Pacific Basket Company - Gift Baskets Canada

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.

Father’s day is coming up and you know we couldn’t let it pass without getting together a collection of the most unique, fun and elegant gift ideas for dad on his day. We are also coming with some very interesting concepts for this summer, including one that will set us apart from the rest…but you will have to wait to see.

Going back to Father’s day, we will be updating our Father’s day gifts page with new products. We absolutely love these days, because we get to customize every aspect of the gift. Personally, I love when our customers send us their own stuff to include in the basket. Whether is a letter, a CD-room, a card or even photographs, imagine how much more special becomes that gift when received.

It’s all about bringing people together!

Our best Mother’s day season ever! Our sales have been very strong this year in large part to word of mouth and the great referrals that our clients have given us.

Even we our increased sales we have been able to keep up with the higher demand and look forward to a strong finish this weekend.

Happy Mother’s day to all and thank you to all of our loyal customers.

Oliver

One of our busiest seasons aside from Christmas is Mother’s Day.

We are very fortunate to say that April surpassed our sales expectations to the point that we were so busy that we couldn’t take photos of all our new products and upload the images of our Mother’s Day gift baskets. We are hoping to have all the gifts online by tomorrow.

I think that receiving the gift closer to the actual date makes it even more surprising, especially if it is from relatives overseas, so this year we are offering Saturday delivery in the Greater Vancouver area at no extra cost. Sunday would have been nice too, but it’s common for families to go out and we don’t want to miss anybody and be unable to deliver the gift on time. Besides, I also have my little ones at home who are asking me not to work that day - so it would not be fair to them either.

Until then, we wish all moms a fantastic Mother’s Day - a day to enjoy and relax.

Chau!

As we approach the warm season, we, at Pacific Basket, also approach the trade show season. We travel across the USA and Canada to various shows looking for new products, ideas and the latest trends. One of our favorites is the Summer Fancy Food show held at the Javits Center in New York. I personally love New York but it’s also a great show to see (and taste) gourmet foods from all around the world. The Spain, Italy, France, Chile and Africa pavilions are always amazing. Those who love good cheese and food from around the world would be in glory at this show. We look forward to attending the show once again to bring our customers the best gourmet food products from around the world.

We are excited about our new gift basket flyers that will start mailing out next week. Aside from the featured products, there’s a whole new range of gifts in our website. We have some great gifts coming up for Mother’s day, Father’s day and the summer season

The photo shoot of some of the gifts featuring Gourmet du Village products will have to wait for a few more weeks due to the tragic accident in their production warehouse last month. As some might have heard of, due to very heavy snowfall, the roof in one of the production areas collapsed killing three of their employees. At the moment Gourmet du Village is taking care of their family of employees and will start operating again at the beginning of May.

We look forward to bring you some of their unique and exotic drink mixes, desserts and dips.

Welcome to Pacific Basket Company blog. We feel this is the perfect spot to communicate with our customers and friends and to give you a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes. A few of our staff members will also have a chance to contribute.

These past 6 years have been an amazing and fun ride. Since the start of the company, working from a small basement in my house to our 4,000 sq. ft warehouse, we have expanded tremendously and continue to do so. The highlight was in 2006 when we were voted as one of the top 50 gift basket companies in America. We were also honored as one of the fastest growing gift basket companies in North America.

We look forward to keeping you posted on our new developments and would love to get your feedback.

Flavia

Pacific Basket Company - We are a personal and corporate gift basket company located just outside Vancouver, in British Columbia, Canada. All our products are sold through our website, www.pacificbasketco.com, or directly in our warehouse. We offer baby, gourmet, spa, themed and corporate gift baskets.