The Grouptrader Member Spotlight – Prezzybox – the complete online gift solution

James Armitage chats to the owners of Prezzybox

I had the pleasure of meeting the Prezzybox team in a snowy Atherstone, near Tamworth, in early January. Whilst at times the journey through the country lanes to reach Prezzybox HQ resembled the bobsleigh run from Cool Runnings, when I arrived, the team certainly didn’t disappoint.

What is Prezzybox?

Prezzybox is an online marketplace of gifts for every occasion, be it your parents anniversary, partners birthday or even a secret Santa, they have it covered. I’ve previously purchased a couple of gifts from the site and have been really impressed, particularly with the personalised bottle of red wine and gift box. It also got a rave review from the recipient of the gift, who stated that the quality of the wine far exceeded the standard they expected for a novelty bottle of wine.

A gift for all

So we’ve established Prezzybox has lots of cool options for any gifting occasion, but they have to make sure that they get their product offerings right. How do they decide what to sell and what not too? The answer to this is one of the keys to the success of the businesses. Here’s how they ensure the right products:
• Attend every trade show they can physically get to
• Trawl the internet for ideas of what could be the next big thing
• Scour through all the data they can lay their hands on to find market trends
• They also meet with the 300 plus suppliers they regularly deal with, to see what’s new in their box of tricks

That it? Nope, that gets you a big list of possible products but now you need to whittle them down with focus groups, customer engagement and there inventive new solution kid pundits. That’s right, children doing video reviews of products with the utter honesty that only kids can deliver, watch this space for some inevitable comedy gold!

Now that sounds like a lot of really hard work, so the Directors of Prezzybox must be the serious, driven work, work, work types right? Well eh not exactly…

Meet Barney & Zac Edwards

The business started back in 1999 from humble beginnings when Zac was working in product distribution and saw first hand the amount of successful businesses sprouting up in the dotcom boom, and decided he wanted in on the action. Prezzybox was born and has come along way since those early days in borrowed office space. It now boasts a stand a lone office, equipped with its own pack of goats (Yes, I said goats. Why goats? Why not?) and a separate facility for storing and distributing their products. You can tell a lot about the type of people who work at Prezzybox by the response when I asked, ‘What has been your most satisfying moment at work to date?’ The answer was, the day one of their staff, who suffers with cerebal palsy – who they’ve been supporting was signed-off by doctors – no longer needed regular botox injections. What a fantastic reply! Another significant milestone for the business was the first time they gained 100,000 visitors to their website in a single day.

Fun times

So, how did they get from borrowing an office space in 1999 to regularly getting hundreds of thousands of visitors to their site daily? Like many businesses, the answer is by building a great team. Zac and Barney’s know that they’re very fortunate to have a really committed team, which means they can squeeze every penny out the marketing budget available. They make a conscious effort to empower the staff to keep on top of technology, which means they can compete with businesses that have far bigger budgets. 

You may think that this dedicated bunch that work under Zak and Barney are the serious business ones… well, not exactly. There’s no shortage of fun amongst this eclectic bunch too. The team is made up of friends, partners, family members and people who are great at what they do, but certainly enjoy themselves along the way. The teams outside interests include playing in bands, stand-up comics, music journalists, music photographers and the newly promoted netball team named ‘Hoops, I did it again’! I recommend experiencing the mayhem first hand by following them on twitter twitter.com/Prezzybox

Personalised bottle of red wine in gift box, £19.95
Retro Slush Maker makes delicious slushies and soft ice cream! £64.95
Skull Shot Glasses X 4, £9.95

Word  hard...

The Prezzybox mantra is pretty simple, deliver great results whilst having a great laugh. Zac and Barney ensure that this is happening by asking themselves a simple question ‘Is this a place we would want to work ourselves?’

The aim of the business is to be the number one gift site in the country, whilst having great deal of fun along the way.

That is all great but are these bunch of fun seeking goat enthusiasts just kidding around (Oh dear! – Ed). The fact that they’ve just agreed a deal to be one of the key partners in the McDonalds Monopoly 2015 game, suggests they have plenty of business smarts too. They are also one of the latest members to join the Grouptrader Pointsback Club too www.grouptrader.com

So in summary, Prezzybox has two shrewd businessmen at the helm, with a dedicated bunch of staff, who don’t take themselves too seriously and don’t see going to work and having fun as two separate things. But most importantly Prezzybox is the home of great gifts that you should definitely visit www.prezzybox.com