Gift Trade Marketing: The Handbook for Developing, Exhibiting & Selling Giftware

Rating:
Summary: DEFINITELY Worth Buying!
Review: I have read Gift Trade Marketing and have found it to be a VERY useful reference. I am new in the gift industry and didn't know who to ask. The section on gift shows, although 3 years old, is also useful in that it lists contact information, type of product displayed at shows etc. The book is well organized and easy to follow. I highly recommend this book to others.

Rating:
Summary: DEFINITELY Worth Buying!
Review: I have read Gift Trade Marketing and have found it to be a VERY useful reference. I am new in the gift industry and didn't know who to ask. The section on gift shows, although 3 years old, is also useful in that it lists contact information, type of product displayed at shows etc. The book is well organized and easy to follow. I highly recommend this book to others.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly written, disappointing
Review: I just bought a gift manufacturing company. I hoped this book would teach me "everything I needed to know." It did give me a few pieces of information (and any information is great at this point, hence the two stars), but basically the message is "you must use mfr's reps and keep them happy." I think the writer is biased in this way - she owns a rep search firm, so I don't feel I can trust her information. She discussed no alternative methods of marketing except (very briefly) the possibility of attending trade shows. She also wasted my time with lots of useless (warmed-over) information about business plans, marketing plans, etc, that is just not even close the the quality of other small-business books. The list of trade shows in the back might be of some use, but you can get that information elsewhere. In addition, her grammer and spelling and style (overuse of the passive voice, capital letters, and exclamation points, too much (supposedly motivational) "cliche-ish" business advice) are poor and annoying. A self-published book that comes across as amateurish. I think my evaluation of this book will become lower as I learn from other sources. If this was my 500-600th pages of study (rather than my first reading) about the giftware industry, I probably would have been more dissapointed, as I suspect that other sources will be much better. For example, try downloading articles from jiverson.com or craftsreport.com.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly written, disappointing
Review: Jill Ford's book should be read by anyone entering the wholesale gift trade, whether they are a manufacturer or a manufacturer's representative. Any manufacturer considering whether or not to hire an independent rep should read this book which provides all the guidelines for doing so. The appendix containing the sample forms for drafting a rep contract, wholesale price sheets etc. is worth the price of the book alone. I also recommend visiting her website, giftbusiness.com, which is a wonderful resource for anyone in the trade, and subscribing to her free newsletter.

Rating:
Summary: A most read for giftware reps and manufacturers alike.
Review: Jill Ford's book should be read by anyone entering the wholesale gift trade, whether they are a manufacturer or a manufacturer's representative. Any manufacturer considering whether or not to hire an independent rep should read this book which provides all the guidelines for doing so. The appendix containing the sample forms for drafting a rep contract, wholesale price sheets etc. is worth the price of the book alone. I also recommend visiting her website, giftbusiness.com, which is a wonderful resource for anyone in the trade, and subscribing to her free newsletter.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth buying
Review: This information can be found in any biz start-up book or on the internet. This book has 232 pages, 95 of which were wasted on "Gift Show Surveys". They're form pages filled in on different wholesale shows around the country. The information, show dates, est. attendees and fees are outdated as the book is three years old. I got more accurate information from going to wholesale shows, calling for exibitor packets and talking to people in the industry (this also created a networking circle for me). The author also writes in such a serious, superior form, you feel like she wanted just to write, "Don't waste your time getting into this industry, you'll never make it". It seems to me she was detailing what an ideal client should be for reps. She even had one of her business cards tucked in for her rep search site, kind of cheesy.