Pacific Basket Company - Gift Baskets Canada

Yes! We actually have daily contests within our employees during the Holiday season. For example, one of them is guessing the amount of boxes leaving our warehouse every day. With shipment loads of 180 and 200 baskets per day (without counting large corporate orders), we try to have a bit of fun and guess the amount of boxes leaving the warehouse. Of course the winner receives a prize, and no, it is not a gift basket!! As we are getting closer to Christmas, the number of boxes increases daily so it gets more difficult to guess. By now we should now by looking at the Fedex truck. Most of the times the truck arrives to our warehouse almost empty to make sure all our boxes will fit in it. Last year, we had two trucks at a time coming together, since once was not enough, but this year, sending everything a bit earlier helped us to distribute the volume of shipments better, especially for our amazing Fedex driver.

This year was one full of surprises - with the economic recession, we never thought that this was going to be our BEST year since our start in 2001. The most expensive baskets were the first ones to sell out, including our $500.00 baskets. Surprisingly, most of our corporate customers went for MORE EXPENSIVE baskets this year.

Who would have ever thought that my little home based business, operating from a small space in my basement would grow into such a busy operation.

It’s been a great year and all thanks to our repeat and loyal customers. THANK YOU!

SEASON’S GREETINGS TO ALL AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS.

Flavia

Last night I had the pleasure to teach a gift basket workshop for some wonderful ladies. The purpose of this event was learning how to make unique holiday gift baskets which will be used to donate to a hospital.

In spite of my extremely busy schedule, I am so glad I made time for such a great cause, that I would love to make this type of donation a Holiday tradition. The time and dedication of all these ladies is also invaluable and I can just imagine the faces of all those going through some tough time, lying on a hospital bed at this time of the year, when those gifts are delivered to them.

Being able to make a living out of something I like to do is great. Being able to make someone smile during this worldwide era of social chaos and injustice is a fantastic feeling.

So cheers to those amazing ladies I met last night, and to everyone else who dedicates time to help others in need.

We are starting to organize our Christmas Season open house, where our customers not only get to see all our beautiful Christmas gift baskets but they also get to taste some of the most amazing gourmet treats. We will be featuring gourmet products from Canadian manufacturers such as Gourmet du Village, David’s Chocolates, Langford Foods, Seachange Foods, Maximillien Foods, Orange Crate, Inukie Cookies, Epicurean Foods and many more.

It will be a great opportunity to share my favorite products with our customers. I will be serving some of the exquisite varieties of Gourmet du Village dips and hot chocolates. Mexican spice hot chocolate, Crème Brulée, Maple and Double Truffle.

And you can’t miss the dips:Hot Parmesan & Artichoke Seasoning Dip Mix, Roasted Garlic, Onion Chive, Crab dip mix, and the new Maple Fruit dip mix.

How about trying some of our Baked Brie with Cranberries and Almonds? or perhaps a piece of the delectable cappuccino or margarita cheesecake?  I guess you might prefer to try all our cookies first - shorbread, belgian butter cookies dipped in chocolate, English tea cookies, wafers, and the list goes on…

One of the products I always insist people to try is this amazing layered shortbread filled with some sort of  fruit compote and topped with flower petals. So decadent and unique!!

That’s our day to share with everyone the products we use in our baskets and we are sure you will love them!

I will be posting the date soon for all those interested in coming by our warehouse for a close encounter with lots and lots of good food and drinks!

Enjoy your weekend!

Dictionary results for: gift

–noun

something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.

During the winter Holidays many are busy creating hand-made gifts, browsing for the coolest gadget for their kids, going through newspaper fliers and window shopping in busy malls. Others have their minds and efforts in other forms of gift giving: through charities. For those, gift giving has another meaning - perhaps the gift of feeding a family, sponsoring a child or even traveling miles to adopt one. Just like the definition of the word gift says, make a gesture of assistance. I believe gift giving is always a 2 way reward. Personally, as a gift giver, either if it is for charity or not, my reward is always seeing happy faces of those i love or knowing that somehow I tried to make the world a better place, even if it just represents a tiny grain of sand.

Many of us have our minds and efforts in other forms of giving: charities.

Because I strongly endorse donations through my company to various charities throughout the year, I thought this would also be a good opportunity to list some people and websites that are doing wonderful things around the world.

Caleb’s Hope - Canadian actress, president and founder Holly Dignard, started Caleb’s Hope to fight for the quality of life for vulnerable women and children affected by war, poverty, and HIV/AIDS. Her and her team are working hard on two amazing projects: The Saraski Trust Hospital Project and the Gulu Child Mothers / HIV AIDS program. Please visit the website and also check their new campaign at http://calebshope.org/calebs-hope-gallery.html

Doctors Without Borders

Care Canada

Variety

Covenant House

Canadian Mental Health Association

This past week so far has been quite interesting for us. In the past years customers bought Christmas gift baskets just because it was the season to give. Would this year be different? Some would say that it is even more important today to maintain long lasting relationships with your customers.

Even though people will probably pay more attention to the bottom line it is probably more important than ever to show your customers that you are in for the long haul. The way the season is shaping up so far this certainly seems the case.

Where we expected to sell more of the lower end Christmas gift baskets, we found it is quite the opposite.

So, in conclusion keeping those customers happy IS the bottom line.

The Christmas race has begun! Just like for any Christmas shopper, the Holiday season is also quite stressful for most merchants. Most retailers go through a mix of feelings - fear, happiness, anger and excitement. The fear is always the incertitude to know how much of their hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the Christmas inventory will sell. Also on this last quarter we are going through a period of distress, dealing with the consequences of the American recession on the Canadian economy.

Most retailers have started working towards Christmas long ago and like every year, have bet a big part of their overall budget in seasonal products, advertising and some like us, in several trips to tradeshows across North America. What will be the return this year, is still unknown.

On the other hand suppliers, shipping companies and manufacturers are going through the same situation, except that unfortunately, us retailers, are the last ones in the chain who have to pass the bad news to the consumers when things turn the wrong way. But we also have the great ability to turn the situation around and make it better, gaining confidence and the trust of a customer for life. I personally feel very fortunate to have nothing but good experiences with my suppliers which also reflects in the outstanding business relationships we maintain with our customers.

Happy shopping!

Peace,

After a successfully series of trips to some of the biggest trade shows across the USA I’m back! Summer was busy and we attended all sorts of shows: from merchandise variety shows (I also like to call them dollar store heaven), to gourmet, baby and gift shows. The kids show was quite interesting as well - i never expected the show to be so big and to have so many interesting products. Like the stroller that later becomes a bicycle for $1,100.00. The fancy food show in New York was spectacular as always. All lovers of good wine and good cheese from around the world would spend the entire day there. Every exhibitor wants you to try their product and trust me, by the time you leave the show, you are full. We found some interesting products that will be introduced in our Holiday baskets.

At the New York show, it was great to see Mke Tott, owner of Gourmet du Village at their booth and have a very interesting and long talk about the industry and their products.

Once in Vancouver, I thought I would have a bit of time to rest before starting to design the Holiday baskets. But that’s not what happened… we received a large order for a well known restaurant chain for a convention in Whistler.  It was great and Oliver took care of everthing. We had to rush to hire extra help to make 600 baskets in a short period of time.

Today I said to the girls let’s start working with the Christmas baskets - well, we might be getting a large order for next week - which are also not Holiday gifts. Not bad… Like my dad used to say to me… Don’t complain, work harder.

I’ll let you know when all my baskets are online.

I have to admit that when we find a product we really like it’s easy to get “stuck” with it because of its flavour, brand or look. I personally do my best to keep up to date with new products, attend some of the biggest food and gift shows in North America and if time allows it, read industry related magazines in order to move forward and stick to new, good and healthy trends. If it wasn’t for many of my good suppliers and manufacturers, some of those who manage to continuously update their collection, the look and feel of their products and their way to present them I would feel comfortable enough to keep it under my umbrella exactly the way it is because it’s a good seller. But even good sellers need to change to evolve with the marketplace to stay fresh, which is especially important with repeat clientele.

I often get frustrated, when I find that a superb product that is part of one of my best selling baskets has all of a sudden changed its packaging. Sometimes the shape of the box changes, or the colour of its packaging goes from black to pink.

If the product still fits the design, then we go ahead and add the improved product. Sometimes, it doesn’t match at all and we need to replace it with something else of equal or greater value and in the same line. But what happens when that product is a main feature in the basket? In that case, we need to get samples of the product, set up our photo booth and quickly update our site with the new photo. Will it sell the same way? That we don’t know. We’ve had baskets that didn’t sell, and just by changing one product, we could not stop making them, sometimes without even changing the price. You wonder, what makes people buy certain gift baskets online?

Here are a few interesting facts, of why people order a certain gift basket:

- They love the photo, even though they don’t really care what exactly is inside it.

- They liked the flowers / vines we used to decorate the container

- The basket looks more full than the one beside it (regardless of the products in the basket)

- They liked the name of the basket - as simple as that. (Something to be quite aware of: we have also cases where people wanted to order a certain basket but didn’t because the name was not common and they were afraid to to pronounce the name wrong or that it was the “wrong” message - Ex: Our Bon Vivant gift basket)

- The price. Some clients are looking for gifts in a certain price range, regardless of what the basket looks like. This is something very common during the Holidays especially for companies with fixed budgets.

Taking risks is part of taking challenges, risks, growing and consequently becoming successful. And trust me, we are surely taking notes on all this.

The photos show our Precious Memories gift basket before and after the changes. This baby gift basket became a great seller once we changed a few products around and added the Baby Einstein’s items.

Even though every summer I’m uncertain as how busy we are going to be in our slow months, it always end up getting extremely busy. Not quite ” Christmas busy” because we are still able to breath, eat and sleep, but busy enough to keep us on our feet all day. June, July and August are the months when we have to get our creative juices flowing and part of our jobs change a bit. Several corporations are involved in the organization of local and non-local events, and they need our services for two reasons: either to provide them with gifts or give-aways for their guests or to form part of their marketing campaign. Sometimes I feel we become part of their team in their marketing and advertising department. Of course, there’s always a budget we need to stick to, which sometimes can be challenging, especially if we need to have packaging or products manufactured specifically for that customer. Sometimes we need to come up with a gift presentation that must fit the theme of the convention, or has to match the colors of the company’s logo, or might even have to reflect a certain feeling on the guests. But I absolutely love the challenge and we thrive to create what’s near impossible to create with great results.

Gifts for movie releases, parties, special magazine issues, cruiseships arriving to Vancouver for various conventions, golf tournaments,gifts to celebrities, end of sitcom, etc. Hotels with totally renovated suites wanting to impress their guests and important customers might want to offer presents created to match the exact colors of their new rooms. We are also very fortunate to get large contracts for the rest of Canada and the United States. We truly enjoy every minute of this job.

It reminds me a lot of the fun job I had 15 years ago in my native Uruguay while working in a TV commercial production studio. I could go on and on with anecdotes about the ideas we had to come up with back then but I prefer not to. Well, maybe just one…

…like the time when we were filming a TV commercial for a chicken factory. I had started working at 8:00 AM and by 3:00 AM the next day I was still there. I don’t remember the details but we found a little problem while filming this shiny chicken in the roaster… the fake smoke was not captured by the cameras or the lights and that was a disaster since we were all tired and the commercial had to be ready for TV in just a few hours But there’s always a solution, so I run to the nearest pharmacy, bought some type of acid and one of my co-workers and dear friend ended up on the floor, putting the acid with an eyedropper onto one of this high power lights - Guess what? We made all the smoke we needed to make the chicken seemed like it was hot and delicious . The TV commercial was completely edited , the customer was thrilled and by 11:00 AM all TV channels had the Beta tape ready to roll. Horay!

It’s been a few days of pure rush and bright lights while doing the photo shoot of some of our new gift basket designs. We felt the need to come up with new gifts and also give a face lift to those baskets that have been around for such a long time. Since many of our suppliers have modified the packaging of a few items, there were a few of our popular baskets that needed new photographs.

One of our best seller gift baskets, the Movie Night, has been a huge success, but this time we decided to add a few more summery elements like some of the exquisite summer drink mixes from Gourmet du Village. Because we like to offer products that are ready to eat, generally we try not to add to many drink mixes, but trust me, these ones are worth including in every basket. (especially the mandarine iced green tea!)

Another gift that was re-designed is the Sail Away gift basket. A great gift to wish a Bon Voyage, Vacations, Retirement, Father’s day (customized with a fishing theme) and even Sympathy - along with a poem would make it a memorable gift.

A new creation is our Málaga gift basket. Málaga is a port city in Andalusia, in Southern Spain. During the Feria de Málaga or Málaga Fair, the streets of the city turn into a party scene, showing the true symbols of their culture, with Spanish tapas, good wines and flamenco shows. Some of the items in this gift basket remind me of Málaga such as the sangria, and the elements for tapas like cheese, Spanish olives and sausage.

These are only a few of our new gift baskets but we are hoping to bring many new re-designed gifts to life.