Gifts From Handpicked

Gifts from Handpicked at the Spring Fair, NEC Birmingham 3rd - 7th February 2019

Spring Fair 3rd – 7th February 2019

 

We took Gifts from Handpicked to the Spring Fair this year, hoping to find new and exciting suppliers and see new products from existing suppliers. With a bright and early start we made our way to Birmingham to the NEC where the annual show is held.

 

The Spring Fair is the UK’s sourcing marketplace - connecting retailers, exhibitors and marketers. There are 15 carefully edited show sectors, including Jewellery & Watch, Greetings and Gift, Home, Kitchen & Dining, Childrens Gifts and Toys, Garden and lots more! With 2,500 UK and international exhibitors showing what they have to offer we certainly had a lot of walking to do.

 

We visited around 4/5 halls throughout the day finding our existing suppliers and browsed others as we walked around. We added to our ever-popular suppliers hoping these will be a great addition to our ranges.

 

After a coffee to get us ready for the long day (well hot chocolate), how could we not spot the Rachel Ellen stand when we walked the stalls in the first hall we went into. Full of it’s bright colours and childrens gifts we were drawn into making a nice order of all their new bits. Putting names to faces at the stands throughout the day too, it was lovely to meet people we email most days. Seeing all Rachel Ellen’s new products displayed like a shop was great, if only our warehouse looked so organised and colour coordinated!

 

 

 

We found some lovely new bits at The Artfile stand, adding to our popular collection of address and birthday books, notebooks and stationery. And we picked the most gorgeous wrapping paper for out gift-wrapping service!! Keep your eyes peeled for some new bee and constellation themed stationery coming soon!

 

We’ve added new ranges to our best-selling Scrabble Placemats and Coasters…look out for these in the next few months, adding personalised bags and notebooks to the range. We love the idea of family’s kitchen tables decorated in personalised initial coasters and placemats from Gifts from Handpicked, these make great gift ideas too. We also do a Mr & Mrs set which makes a lovely engagement or wedding gift.

We headed to Widdop for a quick refuel (free drinks and sweets are a no brainer, must haves for an energy boost for all the walking we did). We browsed the new ranges, some great mens ranges to come soon! We loved their colourful, organised displays, take a look at this gorgeous birthdays range. With new Disney themed ranges and baby too their stand definitely gave us some ideas!

 

 

We then visited United Odd Socks as we heard they’d got some new socks in!! With llama, cactus, unicorn, dinosaur and cycling just some of the socks new for 2019 we can’t wait to get these in the building and on sale. We chatted about all sorts of funny sock sets and even saw their new CHRISTMAS, yes Christmas in February!!, sets which we can’t wait for. Always a laugh to be had with the United Odd Socks staff.

  

 

Time for food...the best part of the day! There’s loads of food stalls at the show dotted all around. We went for a pizza! Sat and browsed the catalogue and devised out next plan of action and how to get to the stalls we wanted to see.

 

We visited Shoeless Joe who we did really well with this Christmas, their nautical homeware decorations are popular too, great for decorating your home and bathroom. Shoeless Joe are also from Lincolnshire so a local business for us.

   

 

Gisela Graham and Heaven Sends displayed their homeware, Christmas and Easter ranges and we were able to see some items we’d ordered ready for Easter 2019!! Their stalls are like a show home, all displayed and set out so nice. And again, more fuel stops of free biscuits and drinks.

 

    

 

We visited lots of brands throughout the day and could see the trends of cactus’s, Llama’s, unicorn’s and flowers becoming very popular in 2019. We can’t wait to get all our new products listed, in time for Easter and Mother’s Day which are out next occasions. A successful day all round, apart from the M6 toll we accidently ended up on on the way home (nearly twice thanks to the Sat Nav!!).