Are You Ready for the Busy Holiday Gourmet Food & Gift Basket Season?

Start Early To Be Ready for the Busy Holiday Gourmet Food & Gift Basket Season!

It's the "dog-days" of Summer or early Fall, it's hot, and right now, the busy holiday gift basket season is probably the last thing on your mind.  You can likely be forgiven if lounging by the pool or heading to the beach is more appealing than designing your Christmas Gift Basket Designs.  However, as painful as it might be, now is the time to be preparing all of your Christmas and Holiday Gift Baskets so that you aren't completely overwhelmed in the fall.  If you get your Corporate Gift Basket line-up finalized now, you will be better able to concentrate on servicing your customers when it counts the most.  If you have already started (or finished!) some of the things in the following list, then good for you, you are ahead of many of your competitors.  However, if you haven't started yet, now is the time!


Have you ordered your gourmet food and gift basket supplies samples?

If you haven't already ordered samples of the new gourmet food and gift basket supply items that you want to carry, you'd better get started!  This is just the first step in the sometimes lengthy process of getting ready for the holidays, and you don't want to be worrying about having your photographs ready and designing your new catalogs or brochures when October or November arrives.  (By then, it's likely too late.)  Of course, the summer months are likely your slower time of the year for sales, so spending extra money on samples is probably the last thing that you want to do.  At epicureanfoods.com, we understand that, and we have developed a Samples Program that is designed to save you money.  Under our Sample Program, Sample requests do not have to meet our regular $200 minimum order size.  We alloow you to get wholesale pricing regardless of the size of your request.   As well, you can buy individual units rather than cases and half-cases of products.  To take advantage of this great Samples Program, please email your sample request to wholesale@epicureanfoods.com.  If you have any questions about our samples program, please call us at 1-800-267-0805 ext. 22, and we will be happy to help.


Have you designed your new gift baskets, gift sets, or related offerings?

If you are in the gift basket business specifically, have you finished designing your new gift baskets for the holiday season? In the gift industry, uniqueness is important, as people tend not to give the same gift twice. If your baskets are the same, it will be much harder to get repeat business, whereas if your baskets are new and fresh, both previous customers and new customers will be able to buy from you.And even if your are not in the gift basket business, have you given any thought to gift sets, packages or other holiday specials that you plan to offer? During the holidays, shoppers are more likely to buy a gift pack, rather than the individual parts in the pack, simply because the gift pack is a gift. Put a margarita glass, Martha?s Marvelous Margarita Mix, and our Margarita glass rimming salt together in a decorative box, wrap it with a bow, and you have a nice gift pack for the holidays.


Have you taken photographs of your new products?

Designing your gift baskets and holiday product offerings is only part of the process. The next step is to get the news out to your potential customers. And the first step for that is to take pictures of your products. If all that you do is sell individual products unaltered from your suppliers, then perhaps you can get product pictures from them. But the last thing that you want is to be scrambling to take pictures of your designs when you are trying to get a last-minute ad out in November. So we suggest getting your product pictures taken as early as possible. That way, you have time to adjust your designs, move a box from here to there, and get each picture perfect.


Have you updated your catalog, brochures and web site?

With your pictures taken, you are now ready to design or update your catalog and brochures. This can also be a lengthy and time-consuming process, and once it is done, you still have to get your designs to the printer, and finally, get your catalog and brochures into the hands of your potential customers. If you wait too long to get started, you?ll get finished, but it will be in January.And with more and more people shopping online, it is important to keep your web site up to date with your new products, promotions and specials. The holiday season is especially busy for your web designer, so if you book his or her time early, or better yet, have the updates mostly completed ahead of time, so that it is a simple matter to go live with the updates at the right time, you?ll have fewer problems towards the end of the year.


Have you planned your holiday promotions and advertisements?

It never hurts to starting thinking about these things early, and it certainly doesn?t hurt to be prepared. Start thinking about the sales that you want to offer, and when. Also, think about how you will advertise those sales. Prepare your ads now, and book your ad space early so that you can avoid the rush of the holiday season when many more people will be fighting for designers? time and ad space.

Have you pre-ordered your holiday stock?

Finally, you can save yourself some headaches and problems with stock shortages or delays by booking your holiday stock orders early.  Further, some suppliers, such as epicureanfoods.com, offer early-bird discounts on Christmas orders, so you can save yourself some money as well.  At epicureanfoods.com, any holiday order (orders placed with a delivery date between October 1st and December 1st) that is placed prior to August 15 will receive a 5% bonus in free product.  This is actually worth an amazing 10% in pure "bottom line" profit when you take this 5% of  free product and sell it for its regular price!  Where else can you get returns like this?

Staying Ahead of the Game

Christmas and the holiday season is a very busy time for companies in the gift business, and all too often, we expect to accomplish much more than we have time for.  Try to stay ahead of the game this year by planning ahead and preparing as much as possible during the slower season, so that you can concentrate completely on sales in the fall.

Phyllis and Greg Sprout began their company, epicureanfoods.com, in July 1993.  They specialize in supplying hard-to-find gourmet foods and gift basket supplies to gourmet shops, gift shops and gift basket companies across North America. 

They have helped the founders of literally thousands of gift, gourmet food and gift basket companies start and grow their businesses.  Many of these companies remain excellent customers of epicureanfoods.com today.  They can be reached at phyllisandgreg@epicureanfoods.com.