibrated to our specifications. Sometimes a customer may not like a customer they see on their computer monitor, but it’s important to remember, your monitor isn’t highly calibrated to our color palette. We are always happy to provide a physical sample for all confirmed orders.
On to Design. Graphic design is an ability that is unexplainable. I have a folder of 600 designers resumes, hundreds of which I have interviewed and the sad truth is, just because you installed Photoshop on your computer, doesn’t make you a designer. Just because you went to school or played with Illustrator in the military, doesn’t make you a designer. I have done graphic design for over 15 years and I proof every single design before they go to the customer and right before production. We will go through a dozen revisions before the first draft is seen by you, the customer. My designers have a unique ability to translate a customer’s vision into reality, we don’t just slap a few logos in a circle and call it a design. The one thing that the customer can do to help us in this phase is provide the highest quality logo you can find when our sales reps request them. We have a 100GB database of millions of logos and art, but it doesn’t have everything.
Last, but certainly not least. 100% Made in USA means just that! When you compare our 1.75″ Warrior Chip to any chip on the market, I promise you will see the difference. The resolution and clarity of the text is paramount, our text has defined lines and don’t bleed like competitor’s chips. We have perfect front-to-back alignment, which is exactly like a metal challenge coin, while other company’s chips can be up to 10-15 degrees off when flipping it over. The centering of the image on the front and back is near perfect with less than .25mm tolerance, again the competition is happy to promote a 1.5-2mm shift. With production capacity here in the US, most orders ship within 10 business days of approval with the option of RUSH production and design services that can turn orders around in as little as 24 hours.
So you may be asking how can a quarter cost me hundreds? Well, I mentioned all the topics above to compare and contrast the most important aspects you should consider when looking for custom poker chips. I understand some customers are 100% price driven and those aren’t our type of customers. You want to be proud of your chip or coin when presenting it to a comrade for a job well done! We take pride in every aspect of your project and their is a cost associated with it. But fortunately for you, we own 90% of the market which helps drive down your costs. I can tell you we receive 1-2 customers per week who thought that saving a quarter per chip was the way to go; but they openly said they were ashamed for not trusting us the first time around and wasting $400-500 just to have us fix the problem. (if you need a reference from customers who experienced this firsthand, let us know)
I hope this post gives you some insight into what goes into our process and helps guide you into making the right decision when choosing a custom poker chip. Certainly, if you have more questions or would like to receive a quote, please Contact Us or follow us on Facebook or Twitter for new product updates and promotions.
Semper Fi
The Gunny
