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P.G.D.M µD¶

BUSINESS PLAN ON:

PERSONALIZED GIFTING AND CORPORATE GIFTING

COMPANY NAME: LASTING IMPRESSIONSSS

NAME ROLL. NO.

PALAK AGARWAL 01

NIDHI BHATIA 08

ARPIT DOSHI 16

HARSHIL GADANI 18

DARSHAN GANDHI 19

ADITI JIWARAJKA 26

RUBY MITRUKA 37

INTRODUCTION



Gifting has been an old trend which has been followed over the years. Why do people gift each

other..??..It is basically a medium to express ones feelings for their near and dear ones. However, it

became very monotonous as people started gifting the same typical boring gifts to their friends and

family. We capitalized on this particular phenomenon and thereby came up with the concept of starting our own venture to provide customized gifts to our customers.

What could be more special than getting a personalized gift from someone? When it comes to gifting,

nothing compares to bespoke personalized gifts, custom-made for some one. The beauty of

personalized gifts is creating something very special and unique for your friends & family.

Personalized gifts make quite an impression. These personalized gifts will let your family and friends

know that you took the extra time to find a special gift just for them.

Not only for gifting friends and family, but also corporate have greatly adopted the trend of presenting

their clients with customized gifts. These gifts can act as a powerful medium to show your customers,associates and employees that you are a professional business. Just like a personalized letter,

personalized gifts help your associates realize that you care about them.

LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS: Presents a line of varied personalized gift ideas that will enliven the

lives of the recipients. We arrange for a gamut of personalized gifts suitable for gifting to all; be it

customized calendars, wall clocks, key chains, mugs, t-shirts, crystals, Rubik boxes etc.

Thus, as the demand for personalized gifts has tremendously increased we have initiated our own

venture LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS to capitalize on this increasing demand trend. Let us now tread

the path of our journey«.



LASTING IMPRESSIONSSS

- ³Brings sparkle in the eyes of your loved ones´

CONCEPT

³Brings sparkle in the eyes of your loved ones´

The concept of our venture is that of personalized gifts.

VENTURE NAME

LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS

GOAL / OBJECTIVE

Our goal is to µto be a one stop destination for personalizing all gifts¶

Company- About Us:

We are a corporate & personalized gifting company that caters with truly unique products for people

who enjoy collecting and for those discriminating shoppers who like to give unique gifts.

Mission:

Lasting Impression¶sss is a specialty personalized & corporate gifting boutique that specializes in"one-of-a-kind" merchandise not commonly found in the larger retail market. We are dedicated to

providing customers exceptional customer service in a visibly relaxing and engaging shoppingenvironment. Our mission is to provide customers with unique, high-quality merchandise at

affordable prices.

Vision:

Our process of churning out the finished product is the outcome of an integrated and cohesive team

work. Our creative and innovative designers are striving to meet the upcoming demands of thecustomers by offering products. To help customers in self- expressing which the desire to be unique

and express is it by providing personalized products.



The People

Management Team

Client Servicing Executives:

Aditi Jiwarajkar : Completed B.M.S from NM college, specialization in finance, have organized

various events and promotional activities for various brands and non-profit organization, also workedas a trainee at manufacturing unit named JTI.

Nidhi Bhatia: A B.com Graduate, currently pursing Post graduation at CIMR along with M.com. Havea worked across diverse industry segments ranging across event management & promotions and

exports of industrial goods, having a rich experience of over 2 years.

Procurement Department:

Arpit Doshi: Completed B.M.S with specialization in finance, participated is various activities as wellas worked for four months in a company named M/s Little Motors - an whole sellers in auto square

parts.

Creative Department:

Palak Agrawal: B.Sc. (IT) Graduate pursuing Post Graduation at CIMR. Innovative thinker wherein Ican help people with new ideas for personalized gifts as well as corporate gifting.

Accounts & Finance:

Harshil Gadani: A B.M.S graduate with experience of four moths in J.P Morgan under Securities

Department in Mutual Funds.

Darshan Gandhi: Currently Pursuing PGDM, B.M.S with specialization in Finance, one year

experience as Client Acquisition Officer in M/s Asit C. Mehta.

Compensation:

We have agreed to that, the sales executives will be awarded with a certain % (to be decided) of

commission on sales for his/her efforts. Further, each member would get an equal share of the

remaining margin. This is done with a view to encourage team work.



The Industry

Trends:

Nearly nine in 10 people (88.5%) buy at least one personalized gift every year since they have more

disposable income and more people i.e. parents, children, grandchildren and friends to buy for.

Baby Boomers are the biggest purchasers of personalized gifts.

The most popular gift occasions to give personalized gifts are:

� Birthdays (27.9%)

� Christenings (15.8%)

� New babies (12.8%)

� Anniversaries (8.6%)

� Mothers Day (8.5%)

� Christmas (6.6%)

� Father¶s Day (6.3%)

� Weddings (5.2%)

� Valentine¶s Day (4.4%)

� Engagements (4.0%)

The highest numbers of personalized gifts are given to partners/spouses (63.1%), friends (43.8%),

children (43.1%), parents (40.0%), and nieces/nephews (24.6%)

TOP TRENDS IN PERSONALIZED AND CORPORATE GIFTING

Poems: M any people are placing orders to have their original poems or other poetry engraved in

crystal vases, marble plaques, plates, and wine bottles. These poems are often romantic or heartfelt

poems honoring a family member or other loved one.

Engraved Caricatures: Customers can simply email us a picture and our caricature artist will create a

sketch. We¶ll send you an email proof and fine tune the caricature, once the design has been finalized

we will engrave and hand paint the caricature into wine bottles or black marble plaques.



Personalized Glassware / Mugs: People no longer seem to be content with mugs and wine glasses

with the standard ³World¶s Greatest Boss.´ Today they prefer to write their own message; ³Jamey,

you are the best boss, thanks for your help with the µMagic Project.¶´ We are happy to engrave

personalized messages in all types of glassware.

Engraved Vases: Beautiful vases are hard to find and even harder to find if you want to have

something engraved on them. The vase has to provide an area large enough to allow for engraving and

be designed well.

Customized artwork: Customers requests that we engrave designs that are special to them, such as

family crests, specific designs for weddings and anniversaries, even book covers.

CURRENT GIFTING TRENDS

Nowadays be it any occasion ± birthdays, anniversaries etc, the first thing that would come to

ones¶ mind while thinking of gifts would be to personalize it for their close ones to add that

personal touch. It could be anything from personalized photo frames, mugs, wall clocks,

pillows, chocolates, perfumes, calendars etc.

FUTURE OF THIS MARKET

The future has immense potential for this market. Newer and newer products are being added

to the basket of personalized gifts. For e.g. personalizing laptop bags, school bags for kids,

files etc.

There is a huge market for such gifts and since the trend of gifting will never cease this market

will continue to grow in the future.



COMPETITION

In recent times, the market of personalized gifts has seen many new entrants. A no. of players are

already involved in the personalized gifts venture. Some of these are:

1. Feelings

Located at Parle west with many colleges around it such as N.M, Mithibai, UPG and various

other engineering colleges around it. It is one of the student¶s favorite destinations for

personalizing gifts.

2. Other outlets such as Tohfa, Print Stop etc

Similar to feeling these outlets too offer a variety of personalized gifts to suit one¶s needs.

3. Web sites

There are various web sites such as gifts4u.com, picsquare.com that offer customers a wide

range of customized gifts. Customers can log on to the websites, choose among the various

products available, submit a picture if needed, make payment through a credit card and the

product is shipped to the customers within a period of 7-10 days.

These competitors have an edge over us due to their relatively wider experience over us as well

as because of the fact that they enjoy customer loyalty. And not just these, there are more and

more entrants in the market as the popularity of personalized gifts continue to rise.

LAUNCH STRATEGY

As many competitors already existed while entering the market for personalized gifts, being a new

player in this segment it was essential to have a strong launch strategy to distinguish our venture from

that of the other players. The launch strategy adopted by LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS

PENETRATIVE PRICING:

Penetrative pricing basically is to enter the market by keeping our products low priced and once

successfully established after a reasonable period of time to gradually increase the price. Thus, our

launch strategy we adhered to was low pricing initially and this did give us a competitive edge over

other players in the same market.



RISKS IN THE VENTURE

There are no major risks involved in this venture since we haven¶t borrowed funds from any investor

as we do not need any major financial investment since ours is a service. Thus there are no major

financial risks, however there is a strong risk of non acceptability of our venture since we are a

relatively new entrant plus because of the fact that we do not have a place of our own neither do wehave a web site where customers can get in touch with us.

SWOT ANALYSIS

1. STRENGTHS

y Personal touch:

Personalized gifts help to add that personal touch to the typical boring gifts. It helps to foster

and further make the relationship bonds stronger.

y USP(Unique selling proposition):

The USP of the product is the biggest strength of our product. This is what differentiates our

product from the typical traditional gifts.The unique selling proposition of our venture is our

innovative designing which differentiates us from our competitors.

y Increasing awarenessToday there is increasing awareness than in the past for such products. Today the market is notjust restricted to the youth but the market segmentation has immensely widened to include

even the other age groups like the middle-aged people.

y Increasing demand

Earlier personalizing gifts turned out to be extremely expensive but it was only restricted to the

elite class group. However as new players entered this segment with their low pricing strategy,

this has now become affordable to everyone including college-goers. Thereby, the demand for

customized gifts has increase tremendously.

2. WEAKNESS

y Cost

Personalized gifts are priced higher than normal gifts because of the value addition made to the

product. Hence people might not have the ability to afford the high priced products.

y Time durationPersonalized gifts require considerable amount of time for designing, hence a person who is in

a hurry and is pressing for time would rather pick up a normal gift that is available instantly.



y Tangible display of products

Since we don¶t have a place of our known, we cannot tangibly display our products. This is

where shops like Feelings, Tohfa have an advantage over us. Also customers can only get in

touch with us through the internet or the telephone and a face to face contact can take place

only through prior contact.

y Dependence on partnersWe are basically involved in the designing of the product. However for customizing it on the

gifts we are dependent on our partners.

3. OPPORTUNITIES

y Widening of market segments

Earlier personalized gifts were largely popular amongst the youth ± i.e. students, college goers

etc. However, of late even adults have started customizing their gifts.

y Increasing no. of products

Earlier the no. of products that were customized were limited to mugs, photo frames etc.

However more and more products can be customized today to suit one¶s requirements.

y The scope to launch our own web site

Currently our presence on the web is limited to our blog and social networking websites such

as facebook, orkut etc. However as we know today going online is the easiest way to reach out

to large number of consumers. At the same time it also provides customers the convenience to

reach us from the comfort of their homes.

4. THREATS

y Growing competition

Competition from outlets like feelings, i- feel, Tohfa etc is a grave threat to the growth of our

venture. Already they have an upper hand over us due to the fact that they started if prior to us.

y Resistance to change

Certain customers may still prefer the traditional gifts over personalized ones. We shall have to

adopt various strategies in order to win over such customers.



POSITIONING

Positioning is creating a favorable impression in the minds of the target segment so that it enables

them to remember our product. We have positioned our venture LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS by

keeping our products at a lower price as compared to other market players in the segment of

personalized goods. Thus, with the help of lower pricing we have a competitive edge over our competitors.

SEGMENTATION

An organization many not satisfy the needs and wants of all consumers. Segmentation is simply the

process of dividing a particular market into sections, which display similar characteristics or behavior.

In order to make the task of marketing and promotion easier we segmented our market on the basis of

the following variables:

a. Age Group

Initially we started off by segmenting our potential customers as the youth. This was done as

according to our study and analysis it is basically the teenagers of today who are extremely

enthusiastic about gifting customized gifts to their friends or family.

However, as time passed by, we witnessed the widening of the market segment to include even

the people who are middle aged. Personalized gifts is something whose trend is not restricted

to only the youth but spreads across a wide range of people as relationships never cease to exist

and in order to enhance them further and also to add that value-added personal touch,

customized gifts is the only way to do so.

b. Income

Since our products are priced lower than our competitors, unlike other market players in this

segment, out target audience also includes low income and middle income people along with

the elite class group. For example, college-goers whose pocket money is very low can think of

coming to Memories: The Treasure Chest where he does not have to shell out too much money

to gift a customized gift to his friends and family.

c. Corporate and normal customers

Along with taking individual orders, we also take bulk orders from corporate who want to gifttheir clients or employees customized mugs, t-shirts, etc. Thus, by way of organized

segmentation, promotion becomes easier and helps to increase our sales and acquire a market

share in this upcoming industry.



4P¶S OF MARKETING

1. PRODUCT

Mugs, Frames, Collages, Calendars, Newspaper, Wall clocks,Video CD. with CD. cover and

sticker, Key chains, Rubik cube, T-shirts, Banners, Chocolates, Scrapbook,etc.

Packaging

Packaging is very essential to give a cover to the customized gifts that one places order for. As

our items and products like mugs, crystals are extremely delicate and fragile they need to be

handled with care. While transporting it to the customer, care needs to be taken that no damage

is caused during transit to the products. Thus our packaging is extremely sturdy. There is a

thick cardboard box used in order to protect the product from breaking.

Also, we write our company name LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS along with our contact no on

the packaging. This is useful when the same customer wants to revert back to us in case of any

problem i.e. after sales service is provided. Also, helps in retaining the existing customers and

when the same customers present these customized gifts to their near and dear ones; it acts as a

promotion strategy for our venture and helps us to become easily accessible to the potential

customer.

2. PRICE

Price refers to the value attached to the product. The customer's perception of value is animportant determinant of the price charged. Customers draw their own mental picture of what a

product is worth. A product is more than a physical item; it also has psychological

connotations for the customer. We have adopted a strategy of pricing our products significantly

lower than most of our competitors. It is a penetrative strategy to a certain extent since we are

adopting a low pricing strategy in order to attract customers and we shall gradually raise our

prices as our popularity rises and there is increasing awareness of the kind of products that we

offer.



Price list

Considering the pricing of the product cost as well as the pricing of our competitors the pricing

is set. PRODUCT PRICE (Rs.)

MUGS 200

FRAMES A4- 300 A3- 500

COLLAGE DESIGNING 99 ONWARDS

CALENDARS 650

NEWSPAPERS (4 PGS) 230

WALL CLOCKS(DESIGNING) 99 ONWARDS

CD¶s ( 10 ± 15 VIDEO) 250

KEY CHAINS 99 ONWARDS

RUBIK¶S CUBE 150

T- SHIRTS 450 ONWARDS

BANNERS (4 X 6) 450

CHOCOLATES 200 ONWARDS

SCRAP BOOKS 250 ONWARDS

3. PLACE

Initially we would operate from our own home. The advantage is that we save on our initial

investment of hiring or buying a new place for our venture. However, this also at times serves as a

disadvantage. Firstly, we are not easily accessible to our customers and they can make contact with us

only through the e-mail and telephone mode of communication. Secondly, tangible display of products

is not possible thus customers have to make a decision to buy our products based on the catalogue

photos and also a few samples made for our previous customers.

We would outsource the purchase of products like plain T-shirts and mugs and also the printing on

these products to our partner I Feel. The designing of the customer¶s photographs is done by us as per

their tastes and preferences and printing of products like calendars or collages are also done by us at

our own place.



4. PROMOTION

Promotion involves disseminating information about a product, product line, brand, or company. It is

one of the four key aspects of the marketing mix. Initially many players were involved in this market

segment and hence we had to face immense competition from them. Being a new player, it was

extremely essential to create awareness about our existence and how we stand apart from the normalrun-of-the-mill players in the market. Thus with the help of the following promotion strategies adopted

by us we spread awareness and thus were able to receive orders to be placed thereby increasing our

sales as also our profitability.

Some of the promotion techniques followed by us since the start of our venture are as follows:

a. Word- of -mouth

Our main PR (Public relations) strategy was that we promoted our products through word of

mouth marketing. It is not only the cheapest method of promotion, but also the most effective.

Just viewing the banner of some company does not influence a potential customer as much as

the recommendation and appreciation by a personal acquaintance. Thus, we capitalize on word

of mouth marketing to a great extent and we have even received maximum orders with the help

of this strategy.

b. Banners

Conventional method of promotion by placing our banner during events at a strategic place

where it was visible to all the people entering. The banner having the details of our entireproduct list and logo including our contact number so that interested and potential customers

could easily get in touch to buy our products for the near and dear ones.

c. Social networking sites

Nowadays, the best form of promotion to target the youth is through social networking

websites, orkut and facebook. Creating our own community there and used these websites to

create maximum awareness about our new venture among our contact list as well all the people

enrolled in such sites. This strategy too will provide us to be very successful as people would

reverted back to us on the site by asking us many questions regarding our products and thereby

this would help us convert our potential customers to actual customers.

d. Tie-up with Just dial services

We would have a tie-up with just dial service wherein if anyone calls them to ask about

personalized gifts we have registered our company name and contact number with just dial

service. They, thus, help in promotion for our venture among all the people calling them up for

contact numbers.



e. SMS¶es to database

We would enroll ourselves with www.way2sms.com Thus, sending SMSes is free of cost to us.

Also it helps in creating awareness among the numerous people we send our messages to. This

includes all the contacts we know of and also random database of college festivals which

includes the correct target audience indulging into buying of such customized gifts.

f. Promotion during events (announcements)

We plan to make a few announcements during a few events in order to create awareness about

our company and try to attract our potential customers.

g. Promotion with the aid of a blog

We would created our own internet blog. This blog talks about why one should go in for

personalized gifts instead of the normal typical boring gifts. Also it gives details about our

entire product list along with our company name and contact number. Thus anyone witnessingour blog become aware of our company and thus reverts back to us thereby placing orders with

us.

h. Promotion during college festivals

We plan to promote our venture through our very own college festivals by distributing

pamphlets and putting up posters during the festival to attract the participants coming in during

the festival.

i. Internet communication through e-mails

Lastly, we also promoted our venture by sending e-mails to potential customers which talked

about out venture our product list and contact number.

1. Product Or Service:

Our plan is of Personalized and corporate gifting. We provide you with the innovative ideas for gifting to your colleagues, friends, family and all the loved ones.

Buy Corporate Gifts, Personalized Gifts in your price range. Our unlimited and huge choice of

Innovative corporate gifts & merchandise are cost effective, time guaranteed, service & qualityguaranteed.

We have team of Professional artists and as well as support team to make sure that the order placed bycustomers are taken care right from the beginning till the delivery of the product.

We are committed to protecting the privacy of the customer.



USP:

Our USP is in our unique gifting ideas, personalized service, gift advisory service and the detailedpersonalization done in products.

× Deep understanding of which gift suits which occasion & relationship and providing theservice of gift advice to our customers.

× Creating gift products which are personalized for customers in a unique manner adding lot of

meaning & value to it and not just a photo print.

× Being able to suggest a completely new gift idea to suit their specific requirement so that no

one walks out without making a purchase.

× Being a company which is providing a personalized gifting service starting from advising onwhat is the perfect for an occasion to creating the product for a customer.´

The store provides a whole range of gift items with personalized gift products that will customize

products based on name, photographs and templates over products like t-shirt, mugs, key chains and

greeting cards that will discriminate the store from other gift stores.

The Markets

Market research:

Secondary research- looking at various websites to collect information about market competitors,

their pricing strategies, their products, etc.

Primary research- making telephonic calls to corporate for seeking information about gifting policies

and having personalized logo of their company on products.



Marketing and sales strategy:

Our target market would be people of all age groups as gifting is a part and parcel of every

individual¶s life. Whereas our main target group would be the youth segment of the society, startingwith youngsters of Mumbai.

We are hoping that with the correct marketing strategies we should be able to reach out to maximum

youth population. Beginning from targeting schools and colleges of different areas.

Our initial expenditure would be related with advertising ourselves with the help of print media,

pamphlets, word of mouth, promoting at various exhibitions. Following are our marketing strategies at

initial level:

× Promoting ourselves at schools and colleges.

× Distributing pamphlets inside daily newspaper.× Promoting on various social networking sites.

× Spreading through word of mouth.

× Setting up stalls at college canteens and schools.

× Setting up stalls at various exhibitions and fun n fairs.

× Reaching out to various corporate for corporate tie-ups.

× Special tie-ups on occasions like wedding season, friendships day, children¶s day, Christmas,

etc.

Target customer & life style: The target segment for the store that keeps paramount importance are

the college going students followed by newly married couples, children and everyone who enjoys the

occasion by gifting to their dear ones. The target base is educated, information seeker, updated and

enjoy occasion and share gifts. There needs and usage are based on different occasions like parties.



FINANCIAL PLAN ESTIMATION

Start-up Summary:

These figures are based on monthly and start-up expenses needed to open and functionally operate the

gift store. The capital needed will come from all members of management.

Start-up

Requirements

Start-up Expenses

Advertising 4500

Delivery Costs 4500Telephone Landline 1800

Cellular Phone 3000

Utilities and Internet 3000

Legal 3000

Office Supplies 6000

Professional Fees 2000

Licenses and Permits 3000

Total Start-up Expenses 30800

Start-up Assets

Cash Required 29200

Total Assets 29200

Total Requirements 60000



PROJECTED CASH-FLOW

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Cash from Operations

Cash Sales 240000 300000 375000

Additional Cash Received

Sales Tax, VAT Received 16800 21000 26250

Subtotal Cash Received 256800 321000 401250

Expenditures Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Expenditures from Operations

Cash Spending 30000 67500 81000

Bill Payments 240000 672195 760365

Subtotal Spent on Operations 270000 1122195 1300365

Additional Cash Spent

Sales Tax, VAT, HST/GST Paid

Out16800 21000 26250



Subtotal Cash Spent 968880 1199580 1387785

Net Cash Flow 80070 103215 170130

Cash Balance 105070 208285 378415

Break-even Analysis

Monthly Revenue Break-even 67311

Assumptions:

Average Percent Variable Cost 42%

Estimated Monthly Fixed Cost 33000

LASTING IMPRESSION¶SSS will cross Break-even in the 1 year itself.

CONCLUSION

The project was an extremely enriching and learning experience. It gave us an amazing opportunity to

showcase our entrepreneurial talent and potential at the grass root level. This further made us more

efficient in computer software¶s and technology, and also provided us with marketing, public relations

(PR) skills and gave us an insight as to how a small business is started and carried out. It has also

enabled to boost our confidence to pursue a similar project in the near future as it would certainly bea

profitable venture at the end of the day.

lasting impression'sss

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