Prepare for Summer Gift Basket Season
A designer visiting Ask The Gift Basket Expert asked about creating Easter baskets for young children. Easter has passed, but the same idea is transferable for children’s summer baskets, which I’ve answered here.
Members of the warehouse club I visit have told me that they buy summer gift baskets from the club because it’s convenient. While you may not be able to beat the convenience and price, you can still reach clients who neither buy from warehouse clubs nor consider price to satisfy children.
My most-lucrative summer sales come from parents who happen to be executives. They travel by plane to foreign countries, but before leaving, the client and I decide on gift baskets their children will receive while they’re out of town.
The timing is appreciated by parent and child, and the best part is that the client recommends you to other executive parents with the same travel schedule. You can also nudge the client to mention your services to other parents if you’re not sure that recommendations will occur automatically.
There are more summer sales ideas in this newsletter.
How to Compete and Keep Your Customers
While working as a temporary employee, I was assigned to work at the headquarters of a supermarket chain.
The executives talked about their stores, but they also discussed how to compete against new supermarket chains entering their regions. They were determined to guard their territories.
How do you protect your turf against competitors? Do you sit in silence while they set up camp? Most of all, do you know who they are, where they’re located, and how they try to make your customers defect?
If you invested in the How To book, you read about this topic in Chapter 10 and hopefully completed the competitive intelligence form. But what about the rest of you — how do you guard your territory against other gift basket sellers? Two methods are:
1. Match their grand opening incentive. Competitors add coupons offers to their advertisements. Tell your customers to cut out those coupons, and bring it to you for a free gift with purchase. Select an attractive item from your inventory as the gift.
2. Reward customers for snitching. Let clients know that they’ll receive a valuable gift each time they inform you about new area sellers who contact them by mail or other means.
It’s also important to understand who your competitors are and who they are not, a subject explained in this article.
Hiding or sulking when competitors come to town won’t sell one gift basket. Act like the supermarket chain executives. Prepare to protect your turf and serve your customers.
You Delivered a Basket to the Wrong House. Now What?
If you work for someone else, there’s a good chance that if a problem occurs during a team project, you can blame the supervisor or co-worker.
That’s not true when you work alone. Every snafu belongs to you. If you’ve encountered no problems so far, that’s great. However, one is just around the corner.
My first problem happened when delivering a gift basket during my first year in business. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I looked around, set the basket on the enclosed porch, and ran off the property as if a virus was seeping through the door.
The client said that the recipient didn’t get the basket. Then I learned why. I wrote the wrong house number. The solution? Make another basket and deliver it to the right house, and write a note of apology to the client.
It’s advisable to not retrieve a basket from the wrong house and deliver it to the right one because you don’t know how the basket’s been treated since leaving your care.
This is just one problem. Another problem is fear of competition, which is explained in this article. Others will happen during your business lifetime, and thankfully most are fixable and easier to adjust as you become more experienced.
Many people don’t start a business because they’re terrified of making mistakes. You’re the exception. You understand that problems pave the road to success. As you progress toward your goals, I’m honored that you consider this site and the entire Gift Basket Business family of sites as your silent partner.
What problem has made your heart temporarily stop? How did you solve it?
Green Gift Baskets – Are They Part of Your Line?
While visiting the Gift Shop Magazine Web site, I read that their summer issue will include a supplement called Green Retailer.
Are your clients asking for environmentally-friendly products? If they are, or if there’s a chance they’ll request these items in the future, consider subscribing to Gift Shop Magazine to view the publication and its supplement.
The summer issue will also include a feature article about gift baskets with tips from me and tutorial photographs captured in my office.
I’ve talked about green products in the past, and I’ve seen many at the Ex-tracts Show in New York. Even if clients have not asked for these products, it’s wise to become aware of what’s available, arming yourself with this knowledge before clients ask.
For example, you’ve tried different angles to sell gift baskets to real estate agents, but none have shown interest. Your phone rings. It’s one of the agents who’ve received your marketing materials by mail. She asks if you sell new home baskets with environmentally-friendly products.
You might not have any in stock, but knowing what’s sold through manufacturers and distributors will help you quickly find items to show (and sell to) the real estate agent. The entire gift basket does not have to include green products; two or three is usually sufficient.
I’ll show a selection of green gift baskets during my California Gift Show seminar in July. I hope to see you there, but if I don’t, I plan to photograph what I create to share with you online.
What do you think about environmentally-friendly gift baskets? Is it a theme you’ll create, or will you watch, wait, and see if clients ask for these products?
Treat Your Ribbon Right
What happens to ribbon when it arrives in your studio? Here are four options.
Ribbon wastes your money if it’s not coordinated and ready for placement either on a gift box or fashioned into a bow for a basket, as you see displayed in the ribbon section of this site. That’s what happened to ribbon in the picture on the Gift Basket Design Studio Extreme Makeover page.
When ribbon arrives in your workspace, whether in a delivered box or carried by you from a warehouse, add it to your design area right away.
Treat your ribbon right, and it will reward you with sales and smiles from happy customers.
Learn more about ribbons and bows at Retail Wraps.
Gift Basket Books
-
-
Visit Our Sponsors
