How to build a corporate gift basket: 8 tips

Corporate gift baskets are a popular way to thank clients, celebrate employees, or mark a special occasion. That said, there's a fine line between a thoughtfully curated gift basket and a box of random promotional products.

Luckily, putting together a gift basket people actually want doesn't require an enormous budget or a professional gift curator. It just takes a little thought about which products go well together, how to present them, and how much of your company branding the recipient really needs to see.

Here's how to build a corporate gift basket from scratch, from choosing the right gifts and setting a budget to handling packaging and delivery.

1. Identify your recipients and the gifting occasion

Before you fall down a rabbit hole of custom drinkware and gourmet chocolates, think about who will actually be opening the gift. What works for an employee holiday gift might be completely wrong for a client you've only met twice. The occasion matters, too.

Here are a few directions worth considering:

• Employee holiday gifts: Cozy blankets, snacks, and other items that encourage people to enjoy a little time away from their desks are all good options.
• Client appreciation: Consider a nice piece of drinkware, specialty food, or a desk accessory they wouldn't necessarily buy for themselves.
• New-hire welcome gifts: This is one occasion where more prominent company branding makes sense. Include things employees will use on the job, along with a few welcome treats.
• Company milestones: You could mark an anniversary or a big achievement with custom commemorative merchandise, ideally something people would still want to keep afterward.
• Conferences and VIP events: If attendees are traveling, choose gifts they can comfortably take home. An oversized gift basket won't win you many fans at airport security.

2. Set a realistic budget for each basket

How much should you spend on a corporate gift basket? It depends on the occasion and how elaborate you want to get. Consider these rough guidelines:

• Under $30: You're probably looking at one main gift with a couple of small extras. This budget works best if you're ordering in bulk and distributing everything at one location, rather than shipping individual baskets.
• $30-60: This is a reasonable starting point for employee holiday gifts. You could put together a basket with a good-quality tumbler, a notebook, and a few treats without stretching the budget too far.
• $60-100: At this price point, you have more room to play with premium products and packaging. It's a useful range for client appreciation or a more substantial employee gift.
• $100+: For major milestones or particularly important clients, you might want to spend a little more. We'd lean toward a couple of genuinely nice items rather than adding more products just to fill the basket.

Also, keep in mind that many custom products have minimum order quantities, with lower per-unit prices available for larger orders. And if you're gifting clients, check whether their companies have policies limiting the value of gifts they can accept before deciding how much to spend.

3. Start with an anchor gift

Rather than shopping for five or six items at once, pick one gift to build the basket around. For a cozy holiday basket, that might be a premium flannel fleece blanket. For a travel-themed gift, consider a packable fleece blanket that folds into its own carrying pouch and attaches to luggage.

If you're creating something more work-oriented, a quality tumbler or notebook works just as well. Wayo's A5 soft vegan leather notebook, for example, has a magnetic buckle and supports several customization methods, including debossing and foil stamping.

4. Add one or two complementary products

Once you've picked the main gift, resist the urge to start shopping from scratch again. Instead, look for products that make sense alongside it.

If your anchor is a coffee tumbler, you could add some locally roasted beans or a bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans. Meanwhile, for a new-hire basket built around a notebook, a desk accessory or charging cable might make more sense than another piece of drinkware.

This doesn't mean every item needs to be part of an elaborate theme. But there should be some reason for the products to end up in the same box beyond the fact that your procurement team could order them in bulk.

5. Include a little something to eat or drink

Food is an easy way to round out a gift basket without adding another permanent object to someone's home. Recipients can also enjoy it immediately, rather than saving it for some hypothetical future occasion.

Depending on the season and theme, you could include chocolates, cookies, specialty tea, coffee, or other packaged treats. Wayo has several customizable options, including:

• Hot chocolate bombs in branded boxes: They’re particularly fun for winter gifting.
• 3 oz. chocolate bars with custom wrappers: These give you plenty of room to incorporate a holiday message or custom illustration.
• Chocolate-covered biscuits: These are perfect as a small addition to a larger gift.

6. Pick a suitable container

Nobody said your corporate gift basket has to be an actual wicker basket – traditional baskets can look beautiful, but they're not always the most practical option for shipping or storage. A custom gift box may be easier to pack and distribute, especially if you're sending hundreds of gifts to employees' homes.

Alternatively, why not make the container part of the gift? A sturdy canvas tote bag can hold everything from drinkware to snacks, then become a reusable shopping or everyday bag after the contents have been unpacked.

7. Figure out how much branding to add

Of course you want recipients to remember who sent the gift, but if the blanket, tumbler, notebook, tote, chocolate wrapper, and outer box all feature the same giant logo, you've probably made your point several times over.

Our advice is to be selective about where branding appears, especially for client appreciation and holiday gifts that aren't explicitly intended as company merchandise.

A few ways to approach it:

• Choose one or two items for prominent branding: A custom-designed tote or tumbler can carry your company identity without requiring every other product to match.
• Use more subtle customization for premium gifts: Debossing or a small engraved logo can look more appropriate on a high-quality notebook or piece of drinkware than a large, full-color print.
• Get creative with patterns and illustrations: Wayo's ultra-light umbrella, for example, supports all-over printing, so there's no reason to limit yourself to a logo in the center. You could design a pattern around your brand's colors, mascot, or a visual reference to the occasion.
• Let the packaging do some of the talking: A custom outer box, ribbon, or handwritten card can establish who sent the gift while leaving the other products relatively understated.

There are exceptions, of course. For an employee welcome basket, receiving company-branded merchandise is often the whole point. Similarly, a company anniversary gift might look better with a prominent commemorative design.

8. Plan your packaging, assembly, and shipping

Once you've decided what goes in the basket, there are a few practical details to sort out before placing an order:

• Check production timelines and minimum order quantities: Custom products may have different lead times and order minimums, so make sure everything can arrive in time for assembly. If you're ordering for a smaller team, Wayo offers low minimums starting at just 20 units on select products, so you don't have to order hundreds of each item.
• Figure out who's assembling the baskets: Will your team be putting everything together? If you'd rather not turn the office into a gift-packing station, Wayo offers kitting and fulfillment services to store, pack, and mail your corporate gift baskets.
• Plan where and how the gifts will be delivered: Shipping 100 corporate gift baskets to one office is considerably simpler than sending individual packages to 100 employees across the country. Wayo can handle both bulk shipments and direct-to-recipient deliveries, including international shipping, so your team doesn't have to coordinate every package individually.

Build your corporate gift basket with Wayo

By now, you probably have a few ideas for what your ideal corporate gift basket should include. The next question is where to find everything without spending the next three weeks coordinating orders across half a dozen suppliers.

At Wayo, we have a wide range of customizable products, from drinkware and notebooks to blankets, tote bags, tech accessories, and edible gifts. And if you have a particular idea in mind that you can't find in the catalog, our AI sourcing agent, Nory, can help you explore options for bringing it to life through custom manufacturing.