Giftcorp Tries Targeting Consumers Online
Sheila Schectman wants to bring Giftcorp, her 24-year-old corporate gift-giving business, online to the consumer market. To do that, she’s launched http://www.giftcorp.com.
“We’re going to be putting more energy into the consumer side of the business this year,” she says. That involves exploring things like keyword searches and other Internet marketing techniques.
“Online marketing is critical to business today,” she says.
For the most part, her West Hartford, CT area business has targeted larger companies in such industries as hospitality and financial services with customized and personalized gifts. Those include non-perishable gourmet food gift baskets, spa gift items, and desktop accessories.
And Giftcorp recently opened a 40,000-square-foot facility to accommodate the explosive growth her firm is currently experiencing.
“We doubled our revenue last year,” she says.
A housewife up until the early 1980s, Schectman knew she wanted to go into business. “I think we have an entrepreneurial gene in our family,” she says, noting that her sister, Sharon Whiteley, is CEO of Thirdage Inc., an online content, marketing and research company.
Schectman’s first venture was Namshe’s, a gourmet food store in Hartford, an idea she credits the late Joel Dean and Giorgio Deluca, founders of Dean and Deluca in New York City.
But after a while she wanted to get out of retailing because she found it too arduous. “It’s better to go to the customers than have them come to you,” she says.
Her customers, which number in the hundreds, include corporations of all sizes. She also supplies to companies like FTD and Saks Fifth Avenue as well as the Advertising Specialties Institute.
Because so many of Giftcorp’s customers come from corporate human resource departments, the company does not suffer as much from seasonal booms and busts as do many similar companies, she notes.
Going forward, Schectman is planning to expand Giftcorp’s spa lines and consumer marketing as it continues to build its core business.
