Blog posts tagged with 'dinnerware'

You only get one chance to make a good first impression.

When it comes to sales and retail, visuals are the key element to help you sell your product. Look at it this way, if you were to walk into a bakery and there were two of the same cakes on display, would you pick the one that has very little embellishments, or the one that looks extremely extravagant? Now if you’re a foodie like me, you’d probably take either one (after all, it is cake!) but to everyone else, the cake that looks like a million bucks will probably be the first one to sell. The theory is quite simple; people love things that look great and are more likely to purchase them when they do. Whether its cake or something simple like a plate that’s placed in a gorgeous table setting, it’s a theory I wanted to test in our very own showroom.

The first step to improve any showroom is to know your product. What is it used for? How much does it cost? Is it a popular item? All these questions will help determine how they can be merchandised. My entire first day at National Event Supply was just that, I got to know the product and it was easier for me to determine where everything should go. Keep in mind that your customers will be entering this room and basing their first impression on how your product looks. Make them “ooh” and “aah” over your product and make it easy for them to find what they are looking for.

Moving on to the second step: get creative! Your product may be in great order and starting to look great but it still needs a touch of life or personality. Using props is a great way to emphasize product. Seeing as our showroom is mostly comprised of tableware items, my first instinct was to bring in food! Now it’s not what you think, I didn’t go home that night and bake for hours to bring food into the showroom (although I’m sure my co-workers would’ve liked that), we bought fake food from Two Hot Peppers Inc., a company that makes fake food for merchandising purposes. There is one major reason why you should use fake food instead of real food: real food looks and smells great on the first day, but if you leave it there for more than a couple days, you’ll be attracting more than customers. Amongst other things, fake food has a much better “shelf” life and you’ll be able to use it multiple times and move it around as you please. But don’t let fake food be your only inspiration, feel free to use risers, signage and anything else that will create an atmosphere in your showroom.

Click to enlarge pictures.

This brings me to my last point: stay true to your product. There are so many cool props out there to use for merchandising, but stick to something that will compliment your product, not distract from it. Try to create focal points within your merchandising, and make sure that what you are actually selling is the “hero” in your display. There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a product that really isn’t sold from that store. I’m not saying that you can’t use little accessories here and there to help decorate your display. For example, if you were doing a fall tabletop display and you want to use leaves and put a few apples in the centre for a centerpiece, go for it! Just remember that your product is the most important part of that display and adding too many decorations can be confusing to your customer.

For example, we used a simple pasta dish, a fancy green salad and a bowl of deep red borscht to highlight the versatility and simple elegance of our Hotelier Dinnerware. Our Hotelier line of commercial-grade dinnerware is designed and manufactured to last in a commercial environment. The fake food that we used amplifies the elegance of the simple white pattern, allowing the strength and durability to shine through.

After all that is said and done, tah-dah! You have a beautifully updated showroom. I encourage all of you to try something new in your own showrooms. Be different, be creative and merchandise your product to get people talking about it. And if I can leave one more piece of advice, make sure customers don’t try to eat the fake food, they might break a tooth.

Since I started working at National Event Supply in 2010, we've shipped products across Canada and the United States. We've shipped tables and chairs to Nunavut in the North, and Aruba in the South. We've shipped dinnerware and cutlery to Vancouver, BC and St. John's Newfoundland. Most of the time, there are no problems. The products arrive on time, with no damage. On other occasions, products are lost or are damaged in transit.

When we find out that products are damaged in transit, we typically file a claim with the shipping company. As part of the claims process, the shipping company will refer to the bill of lading. If the customer has signed the bill of lading and has not indicated that there was any damage, the shipping company will typically deny the claim, as there was no damage indicated. This is why skids that ship from our warehouse in Toronto now have stickers on them that read "Inspect for Damage Before Accepting". But what should you be looking for?

4 Things to Look for Before Signing for your Order

Is the plastic skid wrap still intact?

National Event Supply wraps all skids in plastic wrap. For orders coming out of our Mississauga warehouse, we use a black wrap. Indianapolis and Vancouver both use clear wrap. The wrap should be tightly pulled around the products, and there should not be any tears or rips.

Is the pallet damaged?

If the pallet is falling apart or has noticeable damage, take a closer look at the whole skid. It could be that the skid was damaged while it was being loaded or unloaded at the shippers' depots.

Are there any dents or indentations on any of the boxes?

Take a look at the boxes on the skid. If there are holes or a corner is bashed in, then the skid may have been damaged in transit.

Is the skid leaning to one side, or does it look like it could topple over?

If the contents have shifted during shipping, there is a chance that the products within may be damaged.

Click to enlarge pictures.

What to Do if Your Order Arrives Damaged

If you discover that your order is potentially damaged in the course of your inspection, here is what you should do:

Take pictures of the damage while the driver is there. If you can take pictures of the skid on the truck that's even better.

This allows us to show the carrier that the product was damaged while they were responsible for it. It is important that the pictures of the skid are taken before the skid is broken down.

Write down on the Bill of Lading the exact damage that you have discovered and that you will be filing a claim

Be as specific as possible. If the corner is bashed in on the box that is third from the bottom, write that down. The more detail that we can give the shipping company claims department the better. Write down all the damage that you document with pictures.

Don't use the damaged product. Leave it in its box.

If the product is damaged, then you cannot use it. Let us know so that we can get replacement product out to you. Also, make sure that you keep the damaged product in its box at your facility so that if the claims adjuster wants to inspect it he can. If you return the product to us, the claims adjuster can dismiss the claim

Let us know and we will start the claims procedure.

The sooner you email or call us and let us know about the damage, the sooner we can get the ball rolling on the claims process. We'll need the photos that you have taken so we can give them to the shipping company and we'll need to know what happened when the shipping company arrived with your product.

As I wrote earlier, most of the time nothing goes wrong, the products arrive on time and in pristine condition. For those times that they don't however, it is important that you know what you're signing for. It's important to "Inspect for Damage Before Accepting".

The Alberta Foodservice Expo kicked off at 11am on Sunday and there was a steady flow of visitors to our booth along with the many cooking activities on the main culinary stage.

Shortly after the show opening, Richard Toll, the Owner/Executive Chef of ASNA Cooks, stopped by to introduce himself. Richard is actively involved in the Edmonton and Alberta Culinary scene, and on Sunday was one of the judges for the culinary competitions taking place centre stage, right in front of our booth. Richard was also the winner of the Edmonton Iron Chef Competition back in April 2012. We gave him a quick preview of our porcelain products including our very popular Quadrato Dinnerware, our heavy-duty Hotelier Dinnerware, and our extensive range of porcelain platters and bowls. He was also quite interested in some of our 18/10 stainless steel cutlery lines. Richard was excited to discover the possibilities National Event Supply provides to dramatically reduce his porcelain and cutlery purchasing costs. We saw Richard later on when he modelled some new chef uniforms in the fashion show that was sponsored by Canadian Linen & Uniform Service.

Not long after Richard left our booth, we had DJ Parkin, the General Manager of Fandango’s Live Entertainment Saloon, stop by to check out our newest porcelain products along with our best sellers. They’ve been working hard doing renovations at 12912 – 50th Street NW in Edmonton for a little more than 5 months as you can see from their Facebook page, and it looks like they are really close to opening up their new live entertainment saloon. They did have enough time to come and checkout the 2012 Alberta Foodservice Expo though. Congratulations to DJ & Leigh, you guys are so close to your opening after many months of hard work I am sure you can almost taste the beer beginning to flow!

The Apprentice Level Competition took place from 11:15am to 12:15pm on Sunday, while the Team Competition took place later in the afternoon from 2:45pm to 4:45pm. We were honoured to be able to help sponsor the event by providing our most popular selling line of flatware, our Maria line of 18/10 stainless steel cutlery. This line was used by the judges to perform their sample tastings of each of the competitors dishes. In the picture are Judges (from left to right) Chef Doreen Prei (Zinc Restaurant), Chef Richard Toll (ASNA Cooks) and Chef Allana (CCFCC Edmonton).

As we moved into the afternoon, it became apparent to the event organizers they would be needing additional chairs to seat some extra judges that were needed for the Team Competition, so we were pleased to be able to provide Donna Dooher, the Chair of the CRFA, and Adam Saunders, Alberta Membership Sales, with a Silver and a Black Resin Chiavari Chair to help pull off the ‘Event nature’ of the competition. We also provided some of our new wine glasses from our Eclisse line of Stemware to help with the presentation of some very fancy desserts the competitors were making.

Donna Dooher is not only the current Chair of the CRFA but is also a very accomplished Chef and business owner. Here’s a write up and a picture that does Donna much more justice than my quick snapshot prior to the culinary competition at the Alberta Foodservice show. She is also one of the featured Chefs in the ‘I am Restaurant’ video on the front page of the CRFA website.

At the conclusion of the show, attendees, competing chefs and exhibitors were invited to a cocktail and awards presentation party hosted by Chuck Nervick, Senior VP of MediaEdge Communications and Garth Whyte, President & CEO of the CRFA. Prior to the awards presentation, Garth Whyte gave a brief presentation on the significance of the Restaurant sector in Canada. Some of the interesting facts he talked about were: 1.1 million Canadians work in restaurants across Canada with another 260,000 in spinoff jobs, 1 in 4 Canadian will work in the Hospitality Foodservice sector at some point in their life, restaurants contribute 4% to the Canadian GDP and probably the most significant, 18 million Canadians go to a restaurant every day.

All in all it was a very good first day for National Event Supply at the 2012 Alberta Foodservice show.

Rental Management Magazine recently featured an article about Party Reflections based in Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham, NC. They used their creativity to not only help employee morale by fostering a friendly in-house tabletop contest, but also help refresh their showroom and gain web traffic. Originally, Party Reflections let outside clients judge the anonymous tables based on creativity, use of budget, and function. This year, they expanded the judging pool and created a way for this contest to generate more web traffic. Douglas Crowe, CERP, Party Reflections director of sales states:

“In a day and age where the most face-time you get with certain clients is on their Facebook page, the tabletop competition has given us a unique opportunity to draw clients into our store and reiterate the strength of the organization’s staff members and products.”

With today’s market becoming a buyer’s market, event rental companies must think outside the box to attract attention and generate demand. In fact, according to Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch, up to 95% of qualified prospects on your website are there to research and are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep, but as many as 70% of them will eventually buy a product from you – or your competitors.

So how did Party Reflections go about getting the attention of their website visitors utilizing this in-house contest? Photos of the contest were posted online and those who receive the company e-newsletter were invited to vote for their favourite via an online poll. It seems to be working for them also – with over 341 votes online and an uptick in website traffic. Another great way to promote the contest would be through social media like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or Pinterest. Asking people for their opinions is a great way to start a conversation.

This contest has major business benefits associated with it including increased employee morale, the ability to showcase new and notable products like folding cocktail tables, chivari chairs, or wing bowls, both in your showroom and on your website to better entice new and existing clientele, foster participation and retention of existing clientele, as well as creating an uptick in website traffic. Who doesn’t like those benefits?!

Do you have an offline contest like this you could bring online? If not, why not consider creating a contest similar to Party Reflections?

To get started on a contest of your own, you’ll need some solid and reliable tables such as the 6-ft NES Reliable Rectangular Plastic Folding Table with Adjustable Table Legs. These tables would allow your employees to think outside of the box with their ability to adjust from regular table height to a bar table height. You might be pleasantly surprised with the designs they come up with. If you would like additional information about the table, or if you would like to receive a quote on any of our other products, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Welcome back to the third and final part of our three part blog series on the new porcelain items that we have recently added to our wide range of porcelain dinnerware. In this final installment I would like to introduce you to five new products that are fantastic presentation pieces designed to make your table-top pop. Today, I am pleased to introduce our three new Wing Bowls as well as two new sizes of Sloped Bowls.