Last week, These last five questions uncover popular gift basket products, freshness concerns, best times to order, and more.
Q: What makes your company one that designers choose for snacks and supplies?
PETERS: The variety of products we are able to fulfill meet the needs of our customers. A lot of thought goes into the selection of products that we carry so that we are able to cater to the home-based business owners and larger corporate companies.
Q: What are the most-common questions designers ask when ordering for the first time, and what are the responses?
PETERS: What is the minimum order amount? $150.
Do you sell in single or case quantities? We sell in case quantities.
May I combine items from different companies on one order? Yes!
Q: List 3-5 of the top products ordered by gift basket designers. What’s the reason they count on you for these products?
PETERS: Shelf stable cheese/meat, crackers, cookies and chocolate are the most ordered. Our customers depend on us for variety, pricing and quality products that their customers will want to see in their gift creations.
(Designers: Click here to sign up for Peters Imports’ online catalog through this link.)
Q: How do you ensure that retailers receive products that are still within the freshness dating on each package?
PETERS: We guarantee that customers’ items have a good shelf life, or we will take care of it for them. With the wide range of items that we carry, this is always a challenge.
There are so many different ways in which manufacturers code their products, so it is a never-ending learning process for both distributors and customers.
Q: When a special occasion (Valentine’s Day, Christmas, for example) is approaching, what’s the optimum time to place an order to make sure stock items are available (two weeks before, one month)?
PETERS: We offer a pre-book program for all major holidays (Valentine’s, Easter, Fall/Halloween and Christmas/Holiday). This gives customers time to plan ahead and get the best “early buy” discount pricing that we offer.
It also assures that we can get enough product in stock to have the quantities our customers need.
Most of these orders are placed up to 2 months prior to the Holiday with Christmas being the exception at about 3-4 months. Products often begin shipping about 8 weeks prior to the holiday, with Christmas/Holiday shipping up to 12 weeks prior.
(Designers: this tip is very important to sell more gift baskets by ensuring you’ve ordered product early enough to satisfy customers and increase profits over last year’s revenue.)
What questions or comments do you have? I encourage you to share your feedback in the comments section below.
My thanks to Peters Imports for their participation in this Q&A, being a partner of this blog, and sponsor of the fifth edition of How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business.
Stay tuned next week for the next Wholesaler Wednesday segment featuring ArtisticGiftBaskets.com.
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