Minimum order, lead times, samples, chips, encoding and testing, the lock systems cards are encoded for, whose name goes on the box and what FSC covers. If the answer you need is not here, ask and it will be: every question on this page got here the same way.
Minimum order is 500 units. The number is not a sales filter. Setting up a printing line, a die and an encoding run costs the same at five hundred as it does at five thousand, so below that the price per unit stops making sense for you long before it stops making sense for us.
Standard production is 12 calendar days for PVC and wooden cards. Calendar days in every case, not working days, so it is a number you can plan around without converting it.
Quote requests are answered the same working day. Where we cannot do something, that answer comes back the same day too, with the reason, rather than a silence a week later. If a chip has to be checked against your reader or your lock system before the job can be priced, we say so in that first reply and tell you when the check will be done, so you are never waiting without knowing what for.
The reader or lock model, what has to be encoded (UID reading, sectors and blocks, or a URL or NDEF data on NFC chips), the quantity, the material and finish, and the artwork or a rough of it. Send what you have and we will say what is missing rather than send back a form. If the artwork is not ready, a quantity and a reader model are enough to price the job. The artwork can follow, and we adapt it for print.
Cards can be encoded at the plant for VingCard, SALTO, dormakaba, Onity and Saflok, depending on the chip and on the system's technical requirements, keys and authorisation. Readers are matched by chip: EM4200, T5577, MIFARE Classic EV1 1K and 4K, Ultralight EV1, DESFire EV2 and EV3, NTAG213, NTAG215, NTAG216, ICODE SLIX, Impinj Monza and Alien H3. That is compatibility and nothing else. We are not a partner, licensee or approved supplier of any lock brand, and their marks go on nothing we make. Send the lock or reader model and we confirm the chip in writing before production.
Yes. Ask for a free sample in the material and chip you need, printed with your artwork rather than a generic swatch. On long runs, the first pieces are made and sent to you to check before the rest of the run. The approved sample then becomes the quality reference for the run, so if something comes off the line that does not match it, that is for the plant to fix and not for you to explain.
In-house, in Dongguan, China. Printing, lamination, die-cutting, laser engraving, personalisation, encoding and packing all happen under one roof, and every chip is read-tested before shipping: 100%, not sampling. Kaway Group Limited, the company you contract with, was incorporated in Hong Kong in 2015. Nothing on that list is subcontracted, so changing a specification is a conversation with the production floor rather than with somebody else's supplier.
Yes, and buyers do it regularly. It is the one form of proof that cannot be faked, which is why we prefer it to paperwork. Tell us roughly when you will be in the region and the visit is arranged around your dates. You will see the presses, the laminators, the die-cutting and the encoding bench, which is to say every stage your order goes through.
Normal production runs well below what the line can take, so the question is rarely whether the volume fits. It is which week your run lands in, and that goes in writing with the quote.
Wooden cards are produced at an FSC certified facility (FSC-C195226), and the claim does not cover bamboo. If a tender asks for FSC, tell us which product it applies to before you quote it, and we will tell you what can be claimed for that order.
PVC, recycled PVC with an eighty per cent recycled core, PET, and wood in basswood, cherry, black walnut and bamboo. A standard card is CR80 at 85.60 by 53.98 mm. PVC bodies run from 0.40 to 1.0 mm and wooden cards from 1.20 to 1.30 mm, chosen by what the card has to survive rather than by price. We do not make metal cards or metal key fobs, and we would rather say so than take the order and subcontract it.
Recycled PVC with an eighty per cent recycled core. The recycled figure refers to the core rather than to the whole card, which is the distinction a tender will ask about. Wooden cards are produced at an FSC certified facility (FSC-C195226), and if an order needs an FSC claim, ask before you quote it. We do not describe any card as biodegradable or compostable, because a PVC body is neither and a wooden card still carries a chip and an antenna.
Thickness, chips, closures, sizes and what each material will and will not do. Those are answered on the page for the product itself, where the specification sits beside them.
Ask for a free sample in your material and chip.