The production side of the BizGift business is rather similar to any other consumer product manufacturing. There is one huge difference though. Often the timing is essential in case of tailor made projects. There is simply no room for delay. Some time few thousands or few tens of thousands of relatively cheap gift are part of multi-million advertising and promotional campaign and no one wants to face the damages for messing such a campaign up … So very careful planning is of essence. Any planning should take into consideration the Chinese New Year holidays …

Whether we like it or not the promotional products business relies heavily on outsourcing. The more valuable corporate gifts still often originate in Europe, United States or Japan but the cheaper stuff inevitably comes from China and on a lesser scale from India, Turkey and some other South East Asian or Latin American countries. China is however the major source.

The growing Chinese economy can only function thanks to their army of migrant workers. They come from all over the country and sometime travel thousands kilometers to find a job in the booming manufacturing areas in the South of the country or along the east coast. When they travel from home, they however also need to travel back some time. And here lies the problem. Due to all sorts of reasons, but mainly the distance, time and money, the migrant workers take that long trip home only once a year - during the most important Chinese festival - The Chinese New Year.

To facilitate their long journey home (and then back to factories) all of the factories pretty much shut down for 2-3 weeks. Even if they do not want shut down they have no choice, without the manpower, nothing can be done anyway . The whole country moves but at the same time comes to a standstill. What are the consequences ?

• In the weeks prior to the holidays the production facilities are full and rarely there is a room for any urgent new order to be slotted in.

• The last couple of weeks before the holidays the shipping space (vessels, aircrafts) is very booked up and difficult to secure. Even if you manage to have the goods produced, you may not have a way to get them going…

• After the holidays, the workers do not return all at once and on time, some do not return at all, some return but go to another factory. The actual situation is often big unknown for the factory owners and it may take few weeks before the factories are up and running as usual.

So what are the possible scenarios here ?

• You are lucky and you order your things well in advance, productions is completed and shipped out before holidays, everybody happy

• You are a bit less lucky, you have the goods finished but can’t find shipping space. You loose about 2 weeks waiting for holidays to pass and get the goods going right after holidays.

• Your are quite unlucky, you order too late and have no chance to have the goods produced before holidays. However, there is still enough time for the factory to purchase and prepare all the materials and parts and once the holidays are over your goods can go straight to production. You loose “only” 1 month and still consider yourself lucky.

• You totally ignore the fact that there are serious holidays somewhere half way around the globe, place order a week before holidays and then freak out when you find out that you will miss your deadline by about 2 months .

This year the Chinese New Year holidays start on February 7, 2008. If your order gets to factory on February 5th for example, you can expect the shipping date by end April if the order is not too big and if you (or your supplier) have good relationship with the factory. If your order is bigger and requires some pre-production preparations, end May is what you can count on. If your order requires pre-production sample production and approval, then add 2-3 weeks on top of that. Add up the shipping time and in a worst case you may only see your merchandise by late June or early July …

If you do not want to create trouble for yourself, your customer and your supplier, do your homework and do think about the Chinese New Year holidays …

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As the Spring Festival festive season sets upon us living here in the Far East, I decided to devote the next 2 post to Chinese New Year and the business gifts. Part 1 will talk about the most commonly used business gift of them all, at least here in Hong Kong - the Lai See.

The Lai See (this how it pronounces in Cantonese) is usually a red (luck) envelope with money inside. In Chinese society these are usually presented at social or family events like for example wedding and during the holidays like Chinese New Year or a Spring Festival. Usually the unmarried people are receiving, married are giving.

So what does the Lai See have to do with business gifts ? Well 3 things:

• It serves as a mass giveaway item. Many companies print the Lai See with their company logos and then give piles of them away to their customers. On the photos within this post you can see examples of Lai See printed by HSBC, Singapore Airlines, Bank of East Asia or HSBC Life.

In our office we receive every year quite a bit of them from different companies. Then we simply let all the people in the office to take what they need or what they like (plenty of supply available). At home they fill it up with some banknotes and give away to the relatives, friends and whomever who asks and can’t be refused :-). And the brands printed on the red envelopes spread around the city like a virus…

• Once the Lai See is filled up with money, it serves as a business gift of a sort. Right after we return back to work after the holidays many of our suppliers business partners or just friends start visiting our office and distribute the lucky money to all the staff. People give away the money primarily as a lucky money and the amount should not really matter. But humans are human beings only and everybody will like a person that gives away 100 HKD more than someone who only parts with 10 HKD .

• And then the bosses (of whatever tier of a company) give Lai Sees to their staff. Again, it is supposed to be lucky money but staff will like more the boss who gives more than a boss who is stingy. This is the time of the year when it is good to have several bosses :-). And this is the time of the year when it costs you to be a boss

So how much money these envelopes usually contain ? Well it depends on how good the year was and how close you are to the people or company. To very close people or to staff of close business partner or good customer people usually give Lai See with 100 HKD note. If the year was good it can be more. To those not that close the red envelopes with 10 HKD are given. And the others get something in between, 20 or 50 HKD note. (100 HKD is approximately 13 USD if you wondered). The banknotes are supposed to be crisp clean new fresh from the print.

When I first arrived in Hong Kong all those years ago I was quite surprised by this habit. Nothing like that back in Europe. I found it very nice that time as I was neither a boss nor was I married. Things have changed a bit since then, but to give during the festive season feels good too .

Stay tuned to BizGiftGuru for part 2 to see how the Chinese New Year holiday season affects the global BizGift business.

Kung Hei Fat Choi !

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Every company or small business sooner or later finds itself in need of some promotional product or BizGift. The big guys hire and pay advertising or PR agency to organize a whole PR or marketing campaign for them. The BizGifts fitting the whole promo are usually included. Many small companies and businesses (or individuals) often do not have the resources for such a complete advertising package, but still need some promoproduct. At the end, we all want to spread the news that we are here, and name cards often end up in the trash bin

It is not that easy to choose the right one. Once you get your hands on a catalog of a decent BizGift distributor you will see 250 - 500 pages of colorful pictures with thousands of products on them. Well the big selection is definitely great, but for a newbie it may be an overwhelming experience. My suggestion here would be:

“Take your time to think, but while you are thinking, order some pens first. You can’t go wrong with them.”

Well you can go wrong if you receive pens that do not write or fall apart but as an advertising medium there is not much wrong with as simple product as a pen. And if you look at the pie I posted here last week, you can see that many buyers share this idea.

Here are few reasons why the pen would be a good starter:

• They are very economical

• You can get them at as small quantity as 50 pcs already branded

• You can have them quick, 3-5 days or even overnight if you are desperate enough to pay a surcharge

• Everybody needs a pen to write

• People loose them and people steel them from each other your message will travel around quite a bit

• They are small and light, easy and cheap to mail

A 50 pcs 1 color branded plastic pens order (with all the print set up fees that eat quite a bit into the total costing at so low quantity) will set you back around USD100 + postage for less than 2 lbs… You can bring your unit cost down by ordering more. The total cost of getting 50 pcs or 100 pcs is not that different.

If you ad a bit more metal parts to the plastic pen it will cost a bit more, but USD150 will probably be enough (+ the postage of course). You can also go for sleek aluminum stuff if you are ready to fork out USD200 for your first 50 pcs lot of BizGifts.

You would not probably want to use a plastic pen as a present for your business partner or a good customer. But even in those cases pens can do the job. You can simply walk into a shop with fancy pens and get one there. Shops selling the expensive brands like Mont Blanc or Cartier or Parker usually provide also engraving services even if you buy just one pen. But before spending the serious buck on the deluxe pen better make sure the person you plan to give it too will appreciate it. For some people pen is a pen, no matter if it costs you USD200 for hundred pieces or USD200 a piece…

There may be many other promotional products more fitting your needs than the pens. But before you figure out what they are, do not waste your time. Start with the pen and build from there …

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