Corporate gifting grows during Covid-19, businesses expect higher sales this Chinese New Year

DEMAND for corporate gifts has been increasing in spite of Covid-19, as more people turn to hampers to convey appreciation amid the movement restrictions.

Local gift companies polled by The Business Times said order volumes from corporate clients have either held steady or grown since the pandemic began.

Noel Gifts product and services manager Jess Chan said the company hopes for a 5-8 per cent year-on-year increase in sales, based on earlier enquiries and sales during the "short runway between Christmas and Chinese New Year".

She also attributed higher expected sales to workers returning to the office, with an increase in orders from a spread of industries including law, finance and marine. "There were customers who wished to order last year but were unable to send their gifts as some of their recipients were working from home," she added.

Simply Hamper managing director Alexis Tan said there has been a 10 per cent increase in hamper purchases since the pandemic started.

The company, which saw most of its orders from multinational corporations (MNCs) in the banking and insurance industries, has sold approximately 4,000 to 5,000 hampers in the last 2 years. Tan said gifting has been a "great way" to keep people connected.

Gift Hampers Singapore e-commerce manager Chantel Seet said customers have gotten used to buying gifts online over the pandemic, so gift hamper sales have been able to continue for the company.

Going for quality, utility

Businesses also said consumers are paying closer attention to the quality of the products in their hamper selections. Seet said that while Gift Hampers Singapore offers a wide range of prices, more customers have been going for "(higher) quality and higher-priced items" such as abalone and bird's nest.

As for Noel Gifts, Chan said there has been a growing preference for health-related products among its customers. "There is more interest for health-related products or healthier alternatives like tonics, essences and bird's nests," she said.

Corporate gift supplier PrintnGift also noted that its clients looked for items that are "more useful". Through its Care Pack initiative, the company's Chinese New Year Festive Care Pack offered items that could be used for "protection, immunity or wellness", so that clients could provide "practical items'' for employees and customers during the pandemic, said managing director Lim Shin Ee.

These packs included Manuka honey, neck and back support pillows and vitamin C, on top of the "usual mandarin oranges" and festive food, she added.

Pandemic constraints

Some businesses did flag that supply chain disruptions have limited their stock movements, which has in turn led to increasing prices of both material and shipping.

Both Chan of Noel Gifts and Christopher Tan, telesales manager of Noel Gifts' subsidiary Humming Flowers and Gifts, highlighted increasing raw material, freight and labour fees - resulting in cost prices rising by 15-20 per cent.

Chan and Christopher Tan said they were trying to "manage" the increase and keep gifts affordable to customers.

Meanwhile, Simply Hamper's Alexis Tan said the company would maintain its prices in spite of these increases.

Red packet sales dip

The impact of Covid-19 on red packet printing and sales, however, is quite the opposite.

Printing service Caston said the pandemic has coincided with a 20 per cent fall in red packet sales volume.

The custom gifts and design house - which customises red packets for clients including OCBC, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Lloyds Bank - also said shipping and logistics costs have bumped its red packet prices up by 15 per cent.

PrintnGift, which also prints red packets for MNCs, said it decided to focus on promoting its Chinese New Year festive care packs this year due to lower volumes of red packets requested by customers. It estimates demand to have fallen about 30 to 50 per cent compared with pre-Covid times.

Bob Lim, general manager of PrintnGift, said most of the company's clients have ordered "sufficient red packets for their employees and customers". He also said the company had not received orders for customised paper red packet holders or pouches.

"With a lower quantity requested for red packets, we do not need to produce them in our factory in China and can instead outsource it to our local small and medium-sized enterprise partners," he added.

Covid-19 has also changed the way companies approach red packet customisation. Caston marketing manager Rumi Liew said client meetings are now held online, with customers requesting for soft copy red packet samples instead of the "usual hard copies".

"Some customers also adopt a 'wait and see' approach to observe what their industry peers are doing before placing any orders," Liew added.

There was, however, "no significant reduction" in interest from the insurance and finance industries, which make up most of Caston's red packet clients. "In fact, we received a lot of last-minute orders (from these sectors)," Liew said.

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