Obviously, not all of these categories are of interest to Hong Kong suppliers, but there is enormous potential in some areas. There is still some English manufacture, but this tends to be more on the craft side. On the whole these days most of the gift products are sourced from the East. This is a necessity because the UK market cannot compete on cost to offer what consumers want. Despite the variations in sourcing and product sectors, the one successful factor in the UK market these days is quality.
Consumers avoid buying gifts that fall apart after a couple of uses.
The embarrassment of selecting a wrong gift for Christmas is phenomenal. And I make sure that quality checks are conducted both in the factory and when the cartons arrive over here. The need to ensure quality is partly driven by the value-conscious British consumers and mainly by other shifts in the giftware market. Whereas the gift trade used to operate mainly through independents, there is no place for them in these larger malls. As a result, the business has become very much more driven through the multiples.