Gan has success wrapped up

Theng Gan has been busy this Christmas. Picture / Richard Robinson

Turning customers away makes Christmas bittersweet for Theng Gan and her company, My Goodness Gift Baskets, on the North Shore.

Its gift hampers are in such demand the company stopped answering its phone in the first week of December and, last week, had to block orders from its website as well.

Raising prices has also failed to stop customers flocking to the Albany-based workroom where visitors can make their own baskets from the broad selection of wine, food, pamper products, homeware and corporate gifts.

Creative packaging is the company's specialty, and options include a Kiwiana range of flax hampers and bags, box stacks and cane baskets.

It has been the company's busiest Christmas yet and more than 15,000 baskets have been sold.

Because she does not want to face a similar scenario next year, Gan will look at opening branches or franchising the store.

My Goodness, which won the Best Emerging Business Award at the North Shore Business Excellence Awards this year, started as a Christmas cake company.

Gan, a former marketing manager for a pharmaceuticals company, started making and delivering premium Christmas cakes throughout New Zealand in 1991.

She contracted a German chef to bake the cakes and ran the business from home for two years, later broadening it to include Christmas tarts and puddings.

Her enjoyment in creating gift baskets for friends saw her offering the service, largely as a hobby, from her home garage soon after.

It quickly gathered momentum to become the walk-in, make-your-own concept which today attracts regular customers from Tauranga, Hamilton and Whangarei.

The website has been crucial to showcase the products, and 30 per cent of all sales are made online.

Corporates form its biggest customer base. This year, My Goodness made thousands of themed Christmas hampers for businesses big and small.

The Christmas season generates more business than the company can handle and brings in just under 40 per cent of annual revenue. This season Gan boosted staff from six to 10.

There are also peaks for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day but demand remains strong throughout the year with people buying for weddings, births, house-warmings and for corporate gifts.

Half the goods in the hampers are imported but many are supplied by local cottage industries.

My Goodness makes more than 30,000 gift baskets a year and net profit has increased 80 per cent during the past two years.

Prices range from $12 to $500 (the most expensive are mainly prize hampers).

The company spends little on marketing. "Customers think they are doing us a favour by telling their friends about us. But come Christmas we are turning people away," Gan says.

"The fact is we simply can't contain the growth.

"We really can't go another year near maximum capacity.

"We must go to the next phase."

Gan thinks the business would work in well with a complementary chain store business, such as a liquor retailer.

Although she would regret passing-on the cash-rich business, she thinks taking My Goodness into the next phase could be a task for someone else. After 13 years she is not sure she has the energy and "I would like to have more of a life".

However, she would miss the customers: "People who buy gifts have the giving spirit - they are the nicest customers to have."