Every December, someone in an office gets the job of buying gifts for the team or for clients. Often that person emails a few shops, waits for replies, and then tries to pay with a company card over the phone. If you make chocolates, cookies, preserves, or other treats, you can make that job easy. A simple gift box page on your own shop lets an office manager pick a box, add a gift tag message, choose a quantity, pick a day, and pay in one go. ## Why are corporate gift orders worth planning for? One office order can be 20 or 40 boxes at once. For a small shop, one order like that is a big day, and it comes with less back and forth than 40 separate customers. The catch is that these orders come in a rush, and the buyer is often busy and in a hurry. If ordering takes three emails and a phone call, they may go somewhere else. If they can order on your site in five minutes, they have a reason to come back next year. ## What do office buyers need from you? Office buyers usually want the same few things: - A clear list of box sizes and what is in each one - A way to add a company name or a short message to the gift tag - A price for each box size, shown up front - A way to order many boxes in one order - A date they can count on, for pickup or delivery to the office - A way to pay with a company card - A confirmation they can send to whoever does the books Keep the page short. The buyer is not browsing for fun. They want to finish and get back to work. ## How does a corporate gift box shop work? The shop below is a fictional example. It is not a OneShopFront customer, and the details are made up to show the setup. Picture a small chocolate shop in Calgary. Every year, a few offices email in early December asking for 30 boxes by Friday. Last year the owner said yes to all of them, then packed boxes until midnight for a week. For this season, the owner plans for offices from the start. First, the owner sets up three holiday gift boxes, small, medium, and large, as fixed bundles on each product's Bundle or box tab. Each box holds chocolates the shop already sells. Each box page shows "Includes…" with the list of chocolates, the value if bought separately, and how much the buyer saves. The page also says how long the chocolates keep, and whether they contain nuts. Stock goes down for each chocolate inside a box, so the owner's counts stay right whether a chocolate sells alone or in a box. Second, the owner adds the gift tag details on each box's Personalization tab. A short text field asks for the gift tag message, and the owner makes it required, so a box can't go in the cart without it. A ribbon is an add-on choice with its own price. The message and the ribbon apply to every box on that line of the cart, and the ribbon is charged for each box. At checkout, the office manager can add an order note of up to 500 characters, for example the office floor and who will receive the boxes. For boxes that go to clients, the owner also turns on gift wrap with a gift message. Gift wrap and the gift message are off until a shop turns them on. Gift wrap is one flat price per order. It's $8.00 unless the owner changes it, and the owner can set it to $0 to wrap for free. At checkout, the buyer can choose gift wrap and type one gift message for the order. Third, the owner sets a lead time for each box on its Inventory tab. The small and medium boxes need two days, and buyers see "Needs 2 days notice" on the box page and in the cart. The large box takes longer to pack, so the owner sets it to three days. When a cart holds both sizes, checkout offers only dates that give the owner the longest notice in the cart, and it says which box sets the earliest date. The owner also sets a daily order cutoff of 2 PM, and checkout uses whichever rule is strictest. Fourth, the owner turns on [pickup with time slots](https://oneshopfront.com/pickup) and [local delivery](https://oneshopfront.com/local-delivery) with date and time slots. An office order goes to one address, the office, in one delivery slot. Or someone from the office picks up all the boxes at once. Fifth, the owner creates a coupon for early office orders. Coupons can be dollar or percent off, and they can be limited by product, minimum spend, and dates. The owner puts the three gift box products themselves on the coupon's list, because a coupon for a single chocolate doesn't apply to a box that holds it. The coupon takes a dollar amount off gift box orders over a set minimum, from November 16 to December 4. One coupon applies per cart. Sixth, the owner shares the gift box page. It goes in an email to last year's office customers, in a post on the shop's social pages, and on a card in every bag at the counter. On a Tuesday morning in early December, an office manager orders 25 medium boxes and 5 large boxes for her team in one order. She types the company's holiday message for the gift tags on each size, and adds a note with the office floor. She picks a Friday morning delivery slot and pays with the company card at checkout. Her order confirmation email lists the boxes, the gift tag message, her note, the totals, and the delivery details, so she can forward it to whoever does the books. Later that week, a law office orders 12 large boxes for its clients. Its buyer picks gift wrap and types one gift message for the whole order, and both show on the order and the packing slip. Seventh, the owner checks orders each morning and packs office orders first. The packing slip shows what each box contains, the gift tag message and ribbon, any gift wrap and gift message, and the order note, so the right tags go in the right boxes. When an office pickup order is ready, the owner marks it ready for pickup. The office gets an email with the pickup place, time window, and store hours. Some offices pay by Interac e-Transfer. Those buyers upload proof of their payment at checkout, and the order waits until the owner checks it and confirms it. The owner confirms those payments before packing. ## What should you put on your gift box page? - A photo of each box size, with the lid off. - What is in each box, in plain words. - What to write in the gift tag field, and the price of the ribbon. If an office wants different messages, it can add each message as its own line. - Whether you offer gift wrap, and its price. - Allergens and how long the treats keep. - How much notice each box needs. Buyers also see it on the box page and in the cart, for example "Needs 2 days notice". - Your last order day for the holidays. - Your delivery area, and your pickup hours. - A note for large orders, for example "Ordering more than 50 boxes? Order early, or email us first so we can plan." If you already deliver lunch to offices, our post on [weekly office catering orders](https://oneshopfront.com/blog/calgary-office-catering-weekly-orders) shows how to keep those customers coming back. If you also take party tray orders, see our post on [taking December holiday tray orders](https://oneshopfront.com/blog/holiday-catering-trays-own-checkout). ## What should you watch for in a rush? - Count your boxes and packaging before December. Running out of lids is a real risk. - Count the chocolates that go into your boxes, not only the boxes. Stock goes down for each item inside a box, and a refund with restock puts it back. If one chocolate runs out, every box that holds it shows as out of stock. - Set your daily cutoff and lead time ahead of the rush. Then, on your last day, switch holiday products off or set their stock to 0. Our post on [holiday order cutoff dates](https://oneshopfront.com/blog/holiday-order-cutoff-dates-pickup-delivery-shipping) covers shipping, delivery, and pickup. - Pack office orders in a box or bin labeled with the company name and the pickup or delivery day. ## Where does OneShopFront fit? OneShopFront gives a small shop in Canada or the US these tools for corporate gift orders: - Your own checkout on your own storefront - Product variants, each with its own price and stock - Fixed bundles that list what's included, the value if bought separately, and the savings, with stock tracked for each item inside - Personalization fields, such as a required gift tag message, add-on choices with their own prices, and an order note of up to 500 characters - Gift wrap with a gift message, at a price you set, off until you turn it on - Coupons with a minimum spend and set dates - A daily order cutoff and a minimum lead time for pickup and local delivery - A lead time for each product, so customers can only pick pickup or local delivery dates that give you enough notice - [Pickup with time slots](https://oneshopfront.com/pickup), and a "ready for pickup" email to the customer - An order confirmation email with the items, gift tag details, totals, and pickup or delivery details - [Local delivery](https://oneshopfront.com/local-delivery) with a date and time slot - Card payments through Stripe or Helcim, or Interac e-Transfer (Canada only, not a card payment), where the buyer uploads proof of payment and you confirm it Starter is $20 CAD a month, and Growth is $50 CAD a month. A platform fee, currently 1% per sale, applies to the merchandise subtotal after discounts, plus your payment processor's fee. For Stripe and Helcim payments, the platform fee is taken at checkout. For Interac e-Transfer orders, it is added to your monthly invoice. No card needed to sign up. When you pick Starter or Growth, you get a 7-day free trial before billing starts. ## What can you do this week? 1. Decide what goes in each box size, and price each box. 2. Pick how much notice each box size needs. 3. Make a list of offices that bought from you last year, and write them a short note. 4. Take photos of each box size in good window light. 5. To set up a gift box page on your own storefront, [register for OneShopFront](https://oneshopfront.com/register).