Services
TLDR;
Custom or engraved gifts: have your order in by the end of November.
Off-the-shelf gifts: have everything moving by the first week of December.
Anything later and you're betting on holiday shipping. Here's why, what slows people down, and what to do if you've already missed it.
Why Is Holiday Shipping So Hard to Predict?
Because it can go either way.
Sometimes it's fast. Carriers staff up for the holidays, and packages fly.
Sometimes it's slow. They don't staff up enough, and the holiday volume buries the people they have.
You won't know which year you're getting until you're in it. The only way to be sure your gift arrives on time is to give yourself a cushion.
How Much Earlier Should You Order Custom Gifts?
About a week earlier, so aim for the end of November.
Personalized gifts, like a tumbler etched with your client's logo or a pen engraved with their name, add one more step before anything ships. The engraving itself is quick:
Logo setup takes us a day or two, depending on volume.
50 custom Yetis is about a day's work.
200 or more takes longer, so plan for it.
The extra time isn't for the engraving. It's so a hiccup anywhere along the way doesn't push you past the shipping window.
What Slows Down a Holiday Gift Campaign the Most?
The address list. Every single dang time.
Picking the gift is usually the fastest part. Writing the card is next. Getting the list together is what drags, because:
You need current addresses. People move, change jobs, and work from home. Someone has to follow up and confirm.
The list is scattered. Often every sales rep or BDR has their own clients, so you're chasing your whole team to pull it together.
Start the list first, even before you pick a gift.
What Should You Have Ready Before You Reach Out?
The quantity of your campaign or list.
You don't need a finished list to get started. If you can tell us roughly how many people you're sending to, we know how much of everything to order, and we can get moving while you finish the list.
In order of what matters most:
Your count. How many people, even a rough estimate.
Your list. Names and current addresses.
Your gift. We can help you pick.
Your card message. We can help you write it.
What If You Miss the Holiday Deadline?
Send a New Year's gift instead. Honestly, it's a secret strategy we tell clients about.
If your gift lands the first week of January, you're the only one in their mailbox. Every other vendor sent theirs in December, and it's already buried. Yours gets their full attention.
It also gets around a tricky question. "Happy Holidays" can bother some people, and "Merry Christmas" can bother others.
Everybody celebrates New Year's.
What Does a Holiday Gift Timeline Look Like?
Now through mid-November: Get your count and start pulling the address list together.
End of November: Order custom or engraved gifts.
First week of December: Have everything in motion for off-the-shelf gifts.
Missed it? Plan for the gift to land the first week of January as a New Year's gift.
Ready to Get Your Holiday Gifts Moving?
Reach out and we can help you with every logistical step of gifting (it's like literally what we do every day.)
We'll help you pick the gift, write the card, and get everything packed and shipped in time, or plan a New Year's send if December is already too tight.
want us to handle it?
Tell us the outcome. We’ll handle the rest.
Handwritten cards and lumpy mail, planned, written, packed, and shipped for you.
