2010 Trend Report

What an interesting process! I've done trend reports before and certainly know how to do proper research but doing this in the gift basket industry is fascinating. I've been asked to document the process, provide some thoughts and insights as we build the report. I'll be providing some updates as we go along, starting with this first one.

The report was released last weekend after we spent 4 weeks designing, socializing, having it reviewed by a professional organization as as well as the advisory board. The big debate was over the open ended questions. If we leave it open, then we'll probably get a whole bunch of different responses but on the other hand, how do we encourage just open thought processes. The winner was the open ended question and boy, after seeing the responses, I'm glad we made the decision. We're getting such amazing feedback in those areas that it will lend the data quite well to the report.

Second, the debate on who to send it to. Should just gift basket companies receive this particular survey or suppliers too? On one hand, gift basket companies are the ones that have the real answers but so many suppliers have regular conversations with their customers and study/feel trends why shouldn't we collect data from them too? Decision was to let everyone comment but to quantify the data. So far, 28% of all respondents are suppliers.

A few general observations . . .

1) The responses came in fast and in abundance. Our main concern was ensuring we got a good sampling of people. Only having a few respond doesn't really lend to good data and on top of that not having a dispersed audience would be worse. So far, we've had hundreds of responses and they are well dispersed throughout the United States.

2) We've conducted over 57 interviews of other "contributors" and are finding some validation and some challenge to a few of the trends we're seeing. It's interesting to talk to specialists in the organic fruit community, designers that are talking about current and future color trends and organization experts that speak to the fact that an organized workshop adds motivation and efficiency to one's business - a common concern amongst gift basket owners.

3) Advertising interest is way up, probably because of pricing but also because we've told advertisers they can pick where they want to advertise. Offering that flexibility and a inexpensive rate is of special interest right now so I'm really happy we chose the advertising model that we did.

OK, all I have time for now. Have a great day.

Deb