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the Gifts Industry More complex than meets the eye.. by Perkal

"Preparing for the operational demands of corporate gifts

With so many consumer mailers tapping into the corporate gift market recently - Eddie Bauer, Ross-Simons, L.L. Bean - it may seem that targeting this segment is a piece of cake. But on the back-end, business gifts fulfillment can be more difficult to plan, more demanding - and more expensive.

Unlike most consumer customers, corporate customers frequently order large quantities of items that require special preparation, such as personalized enclosures. And these labor-intensive orders may come at any time of the year - not just in December - so you must be able to turn around a large amount of stock quickly.

Stocking enough inventory for corporate customers can be tricky, says Peter Howard, vice president of marketing for jewelry, gifts and home decor cataloger Ross-Simons, ""because you never know which item a customer is going to want 500 units of."" The Cranston, RI-based company mailed its first business gifts catalog this past September.

Fortunately, Howard says, most of Ross-Simons' corporate customers order far enough in advance that the cataloger can reorder stock if it's not on hand. And customers who need orders immediately are fairly flexible, he says. ""If we don't have enough quantity in stock for a rush order, our corporate phone service rep will work with the customer to find an appropriate product that we have in stock.""

Fulfilling for corporate customers can also require additional staffing to provide extra attention to detail or handle special requests. Ross-Simons, for instance, has three dedicated telephone service representatives (TSRs) to cover corporate orders, out of about 120 TSRs for the holiday peak and 60 reps year-round. Consumer mailers such as Lands' End and L.L. Bean also employ a separate corporate sales staff.

The personal touch

And then there's personalization. As a jewelry marketer, Ross-Simons ""already did a lot of engraving and personalization in-house,"" Howard says. But others, such as apparel marketer Eddie Bauer, have had to beef up their personalization capacity for corporate gifts. Bauer, which mailed its first corporate gift book in August, added embroidery and printing capabilities to its monogramming services.

Premium meats cataloger Omaha Steaks can't personalize or gift-wrap a frozen steak, but it can customize corporate orders. For instance, many corporate clients want a business card or a letter enclosed in each package, says director of operations Ron Eike.

Business customers will also enclose items, such as logo-embossed apparel or steak knives, with the steaks, Eike says. Packaging the items with the orders takes a little more time and effort than fulfilling the company's standard food gifts orders, he notes, ""but that's part of the cost of doing corporate gift business.""

Indeed, corporate orders often require much more individual attention, such as gift cards or gift wrapping, for which your workers may in turn require additional fulfillment time and materials. Ross-Simons, for instance, just completed a corporate order of 100 Christmas ornaments, ""each of which had to be individually gift-wrapped,"" Howard says. While the mailer loses some margin on gift wrapping, ""we more than make it up with the larger volume,"" he says."

This article was published on Sunday 03 December, 2006.

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