This summer, we’re highlighting some of our amazing suppliers, and we’re kicking things off with PowerStick. Oyster is proud to have worked with PowerStick on various projects, and their products and attention to detail are always top-notch.
As the only Canadian tech company in the promo world producing chargers in North America, PowerStick stands out – and with good reason.
The company’s commitment to exceeding expectations is evident throughout the customer journey, and CEO Nigel Harris says he and his team enjoy the thrill of situations where final details on orders really come down to the wire. PowerStick is a supplier for top-tier sporting events like the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and FIFA World Cup, and in some cases, they don’t know which teams they’ll be creating branded products for until the very last minute.
“When you look at [Major League] baseball, some teams in the World Series are not decided until 48 hours before that game,” Harris says. “You’ve got 24 hours to make the order and ship it, and we rise to the occasion.”
PowerStick wasn’t always in the promo business – the company initially started out in solar engineering. The team got its first hint of what was to come when its engineers submitted a charger they had created to the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s biggest tech trade show. The product – the eponymous PowerStick – won Best in Show, and started the company’s transition into the retail market.
BestBuy quickly picked up the PowerStick, but despite buy-in from the huge multi-national, the retail market wasn’t always smooth sailing. However, the product’s placement in BestBuy turned out to be a stroke of luck, ultimately leading PowerStick into the promo world after Harris received a serendipitous call from someone at Air New Zealand: the airline’s CEO had spotted the PowerStick at a Los Angeles BestBuy and decided it would make an excellent year-end gift for their frequent flyer members. Air New Zealand placed an order for 5,000 branded chargers, which PowerStick sent off to the southern hemisphere within weeks.
“That was a wakeup call,” Harris says. “That told me that we were wasting our time in the retail world, and we should just focus on promo.”
Since then, PowerStick has been all in on promo – and it’s paid off.
As PowerStick refined its product line, new opportunities began to emerge. One of the most significant came from the U.S. Army Special Forces, who selected the company’s patented, Canadian-made flash memory chargers for field deployment, which remained in service for several years.
PowerStick has expanded dramatically since its launch – both in the size of its team and the range of products it carries. Its factory remains in Ontario, but significant interest from south of the border necessitated coordinating time-sensitive shipping options through upstate New York for American orders.
“People really like doing business with us,” Harris says. “They appreciate our commitment to quality and exceeding expectations. Whatever new product we introduce, they tend to give us a try because they trust us.”
Right now, PowerStick’s Bluetooth trackers are selling like hotcakes, which also happen to be Harris’ personal favourite product at the moment.
“Promo is all about giving people something new, something different, something a little techy at a good price point,” he says. “These Bluetooth trackers tick all those boxes.”
Being a company that makes high-quality tech products in North America is a key selling point for many clients as well. Having full control over the development and manufacturing of its product line is important for PowerStick from a quality assurance perspective. It also means replacement parts are on hand if needed, versus buying products offshore and not having certainty in how much longer that production run will continue.
As well, being able to visit the company’s Ontario factory is appealing for nearby clients, who can pop by to watch production runs and see how things are made. The plastic injection process, in which raw powder goes through the machine and is maneuvered into molds before being turned out on a conveyor belt – with waste being automatically fed into the recycling bin — is reportedly a big draw.
Despite the accolades for its innovative technologies and cutting-edge product line, Harris says PowerStick’s biggest edge is his team’s passion for putting the customer first.
“There are situations where we’ll produce a really expensive order, and FedEx breaks down and can’t get it to the customer in time,” he says. “We’ll produce and ship the order again, at no cost to the customer.”
“It’s not our fault, but it’s our problem. That thinking is imparted in all aspects of the organization.”
