Top Sellers Flying Off The Shelf

Well things are starting to get a little busier and our elves are packing up the gifts in preparation for the Christmas orders. I love this time of year!

So what's been popular this month?

Big Chocolate Box - $49 including postage

Well it's hardly a surprise is it. Our one kilo box of chocolates is popular with all age groups - and no, you don't have to share if you don't want to! Contents vary but generally include M&M's, Freckles, Clinkers, chocolate bullets, chocolate buds, Cobbers, Fantales, Turkish delight, Jaffas and Smarties.

Little Sweetie Gift Hamper - $50 including delivery

This one kilo gift hamper includes five different kinds of lollies to tempt and delight. It is delivered in fabulous and fun packaging with a personalised gift tag if necessary. No wonder this has been popular!

Nibbles For Everyone - $50 including delivery

You guys definitely have great taste. This hamper includes a chocolate assortment, savoury bites, pretzels, grissini, shortbread and chocolate mint leaves. What a treat!

Medium Sweet Tooth Gift Box - $29 including delivery

This little gift is one of my favourites. It holds half a kilo of mixed lollies and chocolates to enjoy and share. The chocolate and lolly assortment includes Smarties, Jelly Babies, Snakes, Raspberries, Musk Sticks, Chicos, Frogs and Peanut Clusters. Our Just Lollies selection comes a very close second.

Bon Appetit Gift Hamper - $145 including delivery

A number of our recipients have been very fortunate to have received this fantastic Bon Appetit Gift Hamper. It includes an assortment of products that will look great in any kitchen. Gifts include Maggie Beer Olive Oil, Cabernet Paste, Madura Chai Tea, Vivani Organic Orange Chocolate, Bonjour de France Brie!

All I Want For Christmas...

The Christmas orders have started to come in – both the corporate and the regular gift orders and it is such a fun time for us. And busy – did we mention busy. Here are some other meanings that we connect with this colourful time of year.

C is for Chocolate

And we have lots of it. From hot chocolate hampers to delicious hampers filled with just chocolate, you can definitely cater for all those sweet tooths in your life with our extensive array of chocolate gifts. One of the best things is that we also offer lots of new products around Christmas time to add some variety to your gift giving. So, keep checking back regularly for more ideas.

H is for Hampers

But we don’t just have chocolate hampers. We have wine hampers, cooking hampers, lolly hampers, coffee hampers and more. The variety of our gifts is what makes browsing our gifts so fun. Beer hampers, scotch hampers, port hampers, non-alcoholic hampers – the most challenging thing is deciding on which hamper to buy.

R is for Rosé

Such a lovely drop to consume before and after Christmas. It’s not white, and it’s not red! Rosé is pink in tone, and is great for barbecues and get-togethers. Many of our gift hampers such as our Gourmet Picnic Hamper features a bottle of Rosé and it is ideal for a summertime drop. Especially when it arrives with so many other goodies as well!

I is for Italian food

I love Australia’s multiculturism and the fact that we can enjoy such a variety of food wherever we go. I personally love Italian food and am so glad we have such beautiful gifts in store to represent its culinary influences on our great country. Check out our Italian Homemade Pasta Hamper, Pizza Perfection Hamper and Homemade Pizza Gift Hamper.

S is for Special

This is how our gifts make people feel when they arrive. All of our hampers feature so many wonderful treats that it is hard to contain the glee when they are opened. This is our favourite part of the job – seeing and hearing the reactions when our hampers grace the doorsteps of those all over Australia. We can’t help but feel a bit like the jolly old man himself.

T is for Tea

Christmas is a time for a meetups and what better way to spend it than over a cup of tea. We even have an Afternoon Tea Hamper to honour the early British traditions of afternoon and morning tea. Whether you want to chat with friends and family, there is no better time of year to catch up with those near and dear.

M is for Merry

A merry holiday is guaranteed with many of our champagne, wine and beer hampers. It doesn’t matter whether you are into international beers or cider, or a bottle of red wine or white wine, the choice is yours. Many of our beer and wine gifts also come with a selection of delicious snacks and treat which will ensure they are a guaranteed winner.

A is for Any Time

Online shopping means you can shop any time of the day or night. You can order your Christmas gifts at your convenience, and they can be delivered as close to the 25^th December as possible to ensure they arrive on time. There are no last-minute shopping sprees – you can be as organised as you need to be and find time to relax and hang out with your loved ones.

S is for Sweet

While we do have many savoury gifts, the popular ones tend to be our sweeter gifts. The lolly and chocolate boxes have been shopper favourites ever since we opened our doors all those years ago. Our gifts are still the quirky alternative to flowers, which makes our shoppers come back time and time again. For that, we are incredibly grateful.

X is for...Xerox

Xerox - a copy, a duplicator

Glad I found a word starting with X that I could use, I was starting to think I'd have to share some of the families x-rays!

I've been copying and copied in business since I began. I didn't invent gift boxes or hampers and never professed to have what I did was get ideas from other businesses and went with it. I lent towards the sweeter side of gifts as I am a very unapologetic CHOCOHOLIC! I had seen on a website relating more to travel than gifts, selling a gift box of lolly bananas and snakes and that's where the spark of an idea started. I 'copied' their idea and turned it into Rainbow Designs :-)

For the first few years all of my gifts were made and sent by me and all were someway lolly or chocolate based. I did try a few alternate gifts which bombed. haha. So they didn't last long! Then after being in business for about 2-3 years I approached a couple of gift hamper business with the proposal of 'drop shipping' their hampers, or some of the hampers. I didn't want to copy their hampers I wanted to use their hampers as I knew they knew what they were doing and didn't think I could improve them anyway. After a few hiccups and misadventures I am now working with one (fantastic) gift hamper business who produce amazing hampers of which my customer have become to order regularly and love. They do differ from my sweet tooth theme I originally started out with but, for the most part, they all have some sort of relationship to confectionery, sweetness, chocolate or lollies.

Nuts About Sweets - $60 delivered

Copying outright with no regard or thought the the originator of an idea or product is just plain wrong and rude! It takes a LOT of time, money and guts to produce something only for it to been stolen and copied by someone else. It's also very heartbreaking when it happens and can be quite damaging to, not only your business but you confidence! If you like someone's business, idea, product, name etc DON'T steal it or copy it, contact them and see if there is maybe a way of working with them or incorporating it into your business. I have found it so rewarding and beneficial working with another hamper company than 'xeroxing' their ideas. For me it was a logical way to expand my products without having to outlay a truck load of money or need a huge storage space plus it stopped any temptations! (something of which my M&M's know only too well!)

The success I have had with working with my drop ship hamper business has been leading me down the path of just focusing on my Hampers and only having my 'sweet tooth' inspired gifts available during Christmas and Easter. This will leave me time to pursue other ideas and job opportunities without having to sell or close Rainbow Designs. Who knows? But it's definitely something worth thinking about.

Don't Xerox.
Collaborate, Innovate,  Inspire, Enjoy, Share.

L is for...Lollies (what else!)

We've had word from our Confectionery supplier that Allen's Confectionery are no longer making:

Green Frogs (what the??!!)
Spearmint Leaves (an old child hood favourite)

and

Marella Jubes (these are one of my favourite types of lollies - boo)

Are any of these your FAVOURITE?

I have managed to find another maker of Spearmint Leaves - they're fatter than the Allen's ones but just as yummy (maybe even yummier!) but I'm still on the hunt for yummy jubes and green frogs. I have had the multi coloured frogs before, which I may get again if I can't find just green.

Allen's have also made changes to some of their other lollies including a swap to all natural colouring. This happened at the beginning of last year and meant that a BIG favourite went missing - the blue F1 Race Car and Snake, this displeased many. The blue has been replaced with a purply colour and is meant to still taste the same, although I think even the flavour has changed some what. Their Jelly Beans have also changed and are now smaller but I think even YUMMIER and they still have blue. Apparently it is easier to create a natural blue with the harder style lollies than the more gummier ones, like snakes. Who knew??


We love lollies at Rainbow Designs, as if you didn't know and are always on the lookout for new or returning old favourites.......what's your favourite lolly? I use to love musk sticks but now, not so much. I think snakes (red, green & orange only) and raspberries are my favourite lollies but I do have to admit I'm more a 'chocolate' girl!

Take care and don't forget to eat some lollies,

Jacqui (boss lady)

Payment Options

Our most popular form of payment by our customers is by credit card, generally Visa or Mastercard (Visa just pips Mastercard), we do also accept Amex and Diners but find these are mainly used by businesses. I don't mind people not using Amex or Diners as the bank fees for these are a lot higher than regular credit cards (2 almost 3 times higher!)

Paypal is the next favourite way to pay with some days outdoing Visa/Mastercard, most payments with Paypal are by people who have a Paypal account so are using their balance - very rare but on occasion we do receive eCheque payment through Paypal. These work similar to normal bank cheques in the fact that we have to wait for them to clear first before processing the order.

We occasionally receive orders using direct deposit as payment but these are becoming fewer and fewer - a good thing about direct deposit is that we don't have to pay any fees (like we do for credit cards and paypal payments) but a downside is that we can get 'scammers' trying to get their order set before we have received payment into our bank account! Sadly I have fallen for this before BUT not any more - no orders are sent until we have received payment, no matter how urgent it is. We do recommend using another form of payment for urgent orders as we want to be able to help but not at the expense of losing money!

Money orders and cheques are also a payment option but these are used very little - which makes sense really. You're ordering online to save having to go to the shops but then if you pay by cheque or money order you have to either go to the bank or post office and then post it off and wait, wait, wait for us to receive it plus if it's a cheque there's even more time waiting for it to clear. Not very 21st century!

Until next time, use your mastercard and send someone some lollies!

Jacqui