PPE & Beyond: What’s Selling Now
Gemline’s DeShaun Diggs, VP Account Management, and Suzanne Simpson, Account Manager, joined REBOUND-20 to demonstrate how the company has adapted to the unforeseen changes over the last several months and how companies can do the same by putting an emphasis on client experience and customer retention, along with delivering the most impactful products.
Prior to COVID-19, Gemline released their 2020 trend predictions. The trends focused on wellness and mindfulness, the “worklife” scape, or the ability to work out of a designated living space, and how tech products and team synergy work together to increase connectivity from anywhere. As the pandemic set in, Gemline was forced to reevaluate their predicted global trends. Despite the changes in the world and the industry, Gemline realized the trends hadn’t changed much at all. The pandemic and the domino effect that it caused throughout the economy, with much of the workforce learning how to effectively work from home almost overnight, society emphasizing the importance of mental and physical health while being under stay-at-home orders and the world relying on technology to communicate with coworkers, family and friends, made the need for these types of products even greater than before.
In addition to framing this year’s trends, they provided several recent case studies in the corporate/working from home, service/education and experiences sectors. Gemline has found that wellness products promoting relaxation or healthy eating habits, items that increase productivity and decrease distractions in the home environment and rewards, from a simple thank you card to a cooler full of goodies, have received an overwhelmingly positive response from recipients confined to their home environments. In the service and education fields, thoughtfulness and necessity both play big roles in the success of products. Providing personalized reusable bottles to healthcare workers with an inspirational quote on them, coolers big enough to fit multiple meals and snacks for logistics workers and practical organizational tools and equipment for those in education have all proven to be great successes. While many major experiences, such as real estate transactions and travel, have been downplayed due to COVID-19, companies have been able to help ease the disappointment with a variety of products, from welcome home gift baskets for new property owners to build-your-own taco totes and virtual gatherings in place of destination incentive trips.
Despite the disruption in the industry over the past few months, Gemline’s predicted global trends are still relevant and are arguably even more important now than they were prior to the pandemic. Knowing what’s working right now is crucial to the continued development of impactful business, and Gemline provided an array of products that have been proven successful across multiple industries. What can we expect from Gemline moving forward? As always, we will see quality in content, education and partnership.
