Commonly known as the Christmas hamper contrary to widespread belief one of the most popular word searches is actually for Xmas. ‘X’ is an abbreviation for the word Christ.  It is not meant to be derogatory. It is not intended to cause any offence. “X” has been incorrectly mistaken as a mark to indicate that something is missing. As I say, our team at BasketsGalore are dedicated to using a creative and imaginative approach in relation to our approach of marketing Christmas hampers. When considering the definition of words along with various marketing segments, that certain elements of Christmas hampers are open to interpretation. These interpretations are vital as we are looking for X number of reasons to keep you on the website, and we are looking to give you extra value in your hampers. We are looking to take X number of things which you do not like out of your hampers. The X paves the way for our customers to divide into something daring and different. 

Let us answer a few questions, hopefully the answers to these questions will convey our ethos and the philosophy will resonate with you. In a world of so much competition, in a world of so many marketing channels, and in a world of people sensationalising things, creating titles desiring you to click them, all we’re doing here is basically X-plaining why our Xmas hampers should be under your consideration if you're in the market for sending such gifts in the UK this Christmas time. 

What is in a Big Christmas Hamper or a Big Xmas Hamper? 

Well, the traditional components of a Christmas hamper are shortbread, mince pies, Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake. With an Xmas hamper, you will take one of those component parts out, because a significant majority of people are opposed to one of those four big components of the typical Christmas hamper. For instance, somebody may not want shortbread, somebody may not want Christmas cake, or some may hate mince pies. Meaning you need to have a Christmas hamper or a range of Christmas hampers that do not contain mince pies or have a gluten-free variant. These Xmas hampers are deviations from the classical favourites. They are produced in such a way whereby, if you are coming along as a buyer and you go, you know what, I do not want that in my hamper, then there are several of them at every price point that you can hope to spend. 

There is a range of hampers that will allow you to say, well, that is the one for you. Then, does it happen that often? Well, it does not happen as often as you might think. Anecdotally, you think it happens more because people will phone to tell you they do not want certain items in their Xmas hamper. They will make a specific point of saying, change that, do not put that in it. He does not like that. She does not like that. So over years, these things become developed, become part of the range, part of the product line, and you do not want to change everything. Then it is just exceedingly difficult to manage that product line, but where there is a repetition, a cluster, or a pattern you must address it as part of the customer segmentation preference. 

There are the four things that normally go into an Xmas hamper. However, invariably, one, sometimes even two, is missing from an Xmas hamper, but it is very well clearly pointed out online. We point that out in our description that that is what makes this Xmas hamper different. No value is attributed to these things that you, yourself do not place any value on. One thing that is always surprised me is, you know, people will buy a hamper and they, some of them are as long as it is there. They do not really know what the people like or not. In which case we will tend to steer them towards the Christmas hampers, particularly, the traditional flavours. We find that having Xmas hampers that are flexible allows you to cater for a significant minority of the marketplace. 

What other things are in a big Christmas hamper? 

Well, this is where we will go into the sweet aspect of it. We will include a chocolate log and an expensive chocolate box that’s a minimum of 200 grams. Sweet biscuits tend to be organic. Honey, a jar of honey, expensive, as we all know, we have, like a small farm holding from the Baltic region of Europe, and then we also have the Wicklow Mountains, where our honey comes from. We have sweets, tea, and nuts. Nuts are extremely expensive these days. We tend to go for the bigger packets of almonds. We avoid peanuts as much as possible. We tend to go more for cashews and walnuts. Also, one of the things that we like to do with the nuts is enrobe them in chocolate, which is a bit unusual. So, there will sometimes be savoury nuts, and sometimes a sort of sweeter nut, which is extremely popular at Christmas time. Our flavoured fruit, chocolate-covered fruit, marmalade, and jam will be in it. Also, in a big Christmas hamper will be cheese, at least one, two, 200g waxed cheeses. Cheese struggles if they are not waxed. You just cannot ship anything which is not waxed. It's problematic. It's not breathing. It requires separate refrigeration. Waxed cheese, made by an artisan cheese maker, is a delightful component part of a big Christmas hamper. Chutney will always be handmade by a woman who has been making it for 40 to 50 years on her farm. Savoury biscuits will be in your big hamper. Savoury biscuits tend to be from a classic ingredient's recipe. We do not tend to change it from one year to the next, because once you get the winning formula, you do not change it. Other elements in a big Christmas hamper will be orange chocolate. This orange chocolate can come in a variety of ways. It can come in a small fiery, orange chocolate stick. It can come in chocolate-coated orange, orange beans, or an orange chocolate bar. Orange chocolate can come in brittle, like chocolate shard orange brittle. So, it can come in a variety of ways. We tend not to place too high a valuation on it because it tends to be a marginal taste. A lot of people are not particularly fussed on it. We could potentially not include this item, but lots of people really love it. It must be in one of your X for Xmas hampers because it is thoroughly enjoyed.  
And then you have mint chocolate. Mint chocolate, again, is remarkably like orange chocolate. You can have a range of it. You can have the truffle bars, the mint crisps, and the black Mitcham mint truffles. There is the mint from the West Coast, which is a mint-infused truffle. Whenever you are buying these, you must buy them a long time in advance because the entire factory needs to be cleaned down after mint production. So, we need to get the quantities for mint chocolate purchases tied up very early on. It's not something that you can request in November or December because they'll have produced everything, and the costs of cleaning are high. Once it's gone, it's gone. That is an example of the careful planning and production behind the things that you can find in a big Christmas hamper from Basketsgalore. 
 
There are other companies that will apply a different approach to it. They sometimes will have more products but all cheaper. Our average value of a product that's going into it can be three or four times higher than the bigger volume players, and that's something where you've got to decide as a buyer if you are looking for big from the perspective of lots of cheap, small things, or whether you're looking for big in terms of the component parts being of a good, healthy size. In our hampers, we've done a competitive analysis with other companies, and we tend to find that for the same money, pound for pound, our hampers are about 30 to 40% bigger. That's with our hampers very tightly packed. 

All the product specialists are selling too much of one thing. All the department stores, I would be wary of from the perspective that it is not that they do not care, it is that their business does not depend on it. Baskets Galore's business depends on everything. It depends on getting the right variation of products at the right price, at the right time, to the people that appreciate how much better and bigger its Christmas food hampers are. It depends upon people with insight, imagination, and creativity to identify that a Christmas hamper can be extra or missing a component part of the traditional Christmas hamper. It is clever, it is unusual, it is very well defined, and it is not for everybody, which is why I can quite comfortably say that if you want to spend £30, £40, £50, do not rely exclusively on us. We will do it as part of another order, but we cannot ship too many individual orders at that price. We would not be focusing sufficiently on our own unique competitive advantages. 

Since we do not make a big song and dance about your details, we do not target you, we do not try to upsell to you. We employ a variety of simple marketing techniques; we just do not do them. On that basis, we choose to stock our warehouse with products of a price bracket, which means that we are very sustainable. We do not have anything lasting beyond Christmas, and we can put fresher, better products into our Christmas hampers. So, everybody is happy in that sense. The best way you would buy a luxury Xmas food hamper in the UK in 2024 or 2025, if this content holds true, is Baskets Galore. 

What is a Good Christmas Gift for a Large Family? 
 
Well, you know, what you do? You get our giant Christmas wicker hampers there. What are they there? 22 inches. So, what size in centimetres? That is 55 centimetres in length. They are about 30 to 40 centimetres wide, and they are a good 25 centimetres in height. You can put around 30 to 40 products into them, and when they arrive, they are not only volumetrically impressive looking, but they are heavy. We make sure that they do not exceed 20 kilograms because then it would require two men for health and safety reasons. They are packed in a heavy, high-quality product, and what is great about them is that they last all through the holidays for a family

We tend to have the biggest and best range for Christmas gifts for a large family because we do not want to be a corporate Christmas hamper company. We have lots of businesses, but they tend to be SME businesses, and we understand the value of money. We know that they understand the value of money, so we treat them as people rather than corporate entities. There is an important distinction there because it means we are not really trying for volume. We are conscious of costs and meticulous about it, but we offer a slight, subtle difference in terms of purchasing decisions. We will put things in for the kids that you will not see in other Christmas hampers and stock more unusual items because we operate through the year. 

Whilst all these exceedingly small niches, such as children's gifts, get well gifts, and birthday gifts, do not have a big demand throughout the year, we still stock them. We can demonstrate our progress and imagination at that time of year to create good, fun family Christmas hampers. You can call upon suppliers like Lindt, who are good at that in terms of their characters, or sweet suppliers that modify the little animals and characters to make the Christmas hampers more fun and interesting. This is different from the big tubs of Roses or Celebrations, which are fine and cater to a specific market segment. However, we aim to offer an alternative concept, idea, and product at Christmas, something unique and unusual. 

A good Christmas gift for a large family is a basket or Christmas hamper, as the rest are not family-orientated enough. They are more targeted towards businesses. It does not matter whether you are a business or not; its people receiving these Christmas hampers. You want them to be enthralled, delighted, excited, and phoning up or writing to whoever sent it, saying, "Best Christmas hamper I've ever received, thank you." If that happens, we get busier, you get the kudos, and the recipient gets some happiness in their lives. That is what business and sending Christmas hampers is about.