To Your Heart’s Content

One year someone tells you gift baskets are out, the next, they’re in and so on. Anyway you slice it, it’s a mulit-milliion dollar biz, so best to conclude, they’re not exactly going away.

So, we did some gift baskets last year. We sold a decent amount to boot. We did them up nice, with hand –written cards and all – only come to find out we barely broke even on the whole thing. HUH?

Yep, the gift basket world is one of illusion, not substance. The more a basket “looks” like it has, the higher the perceived value, the higher the price and you get the picture. We simply had our product available in gift basket form. We didn’t price them out of reach and did not consider the fact that the cost of labor and materials would kill us. Live and learn.

But the alternative is often what a friend calls “trash baskets”. She’s assistant to the president of one of LA’s large theater organizations, and as a result she filters these gift baskets all the time. Even from the top notch companies, they’re usually full of inedible stuff – miniature boxes of often stale food, etc. Some of its great, but most is well, “garbage” as she puts it. It’s the thought that counts, etc. What to do, what to do..

So as the holidays approach, we had to think about what we want to do. We’re still in – got some gift baskets or one at least. We beefed up the Hot Cocoa Break basket to include some more items, a hot cocoa cup, a cool book on different hot cocoa recipes, some dark chocolate dipped peppermint stir sticks and three bags of Plush Puffs. Since we did not CRAM it with a bunch of garbage, but did add some cool items, we’re going to have to up the price, but how high? You would be shocked at our cost on these things – even just the cost of the basket! Not to mention the time it takes an employee to put one together so that it looks nice. So, the profit will probably not be huge again, but we’re not in business to break even either. Check out the website in a few weeks and decide for yourself.

We don’t promise to be the cheapest basket you can get. But we promise to deliver one with fresh product that will be remembered by the recipient.

Ann