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Over the years, each company has its own tradition of giving corporate gifts. Someone is betting on prestige, someone is betting on functionality or humor. Someone, when preparing a gift, gives priority to important customers, and someone gives priority to their own employees, depending on which asset is more valuable. Everyone has a different approach, but one thing unites gifts - the desire to create a New Year's mood.

Which gift to offer colleagues is playful, formal or functional, depends on the type of relationships that have developed in the team. However, whatever it was, there is an unspoken etiquette – gifts should be the same (so that no one is offended). This explains the main requirement for a corporate gift - it must be universal. It is clear that it would be foolish to give sets of dishes to the youth team, and fishing rods to the women. The gift should please every employee, regardless of gender and age.

Now there are many companies operating in the corporate gifts market that are ready to satisfy the taste of the most demanding customer. Lintu company offers an up-to-date selfie stick, the guys from Happy Partner will brand a birdhouse for you, and Admos will make a Rubik's cube according to your order. And everyone is vying to offer Christmas toys, cozy blankets, candles, pillows, mulled wine sets and other pleasant attributes of the New Year.

We talked about the business of corporate gifts with representatives of the customer and the contractor, as they are usually referred to in the contract for the manufacture of promotional souvenirs. For expert opinion, we turned to the head of the Public Relations and Advertising Department of StarBank JSC, Maria Schennikova, who is conducting an advertising campaign for a large regional network of branches, and Maria will act on behalf of the customer. Andrey Borisov, CEO of the company "Biella", who has 25 years of experience with corporate gifts, answered for the performer.

Gifts can be expensive and not so expensive, large and small, corporate and personal, but they all have to be handed over on time. Therefore, the first question is: when do I need to order New Year's corporate gifts?

Maria Schennikova: If you want to get an exclusive, then you need to start developing a creative right after the previous New Year holidays. The implementation of the idea can take a lot of time, including the production and delivery of finished products to the regions. For example, plaids with a logo and slogan, currently fashionable cup holders with an original corporate imprint, diaries made to order in Italy, jacquard scarves woven from threads of corporate colors with the company's symbols. As a last resort, you can start thinking about New Year's gifts in the spring. At least three thematic exhibitions are held in Moscow in the spring, where you can choose a contractor and a suitable solution: in Gostiny Dvor, the Central House of Artists and the Exhibition Center on Krasnaya Presnya.

If the company's branches are distributed throughout Russia, you need to additionally lay down time for sending gifts to the regions. And those companies that don't have a large regional network don't have to worry until September. A series of summer and autumn exhibitions of souvenir products will help you make a choice and find a supplier. You can work with individual manufacturers of a narrow line of souvenirs, or you can work with universal aggregator companies, such as Biella, who supply souvenir exclusive not only of European quality, but also in a very short time. Such companies, as a rule, have a warehouse program, but in this case, those who like to postpone the order until the last minute will have to choose from what is available in stock.

Andrey Borisov: If the client wants a high-quality individual gift, then the discussion should begin 6–7 months before delivery. Ordering souvenirs at the beginning of summer, you are guaranteed to get the best prices, the maximum range and time to implement any project, even the most non-standard. Potential customers should understand that it is almost impossible to place an order after December 10, as production facilities are heavily overloaded. In addition, it should be borne in mind that European manufacturers have scheduled holidays in August and December. Usually, the cost of personalization for urgency increases from 20 to 50%.

We try not to make surcharges for urgency, as we believe that this is not entirely fair. If you can't do the job at the standard price, then you just don't have to take it. Large customers are already actively engaged in this issue in the summer and receive the goods in the first days of December. In small companies, gifts almost always begin to be planned only in the fall and receive their order in mid-December.
It all depends on the type of product and the complexity of the project. If it is a pen with a logo, then the delivery time is 3–5 working days. If this is a complex project, then the execution of an individual order can last up to 6–7 months from the start of prototype manufacturing to the delivery of products to the client.
In recent years, large customers are beginning to shift orders to the middle of autumn, which forces suppliers to work in difficult conditions. Of course, the client is satisfied with the extremely short order completion time. However, work on such projects is always on the verge of a foul. After approving the assortment and quantity, we select samples of product materials, select a contractor from the companies we work with, and produce signal samples. After receiving the signal samples, we approve the final personalization option with the customer and launch a circulation. And then, by hook or by crook, we fight for the timely delivery of the ordered products. The customer does not see our tears in emergency situations, but he rejoices with us when everything turns out on time.