Surviving in this industry now is a matter of expertise and experience and the instinct. Plagued by imitation and more from within the country as well as across the world, the stress is on encashment of trend. This leads to stagnation of new product making skill and regurgitation of old wine and shabby bottles! Despite this immediate threat of fly-by-slight copiers, the genuine Gift-makers have survived and kept their cart moving forwards by leading.

For example, customer conscious gift making, not carrying the age-old bag of tricks with pencils, erasers and sharpeners, soap dishes, and clocks, and more clocks, but an attitude of attentive audience to the need of the customers with great emphasis to also understand the product being promoted. Imagine going back the next day or week with a genuine connecting gift and the look of surprise and interest in the twinkling eyes of the customers.

Bet on it, that item's hot and will sell. Intense pleasure in planning the packaging people who have either cut corners or have not paid attention to packaging, have suffered badly either in breakage or pilferage claims, or not-invited-anymore category listings. The flair for good and attractive packing, the art of making a simple pen-stand look like a monument is what takes the survivors across great oceans of competition and imitation. Understand the use of good copy as leading player.

Imagine watching a dramatic scene in a movie suddenly the sound track vanishes. Sheer waste of effort, poor actors! Now, imagine, there is no light and one is wondering, what is happening, and a single ray of light shows on the screen accompanied by the now familiar voice of Mr. B. saying, " Tamso-Ma-Jyotirgamaya, from darkness, arise." Now transpose this onto the Gift and see the effect.

There are stories and stories that one could weave around simple gifts and convert them into heart touching always reminding of the company that gave it with a smile! There continue to be several aspects that make the art of making gifts, and the art of surviving to make better and bigger customers out of the current ones. Reasonable pricing, special after sales service provision, better outer packaging, proper identification of merchandise, handling, etc works.

However the fact is, a good gift-maker is the one who understands his product and a great gift maker is the one who puts his heart into it. In addition, may the both of them one day meet and compliment each other! Some more from experience another time. Happy Festivals and Gifting!