Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - September/October 2020

108 Cost prices are certainly tricky to manage. Take greeting cards as an example; due to the larger retailers buying tens of thousands of units and us usually only buying around 100 greeting cards per design, we knew that we had to be competitive but not to the point where we weren’t making any profit. The way we present them needed to be different so we decided to wrap them in our bespoke tissue paper, which is something that people can then recycle. Additionally, it adds to the customer experience side of things in that the person who has bought it has that unwrapping experience as well and knows that care has been taken with its presentation. Time is another factor, Gav already works as a full time graphic designer so with new designs we need to carefully balance things out so that it’s a manageable timeframe to get everything done. The lovely thing about working for yourself is that the deadlines aren’t set in stone, so if we plan to launch something in April and it gets pushed back to August it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What is it that sets you apart from your competitors? Packaging is a really important element for us, we put a lot of effort into designing something different and our unique way to present things like our tissue-wrapped stationery sets to our faux leather pouches for the writing sets is something that we believe is our USP and why we’ve won awards for our products at such an early stage. Positive customer experience is also an essential thing to us and is directly linked to the importance of the packaging; with all of the positive online feedback reviews we receive the customer will always mention about how beautifully wrapped the product was, how it was such a treat to receive even though they were going to be giving it as a gift themselves. We add things like handwritten notes or extra little complimentary pieces if someone has taken the time to tell us why they are buying it as it really means a lot to us that people have seen and loved our products. Everything is presented in either recyclable or reusable materials whilst keeping the look of the product premium and something you almost don’t want to unwrap. All the stationery is produced in the UK using FSC® certified stock and the bespoke tissue paper is produced by an Eco-Alliance company that plants a tree for each order placed.   How important is the location and history of the company to its success? Cambridge is a renowned historical city and so there’s so much that we can be inspired by for our work. Has the product offering changed since you started and how would you describe your current collection? When we first started there were more handmade items, such as our wax seal bespoke calligraphy cards, which we have since removed as they were so time-consuming that it stopped me being able to work on other things. Our latest theme called The Ethereal Collection is a much more abstract style and features a series of products with different alcohol ink designs taken from our original paintings. I find doing alcohol ink paintings quite therapeutic, and the theme actually came about as a bit of an accident as we originally intended to use the paintings as a base, and then overlay illustrations on top of them to create another theme. However, after doing a series of paintings Gav said that they looked good as they were, and so we thought, ok let’s apply it to different products and see how it goes. We also designed a new slim gift box for our small prints made from premium Tintoretto Gesso card, which is wrapped in ribbon and finished with a gold wax seal. For a lot of people they buy a gift, and then have to buy a gift box or wrapping paper and a card from somewhere else, we want to be able to take the hassle out of that by providing everything needed to give to someone, or to treat yourself. How often do you launch new lines? The original aim was to launch a new theme each season, which