When to Order Diwali Corporate Gifts

Bulk gifting fails on logistics far more often than on taste. The gift is fine; it simply arrives late, and a Diwali gift that arrives after Diwali is a reminder that you were disorganised.

Two things compress at the end: manufacturing capacity and courier capacity. Both get worse in the final fortnight, at the same time.

Six weeks out: decide the shape

Agree headcount, budget per head, and whether tiers differ by seniority. This is also the moment to check whether your clients' companies have gift policies that cap value.

Four to five weeks out: order a sample

Hold one in your hands before committing to two hundred. Photographs flatter everything. A sample also tells you how it packs, which matters when you are shipping to fifty addresses.

Three to four weeks out: place the bulk order

This is the comfortable window for stock items in quantity. Confirm the delivery addresses now, particularly for remote staff — collecting addresses reliably takes longer than anyone expects.

Three weeks out: the personalisation deadline

Personalised gifts are made to order, so they need the longest lead time. If names are going on the gifts, the name list has to be final at this point — not the concept, the actual spellings.

Our guide to personalising a watch box covers what to put on it.

Ten days out: dispatch for clients

Client gifts should land a week or so before the festival. Anything dispatched inside the final week is at the mercy of courier volumes.

The final week

Assume nothing new can be arranged. Use it for handovers of the gifts you are giving in person, and for chasing deliveries that have not landed.

If you are already late

Choose stock items rather than personalised ones, keep the list short, and prioritise the relationships that matter most. A good gift to twenty people beats a rushed gift to two hundred.

Tell us your headcount, budget and date on the bulk orders page and we will tell you plainly what is achievable.