Listen to this articleJust over the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon lies Vancouver, Washington – an industrious and rapidly growing city where the national specialty gift retailer GiftTree is headquartered. With the name drawn from the inspiration of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, GiftTree was founded in 1997 by Craig and Esther Bowen. Their online store and bi-annual print catalogs have created over 5 million memorable gifting moments in their 20 years of business. We wanted to know more about the story of their success, so we sat down with the founders, Esther and Craig Bowen:
Q: Tell us about the history of GiftTree – where did you get the idea to start it?
A: Well my wife [Esther] and I started GiftTree from our home in Florida and it was just the two of us. We saw a need for gift-giving to become more convenient to people. At that time, there wasn’t much of a world wide web; if you needed to send a gift to someone, you had to go to a store, pick something out, wrap it up, add a card, put it all in a box, take it to the post office and ship it. Really, we wanted to make it easier for people to be generous, celebrate special occasions, and create great memories.
Q: What would you say are the contributing factors that helped GiftTree make it out of the .com boom (and sequential bust) alive and prosperous?
A: For starters, we didn’t spend money we didn’t have or take on big financial commitments. And we kept a lot of things in-house. We were lucky to work with some great minds in the tech business, and we built our own software system, and it’s a completely unique, custom user experience. Keeping things in-house has allowed for the ability to execute changes and make improvements a lot faster, and has made us really self-reliant, which is a great thing in a world where you would normally have to rely on vendors to do so much for you, otherwise. And I think we see ourselves as pretty fearless. We’ll do just about anything to add value to the customer; we’re willing to go above and beyond the normal bounds to make our line of gifts really unique, like when we added complimentary scissors, hand tie our ribbons or attach the gift cards by hand to make it a better gift experience. These things don’t always have a short term ROI. It’s these special details, our branded packaging and all the ways to add personalization to a gift… that stuff adds so much value to the customer, and it really sets us apart.
Recommended: Online Marketplace AdYoYo Simplifies Shopping Through Smartphone Product Videos
Q: What do you think is the achievement that GiftTree is most proud of?
A: I would definitely say that our biggest achievement is going from just Esther and myself working out of a living room to now being a major player in the gifting business. We have three warehouses across the United States now, and over 100 full time employees.
Q: What are your plans for the next six months?
A: We expanded our gift collections to offer more of what our business and consumer customers have been asking for, namely the epicurean and gourmet food gifts, and our luxury wine gifts. When Esther and I first started GiftTree, I had been working in the restaurant business for years, where I developed a taste for fine food and wine, so we knew we wanted to start gift company that really specialized in food and wine of great quality.
Recommended: Movidiam – Helps Brands And Filmmakers To Connect And Create Incredible Films
Q: What’s the best thing about GiftTree that people might not know about?
A: Definitely our quality. Every single item that goes into the baskets is tasted and tested and we really don’t skimp on quality. Our speed is one of the best things about us, too. When you order a personalized gift from us, a lot of the time it gets personalized and sent out the same day, and we ship it from the warehouse that’s closest to the address it’s going to. That way we can offer one, two day or even overnight shipping. There are not many retailers who can offer all of that.
Q: What is the motto that guides your decisions?
A: We have a few, really. Internally, I would say that we really want to “deliver the ‘wow'”. It’s that first experience when they’re opening a gift from GiftTree. We really want to deliver that “WOW”, when they open up the gift, they should really feel something like, somebody went to a very special effort to make sure that they received something very memorable. And from a customer facing standpoint, our motto is “When Much Ado Matters”, which means that when a special occasion comes up or there’s some milestone to celebrate, we really don’t want to let that moment pass by or go understated.
Activate Social Media:
