It’s a lesson that many of us learn at one point or another: Don’t procrastinate with your holiday shopping. You always think you have more time than you do, and then you end up getting your loved ones stuff from a convenience store – or at the very least getting them something they didn’t actually want.
The same idea applies to selling promotional products in the fourth quarter. This is, after all, when a lot of your clients will be gifting their end-users. Maybe they’re gifts for loyalty programs or year-end membership recognition. Maybe they just want to advertise their own businesses and try to sway buyers to do their holiday shopping there.
Buyer’s Habits
Since the pandemic, a lot of us are different people. It turns out that staying inside for quite an extended period of time allows for some self-reflection. One of the biggest shifts in buyer habits, according to Brian Padian, vice president of sales and marketing for High Caliber, based in Irwindale, California, is that people learned that they’re pretty OK with hanging out at home with a movie instead of constantly going out.
Because of that, he’s found that blankets are an unlikely hit during fourth quarter promos.
“I think it sort of started from when more people were working remote,” he says. “The client’s logo is on the blanket, the blanket is on the couch all the time, it gets a million impressions on a regular basis. And people just love blankets. The category kind of sprung out of nowhere.”
For the distributor, a blanket also provides a wide range of price points, so you can cater to your customer’s budget. This can be an item that can easily sell for as high as $30.
Drink Pairings
To complete the night-in look, Padian noticed that a lot of drinkware items that go beyond just water bottles or coffee mugs go well with a blanket in a fourth-quarter kit or as a standalone item. These can be items specifically made for tea or hot chocolate. Padian also says that distributors shouldn’t forget about candles when setting the movie night mood.
“The candle category has spiked big time,” he says. “Scented candles, shaped candles. The category of candles, it kind of is [popular] all year, but again with an emphasis on the fourth quarter.”
Self-care promos were a hit during the pandemic because for some it came with time to really focus on physical and mental health. People spent more time at home, so they could spend a little more time in their own bathroom in the morning rather than rush to the office. They could switch up their skincare routine. Most of all, with some of the forced time alone, they could spend time to relax and treat themselves when they otherwise might not have. And now that the world has opened back up, those habits stuck.
The best news for distributors is that these sorts of kits can be fairly lucrative.
“If you think of, like, sort of a nice, soft, wooden basket with a loofah inside, a bar of soap inside,” Padian says. “That kind of thing is really popular. We cannot keep those things on the shelves. And you’re looking at an item that’s selling for $10 to $15.”
When you throw in a blanket, a hot chocolate kit, a candle, some soaps, and maybe an incense kit, you achieve something that every good gift does: You provide something that the recipient wouldn’t buy themselves.
That’s what they say to do for a good gift, right? Something that the person wants but wouldn’t think to buy for themselves. We all get caught up in life and don’t think about buying ourselves these relaxation tools. But when someone else does it, it sort of enables us to do it.
“This is what the client maybe doesn’t buy for themselves, like, ‘Oh my god, how nice, when I’m watching movies I can put the dog in my lap with a blanket. How nice,’” Padian says. “Or candles in a hallway or in the kitchen. And then the spa kits are just one of those items that have super-high perceived value. And then once you’ve taken the items out of the actual spa kit, the leftover is a really nice bucket made of wood that can become anything that you want.”
Don’t Wait
Now that you have your shopping list, and assuming you’ve checked it twice, it’s good to get started. Santa Claus doesn’t start in December. He gets going pretty much around New Year’s Day, we’d estimate. Now is the time to start thinking of your clients who are looking for year-end gifts, and presenting them with ideas in time to get the items they’ll be the most excited about.
Padian says a lot of his success with fourth quarter gifts come from some of the standard big-name verticals like the automotive and financial industries, but that there are plenty of small businesses looking for items like this, too.
Healthcare is also one that looks for products to show gratitude, as well as any industry where people work on what Padian calls “the other side of the clock,” such as overnight shifts.
Don’t Assume
After COVID, Padian also says that a lot of distributors feel like they’re
bothering their clients by presenting them with potential sales. That, he says, is a mistake.
“I think post-COVID, there are a lot of opportunists that have seen that there are a lot of complacent — I don’t mean lazy — complacent people that are like, ‘Well, you know, I want to give my clients a break,’” he says. “‘They laid a bunch of people off during COVID and I just don’t want to be aggressive right now. I want to give them space.’ Well, that’s fine. But it’s not being rude. People still need stuff. Some quantities have been reduced, but not the opportunities.”
