Gifts Galore!

With the upcoming holiday season fast approaching, there are more reasons than ever to look forward to the festivities this year, as we are approximately 18 months into the pandemic. During these uncertain times, people are looking for comfort, happiness, and self-care—and there is no better time than to acknowledge and recognize employees’ dedication and hard work with gifts of food, drink, and other cozy items designed to elicit joy and appreciation from the recipients.

While Sweda Company’s Kellie Claudio believes the upcoming holiday season is both “thoroughly exciting and frightening,” she says the company’s sales team has risen to the occasion with combining colors and categories to offer the best solutions for Sweda’s customers in this challenging climate that is largely due to supply chain concerns and the Delta variant delaying product.

Kirsten Elliott at A+ Wine Designs also notes the impact of the delayed supply chain. “Imported alcohol inventory is low and our wine selection is not as extensive as it has been in past years,” she comments.

Despite these concerns, suppliers are optimistic that the upcoming holiday season will be a successful one. “This season will very much mirror 2020 with a hybrid of in-office and work- from-home recipients,” Sweda’s Claudio notes. “Giftsets with multiple categories will be included like drinkware, outdoor items, and multi-tools. Driving this trend is the ole saying, ‘More bang for the buck’ along with the customer experience of unboxing.”

Giftsets are also top of mind at A+ Wine Designs, as well as fulfillment services. “People are still not gathering much in 2021 so the need to connect is still very much there,” Elliott points out. “What better way to connect then sending an etched wine gift set!”

Steffany Rivera of KTI Promo agrees with Claudio that top trends in holiday gifts will continue to be work-from-home-items and return-to-office products—again driven by the surge of COVID-19 cases.

Gifts geared toward remote employees are also popular at Towel Specialties. Murray Seigel reports the company is already seeing more orders, sample orders, and price quotes than normal for blankets. “They were incredibly popular last year and will continue to be so largely due to the fact that they are a great personal work-from-home product,” he says. “Companies and organizations love to give them as gifts because they last forever and have no size issues.”

Supply issues are dictating trends at Chocolate Inn as well. According to David Miller, due to delays from overseas and lack of confidence in the quality of overseas products, customers have been interacting with the company extensively about domestically manufactured items.

“There are definitely some consistent themes across the market/industry,” David Katz of Midnite Snax maintains. “There is no doubt that we are still living in a world heavily skewed toward drop shipping individual packages as opposed to bulk shipping. Much of what is being bulk shipped is shipping to fulfillment houses to kit for drop shipping as well. Additionally, we continue to see a significant uptick in our fulfillment and distribution services. Our stock and custom curated gift boxes have led the charge for the last 18 months and recent trends are suggesting we will continue on this path for the foreseeable future.”

To that end, Midnite Snax has been continually rolling out a number of gift boxes—from cookie and cocoa sets to power up, perk up, and ice cream kits. “We are very excited to bring an entire line of hot chocolate bombs to market this holiday,” Katz comments. The company also has kosher and gluten-free curated gift boxes.

New from Chocolate Inn is individually packaged items as well as eco-friendly and sustainable offerings, according to Miller. He adds that the company’s Desk Drops have been doing well, with flavors including peppermint bark, smores bites, sea salt caramels, and twist-wrapped truffles.

Towel Specialties has unveiled two new blanket offerings. The Woodland Plaid Blanket is made with extra-soft brushed velvet that provides exceptional comfort on the red/black plaid side; and the Waverly Silver Fox features a soft, fur-like finish in a shimmering light grey wave motif on the back and a silver micro-mink front. The company’s best sellers include the Newcastle Sherpa blanket, Regency striped blanket, and Fairfield throw blanket.

Over at Sweda, Claudio says the company’s drinkware giftsets are already on fire. The Basecamp McTundra & Zion three-piece gift set includes the Basecamp Mega SP Tundra Bottle (40 ounces) and two Basecamp Zions inside a matte-finished black gift box.

A+ Wine Designs is bringing on more taster kits and cocktail kits as a result of the company seeing an increase in demand for these types of products, Elliot notes.

Holiday best sellers at Tervis are its 20-ounce stainless steel tumblers, according to Michael Van Beck. “We believe this year that our 25-ounce Carafe that fits 750 ml (a whole bottle of wine) sold in a gift box set with two of our 12-ounce stainless wine/cocktail tumblers will be a big success,” he affirms.

KTI Promo is releasing a line of eco-friendly products that will debut soon, joining best sellers selfie ring light and swivel flash drive, Rivera says, which are perfect for the home office.

Josette Bosse at Bay State offers the following holiday gift ideas. The Quick Work Silicone Whisk mixes gravy, sauces, and vinaigrettes without scratching cookware. Customers can add a personal touch by hole punching their business card and tying a ribbon through it on the end or including a personal message on a stock card with ribbon and/or holiday recipe. The Bamboo Coaster Set contains four coasters in a linen bag that can be dropped off as a holiday thank you gift with it hooked over the top of a bottle of nice wine.

Because of the aforementioned supply chain challenges, suppliers are stressing the urgency of starting early when it comes to presenting holiday items. “Don’t wait until October—suppliers may be out of inventory again or prices may increase,” Siegel at Towel Specialties recommends. “Strengthen your presentation with samples and/or virtual samples. If recipients are working at home or scattered, consider a drop ship program, complete with a gift card.”

Katz at Midnite Snax adds, “The fourth quarter holiday rush always has an inherent demand for our line of products. I would strongly suggest that distributors get their customers holiday orders in as early as possible this year.”

Case Studies

Murray Siegel Towel Specialties

A mortgage company sent blankets to all of their work at home employees last year. They were so popular that the company then decided to place a reorder and drop ship a blanket to each client after closing.

Kellie Claudio, Sweda Company

A customer requested ideas for the theme of “Rock Your World” for their client who owns a stone quarry. His male and female employees range from international salespeople, managers, customer service agents, logistic engineers, and machine operators. We packed our Everglade Basecamp Cooler with a custom Basecamp Summit cap, Basecamp Ultra Tundra bottle with 360° chiseled thank you word cloud, and a Basecamp Pod Chair. Drop shipped to 1350 locations worldwide and delivered in time for a 50-year anniversary celebration.