What to Look for When Buying Stickers for Your Practice

Stickers are a tried and true method for rewarding pediatric patients and remain one of the most popular forms of gift-giving today. But while stickers remain popular, online shopping has completely revolutionized the ordering process. Now that everything is bought online, many offices don't know what to look for and miss out on the 'best practices' when buying stickers from a website. So to help our clients, SmileMakers is pulling back the curtain and revealing how to optimize your sticker shopping experience!

What to Look for When Buying Stickers for Your Practice

1. Always check the Price per Sticker
While the price tag may be what attracts the eye first, it's not always trustworthy when it comes to stickers. The price does not offer all the information, and can often be misleading. As stickers are sold by the box or roll, and vary in size and shape, there is no uniformity to their overall pricing across vendors. That's why it's important to check the Price per Sticker.

The PPS will help you understand the true value of the stickers you are purchasing. If there is any deal with a price tag that seems too good to be true, check the PPS and the number of stickers per unit. These provide all the necessary information to make an informed decision about your purchase. It's also important to check the number of rolls or boxes of stickers you are buying against the price. Many companies have a tiered pricing structure on stickers that allows you to save money if you buy more stickers.

At SmileMakers, all the stickers in our catalog are clearly labeled with the number of stickers per unit and the price per unit. You can quickly calculate the PPS by dividing the total number of stickers you're buying into the total price. With SmileMakers pricing structure, the more you buy the more you save. And we are very upfront about our pricing because we are confident that we have the best quality and best value per roll (or box!) It's this confidence in our quality that has allowed us to offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee for all our products! If you're looking for the best deal on stickers, look through our ValueStickers™ catalog for unbeatable prices!

2. Check for Allergies
Latex is a commonly found material, and also happens to be a common allergen for younger patients. If you're hoping to be all-inclusive at your practice, choosing the wrong products can be a real drawback. While stickers do not inherently contain latex, there is the possibility of latex transfer from production, packaging, and even the rubber bands used on sticker rolls that can lead to an allergic reaction in your patients. The good news is, SmileMakers stickers are becoming Manufacturer Certified Hypoallergenic and Latex Free! We've taken steps to ensure that not only do our stickers not contain latex or any of the major food allergens identified by the FDA, but that our manufacturers also do not produce any products with those allergens. We clearly identify if a roll of stickers is latex-free, and make it easy for you to know which ones are safe for all your patients with proper labeling. Take a look through all our hypoallergenic stickers or any of our new stickers as both are completely safe for any patients with allergies. To learn more about how you can work to make your own practice become allergen-free, read our SmileSource article here.

What to Look for When Buying Stickers for Your Practice

3. Consider how frequently you run low on stickers
Let's face it, each roll of stickers may seem like a lot, but you run through them quickly. To keep from running out of stock too early, it's best to know how many units you use on a daily or weekly basis. Tracking these stats won't take too much time and can really help set you up for success in the long run. To accommodate our customers that see a lot of patients and go through stickers quickly, we offer both ValueStickers™ and Sticker Samplers. And every time you run low on stickers, our Quick Order and Easy ReOrder features allow you to order a new batch in a matter of minutes.

4. Decide early how important variety is
This point works in tandem with the previous one. These days, the recency of the image on the sticker matters. Children are more excited to receive stickers for movies that they've just seen or are looking forward to seeing. Having stickers that are out of style or are old news won't generate the same positive buzz. You're also less likely to grab their attention if all your stickers are the same. Choice and individuality are important. Every child wants a unique or rare sticker that is special to them. Without variety, they will lose interest quickly. At SmileMakers, we have a full array of child-friendly stickers, from Disney Princesses to Star Wars. We also stay up-to-date with all our products, so you can have stickers from all the most recent films, like The Incredibles 2 and Marvel's Ant-Man & Wasp movie.

What to Look for When Buying Stickers for Your Practice

5. Trust your gut
This may seem like a no-brainer, but it actually matters a lot. If you don't understand the appeal of some set of stickers, find a different set that better matches what you think your patients will enjoy. You know your pediatric patients best, and finding fun stickers that they'll enjoy is better than ordering a set you'll never use. If you think your patients would be interested in more creative stickers, we offer Make-Your-Own, glow-in-the-dark and Scratch ‘N Sniff stickers as some unique rewards that you won't find elsewhere.

Feeling more confident about buying stickers? Great! Now take a look around the SmileMakers site!
At SmileMakers, we try to have a little bit of everything for all our customers, and that's doubly true for stickers! If you're looking for something specific to your practice, whether eye care, general medicine, or dentistry, we have you covered! We also offer seasonal and holiday-specific stickers to help make the holiday season even more festive.