Friday 8 July 2011

Gorgeous Gifts

This week I am delighted to feature an amazing supplier of gifts that would delight any couple on their wedding day.  Not only that they can provide some amazing items that will enhance the decoration of any wedding and have your guests talking about them for a long time after.  I asked Gorgeous Gifts about their company and what inspired them.


What inspired you to create Gorgeous Gifts?













Gorgeous Gifts launched at the end of Nov 2010. My background is in Sales & Marketing at National Account Head Office level in Food & Beverages and latterly toiletries, gifts, home fragrances and beauty! Although that's a bit dull probably!  I moved to Devon to be close to the sea, my sister lived here and had a shop for 5 years and decided to move to online with the occasional retail show after selling the shop.

We are a small company with all the integrity that brings but with big ambitions and ideas.

We are all so busy these days, I wanted to create a one stop shop for all your gift buying needs. We live in the country here and don't have access to a wide variety of shops so I wanted to create an online boutique style shop which would bring gorgeous products to you without you having to leave your home.

Many peeps live in rural areas or do not want to pay parking and do not have time to traipse around the shops but do love beautiful things and I wanted to make these things more accessible.  Ideally I'd like to stock more British made and British designed products and more individual pieces than we do but we have opted to stock a more populous range coupled with some designer/maker pieces in the current economic climate. We have items that range from £1.00 to £150 so hope to have something for everyone, including those hard to shop for men!

What were the biggest obstacles you faced when setting up the site?

Getting the web designers to think the way I thought.  Although web people tell you everything is bespoke (unless you are buying an off the shelf model) they really just build everything on their last model and tweak.  I had a long list of requirements and I'm a perfectionist so the re-writes were huge despite a very detailed brief initially.  But I'm pleased we incorporated most of my requirements such as zoom on products, product reviews, the ability to send a Wish List complete with clickable links to your own email contacts, a reminder service you can set up to remind you of events or special occasions that you might need to buy gifts for and a gift wrapping service which can include your own personalised message.



You can buy at one address and ship to another (surprisingly uncommon) and you can ship worldwide.

There's still things on my site that annoy me and my snagging list is on going!

What are your favourite / best selling Wedding items?
Twiggy heart is very popular as it's so versatile: It can be used as table decorations, pew ends, hall decoration etc.  You could even add it to your gift wrapping on your present. (A personal favourite of Beauty Weddings! ) 

For gifts the entwined lovers' heart flutes are popular as they symbolise love and come boxed.  



What are your biggest successes so far?
We have just had 3 products featured in Period Living Magazine which has brought us more traffic to the site and also people who do not normally shop on the internet and this has encouraged us to think about producing a catalogue

Where do you see Gorgeous Gifts going in the next few years?













We would like to expand our handmade and British sections with smaller companies/individuals that might not have a strong web presence and also vastly increase our wedding section to include favours, stationery, table decorations and accessories.  Plus longer term we'd like to start a wedding list service.

And we would like to offer personalised products.

If you are a wedding supplier making something gorgeous that you think will fit with us - we'd love to hear from you  


What is the best part of your job?
Sourcing new products of course!  What's not to like about shopping?


What a delight it was to find out more about Gorgeous Gifts and here is a small sample of more of their amazing products, I just wish I could put them all on here to share with you, but you can visit their website to browse and buy, and you can be guaranteed fantastic service from them.



















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