Hampering Around

This was a beautiful story one of our customers told us the other day.

When his daughter was born he and his wife we given one of our Mother & Baby gifts to congratulate them.
In there was a little soft duck. From the time his little girl could hold something she has had the little duck tightly in her hand.
Over the years he has called us up occasionally to send a couple of ducks as they have either worn out or been misplaced.
Last week we received a call asking for 30 ducks! His little girl is about to turn 3 now and he told us there is not one day she has not had a little duck in her hand.
He was stocking up so she would always have her ducks. Some for her nanna to have on hand, some extras for the car, the house and also to tuck away to present to her for her wedding day.

Do you have a similar story, or has your child ever had something they couldn’t be without?

Thank you to all of our clients who have supported our business in 2011, we hope you and your friends,colleagues, relatives enjoyed the gifts we provided and we look forward to being of service again in 2012.

After many months the warehouse seems empty with no sign of life.

The calm after the storm.

How do you choose which company to purchase from if you are looking for gift hampers, gift baskets, baby gifts or another gift for a season or occasion.

As with any industry there are a range of suppliers.  They broadly fall into the following categories;

1. Those that sell via traditional retailers.
2. Those that sell on-line.

Those sold in the traditional retail model are usually a mass produced gift hamper/basket, they are created to meet a price point (usually at the lower end) and can often have a lot of what you would find in the supermarket in them. These gifts are often found in large retailers such as department stores and other chain style outlets.

Those that sell on-online tend to provide more individual gifts, be more specialised and can offer the extras such as;

• Gourmet food and wine products.
• A gift card message.
• Branding for example branded corporate ribbon.
• Customisation and the creation of a unique gift.
• Specialist delivery service.

Both gift types serve a purpose , it is really up to you to choose which one suits your requirements.    Our advice is do your research, look on-line and instore and compare the offerings.

How important is price?

We are being increasingly approached, almost weekly, by discount sites to offer a selected gift, or our range, at a 50%-90% discount with the promise of hundreds or thousands of sales.  The usual mechanism for this is a “daily deal” on a site somewhere.   Whilst initially this sort of sales volume appears attractive we have declined all the offers to date for a number of reasons, the main one being you can’t make money if you are losing money on each sale, no matter how much you sell.

The other dimension to this as we see it is;

1. If you are not selling your product at a reasonable price that allows you to make a reasonable profit, you must cut corners.
2. By cutting corners, in our business, presentation quality control and gift contents would suffer.
3. Overall we would end up sending out sub standard gifts that wouldn’t meet customer expectations.
4. If above occurs, would the client ever consider buying from us again, probably not.

Whilst I am sure there is a place for discounting sites, perhaps a specific service offering, targeted marketing campaign, or awareness generation for a new business, the question still remains is price really that important.  Isn’t it more important to delivery quality and value?