About 5 years back, when we started this company “Gift Wrapped” the concept of Corporate Gifting was quite hazy. It mostly meant walking into a retail store – may be a gift shop, may be an apparel store or stationery and buying a certain number of the products that they thought were good and gift wrap it and gift it to whoever was the intended recipient. In larger organizations, the practice of buying merchandise from various suppliers and branding them with their logos was in place, the companies mostly had to approach different suppliers for the respective products and ask them to print their logos and deliver it to them. If it was a customized diary, a diary manufacturer or a stationery store had to be approached to see if it could be done. If the boss thought it would be a good idea to couple the diary with a good pen and a wallet, the purchase team had to run to two different suppliers for those products and another vendor for packing these things together. The end result was usually a fraction of what the boss actually had in mind.
Gift Wrapped was founded to cater to the end-to-end requirements of the Corporate Gifting, Merchandise and Promotional needs of all kind of clients. We saw a large void in the Corporate Gifting business, with a huge market with dynamic requirements and hardly any professional companies catering to these requirements. From the start we were focused on offering more innovative solutions to the corporate gifting needs of the clients – both in terms of the service as well as the quality and variety of the products. What differentiated us from the 300 plus companies who were already into the corporate gifting space was the fact that we’ve always had a very customer-centric approach in that, we were genuinely trying to listen to what the customer needed and offer innovative products and solutions, rather than trying to push what fetches better margin or what is easier to execute. This attitude, along with our ability to execute orders of all kind of volumes with customization to the minutest detail – like custom labels, logo printing, embroidery, embossing, custom packaging and customizing the product itself to suit the client’s requirement have taken us a long way.
This April, when we complete 5 years we can proudly say we had a lot to do with the term Corporate Gifting becoming a very familiar norm with all companies. The HR, purchase, marketing, sales, management, etc from all sectors – IT, ITES, Hospitality, FMCG, Health Care, Industries, Automobiles, Real Estate, SMEs and even individuals arranging domestic functions like a house warming ceremony or a wedding have come to know the power of Gifting and the influence of branding or customizing the Gift. Gone are the days when sweets were the obvious choice for a Diwali gift or a diary was the best gift for a New Year. With innovative products, intelligent customization and smart packaging we have made Corporate Gifting easy, practical, economical and effective.
From the start apparel and accessories have been the volume getters. Most companies looking to gift merchandise to a very large employee base have mostly chosen either apparel and accessories – T-Shirts, Shirts, Jackets, ties, wrist watches, wallets, travel bags, backpacks, laptop bags, etc. It is no wonder that these products continue to be the favourite when it comes to large scale gifting, especially when the recipients are employees, as these products have a great perceived value, have a great life and are offer fantastic customization options. We represent the brand United Colours of Benetton for the institutional range of products for South India, who have played a key role in our success in this sector.
Our range of trophies and mementos have continued to win the hearts of the both the employer who is awarding the memento as well as the employee who is being recognized for a good performance. With a very strong design team, in-house production and customization and very strong imports, we have been offering a stupendous range of mementos in all kind of price points and for all kind of occasions. Our strength has been variety of materials used – acrylic, glass, crystal, metal, wood and fantastic combinations to develop wonderful designs, customization even for very small quantities and timely delivery.
Over the years we have developed a wide range of products for the promotional market, which we believe is the most demanding and challenging. On numerous occasions, we have developed, designed or imported effective promotional goods for some of the most reputed brands that have played a vital role in the success of the brand/product.
In the recent past, we have noticed trends of individuals also offering customized return gifts for occasions such as birthdays, anniversairies, weddings, office or house warming ceremonies, etc. We have executed numerous such orders and have received a tremendous response for products like home made chocolates, candles, handicraft products, etc. Products that are individually customized – with names, dates, pictures of the recipients is the rage especially in this segment. Mugs, T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Calendars, etc customized to each individual are gifts that one can give any time of the year and not worry about the recipient passing it on to somebody else.
While we continuously introduce new products, designs, customization options, our innovation is not just restricted to the products we offer. We continuously fine tune our sales and delivery approach to ensure it is not just our products that are adding value to our customers. We setup exclusive online stores for our customers which can be used for internal corporate gifting for employees, for pre-approved merchandise for any dealer/distributor network, for brand loyalty or rewarding performance – where your customers or employees can earn points which can be redeemed on this store, birthday or anniversary gifting sites – where a digital gift voucher can be sent to every employee on their birthday/anniversary, which he/she can redeem on this store. Through this store, we offer pre-approved merchandise(sometimes even Gift Vouchers of various stores) to the target audience. This tool gives the choice of the Gift to the recipient, thus increasing the satisfaction levels very drastically.
They say the status of a person/organization is not determined by what he has, but by what he gifts. And we feel very proud in saying we are helping over 1000 corporates(mostly in Bangalore and Hyderabad) in delivery joy and happiness to their associates.
Posted By: Srikanth Acharya
Srikanth Acharya is the co-founder director of Gift Wrapped. It was set-up in April 2005 by him and Srinath Setty who are both engineers by qualification who quit their respective jobs from Infosys and GE to start this company.
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31st August, 2010 was a saturday that was different from most others. Mr. Max Brown a Motivational speaker by profession and Vice President, Organizational Learning - Recognition Management Institute, Canada had visited our office. He was kind enough to share a formidable amount of time with all employees of Gift Wrapped, offering insights and tips on how one can enjoy work and maintain a work-life balance.
