Our Suppliers
The Gift Company was started in 1994 and over that time we have gained a lot of experience dealing with suppliers in all corners of the globe.
At first we purchased only from UK suppliers and importers but pretty soon we moved onto importing ourselves.
In 1998 we opened our first overseas office in Indonesia to cope with the demand we had from our UK customers for wooden cats bears and furniture. Our office consisted of 6 staff and a team of 27 suppliers spread across Indonesia. It was from this experience that we gained first hand knowledge of dealing with factories and teams in other countries. Our buyers now have over 45 years of experience of buying for The Gift Company between them - something which is invaluable both for our customers and also the well being of our suppliers.
Nowadays we have 14 key suppliers across the globe but particularly in Vietnam, China and Taiwan), although we also deal with another 15 suppliers irregularly.
We work particularly closely with what we term our Key suppliers - these are suppliers who we deal with day to day building our new ranges (we work around 18 months ahead so are now working on Christmas next year !)
With all our suppliers we pay promptly and place large orders and because of this are able to demand improvements in the standards of their work places (see ethical policy)
Over the years this constant dealing with the same suppliers has also made us a great many friends both in the management teams and the shopfloors of our suppliers.
Ethical trading is nothing new to us - its just common sense, if we look after our suppliers, they will look after their employees who in turn will make us better product, which our customers will buy more of, enabling us to buy more form the supplier - its not a marketing tool - its good business sense.
Finally Packaging - Ever noticed the lack of packaging on items in The Gift Company ? We've not jumped on a bandwagon of low packaging recently. It was obvious to us 15 years ago that if we kept the packaging to an absolute minimum it was better for the environment and the products would be cheaper for our customers.
So:-
1. We never bulk up a product with a fancy box to make it look more impressive than it already is (almost no item is boxed)
2. Any packaging we do use is almost always recycleable (its usually cardboard or paper)
3. We almost never use polystyrene or plastics which whilst they can be recycled, almost always seem to end up in landfill.
4. We do give bags out because most of our customers expect it, but thanks to our customers help we have reduced bag useage by 15% in the last 12 months.
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Furniture 
