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Gift Basket Business World Newsletter
Your Roadmap to Tips, Resources and Tools That Increase Your Profits
September 12, 2006--Issue 109
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Last week's tip: Pop in to Get Holiday Sales from Potential Clients
This week's tip: Plan for Delivery As You Plan Your Designs
When you are planning your gift basket designs you must think about the issues involved in getting the order to the recipient.
Here are some tips that will make your delivery and shipping go more smoothly.
For hand-delivery:
1. If you are a solo business owner, consider hiring a courier or errand service. Your time should be spent taking orders, designing and processing payments.
2. Get the name of the contact person before delivering to a business office and place the order in that person's hands.
3. When delivering to residences get the recipient's phone number and verify that someone is at home before leaving your studio.
4. Create a way to stabilize your design in your vehicle so you won't toss it over when you turn a corner.
5. Be prepared to pay a fee to hotels if they must hold the basket until the arrival of or pick up by the recipient. They won't disclose the room number of their guests.
For shipping:
1. Use new shipping boxes. This is no time to recycle.
2. Buy boxes that leave at least 2 inches space around the sides of your design, and lots more at the top if your design has a fan at the top.
3. With the design in the box, fill tightly around the sides and to the brim with shipping peanuts.
4. Get your packing boxes, shipping peanuts and shipping tape from a wholesale packaging company. This will save you a tremendous amount of money compared to the costs at office supply stores or mail centers. There are many new packaging stores opening in urban areas. Uline is a national company with local sites and online ordering. 5. Invest in a scale that weighs up to at least 50 lbs. This way you'll be able to estimate the weight even though the delivery companies will weigh them again.
6. Allow adequate time for your basket to arrive. On their websites, FedEx and UPS will allow you to estimate time and cost.
7. If you're shipping just one basket every now and then, create and prepay your labels online and drop the finished box at your local Staples or Office Depot or mail center. If you will be shipping large quantities daily, arrange by UPS pickup or FedEx drop-off at Kinko's.
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©2006 Flora Brown Associates. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted from "Gift Basket Business World Newsletter," a free ezine
featuring tips, resources and tools that increase profits for gift basket retailers
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