Upcoming Releases

A couple of weeks ago, the Product Development team got together for a fun-filled brainstorming session.  On our agenda for this month…Anniversaries, Halloween and Sweetest Day.

One of our best selling categories in the Special Occasion market is Anniversary.  We’ve added to this collection in bits and pieces over the last 4 years but now we are really going to give it a lift.  The designers have been doing their research and have come up with an impression list of ideas that we had to narrow down. 

The collection everyone is now anxious and excited to get started on is Halloween!  Who doesn’t love Halloween?  The brainstorming session brought together many cute ideas with several clever quotes.  We will be adding a Baby’s 1st Halloween design.  We plan on having a frightfully good time on this group.

Lastly, we have a short list for Sweetest Day.  Although Sweetest Day is a natural holiday for chocolate buying, it’s never been a big holiday for us.  We’ll see if an infusion of some new designs might change that.  It has worked well to boost other markets such as Valentine’s, First Communion, Teacher Appreciation and Graduation so it’s worth a try.

We try to create what our customers tell us they want, not what we think they should have.  If you have any suggestions for a great design or product concept for us, email me at sales@carsonbars.com.  I would love to hear from you.

WOW...What a Week!

Last week represented our busiest shipping week since Sharon and I purchased Carson in mid 2003.  Thanks to a lot of orders from our great customers and a lot of hard work from our entire team, we were able to process and ship 1012 orders in 5 business days.

Now, that may not seem like a lot of orders for some companies, but let me put a little perspective on it for you.  In August 2005, after working toward positive growth and having some success, I sent an email to all of our team members that said “ It is Friday at 3 PM and if we ship 30 more orders today, we will hit our goal of 500 orders this week!”  For us, just 20 months ago, 500 orders was cause for a small celebration because we had been trying to get there for several months and it was finally a reality.  Hitting the 1000 order is a milestone for us now, because we have kept working hard along the way, not to just meet our customers expectations, but to EXCEED them whenever possible.  Our people and our dedication to our customers is exactly why we have been able to grow.  There are no shortcuts, it is just that simple.

At the end of this week, after congratulating everyone at Carson Wrapped Hershey's for doing a wonderful job, I couldn’t help but think ahead to our next goal..1500 orders a week, to represent 1500 happy customers.  No rest for the weary …

Baby Gifts with the WOW Effect

We’ve taken our customer’s favorite wrapper designs, the HERESHEIS^® in pink and the HEREHEIS^® in blue, and created several extraordinary baby gifts.  At Carson Wrapped Hershey’s Chocolates, we are proud to announce the launch of our newest baby products.  Perfect for baby shower gifts, expecting or new parents, these items will quickly become best sellers.   

Clever and cute, everyone will love the adorable Baby Gift Tote.  A small organza bag containing 10 Assorted Miniatures wrapped in soft pink or pale blue proclaims the excitement of the latest arrival along with one delicious Milk Chocolate cigar.  Also, in the white cloth and chrome basket, you’ll find a soft cotton baby’s onesie, a cuddly Teddy Bear and keepsake baby rattle.

Send a chocolate filled bouquet to mark the memorable occasion.  Available in two sizes, our sweet baby bouquet starts with a vase built of standard 1.55oz Milk Chocolate bars.  Assorted Miniatures wrapped in soft pink or pale blue along with delicious Milk Chocolate cigars sprinkle the arrangement.  It’s a sweet and memorable baby gift to be enjoyed.

Why Air Shipping?

We often hear from customers that do not feel that air shipping is necessary because they don’t need their order right away.  While time might not be of the essence based upon your event, your chocolate might prefer a timely arrival...  We base our shipping recommendations on time in transit from our Ohio facility and temperatures.  During warm weather months when shipping time in transit is over 2 business days with UPS Ground shipping, we recommend Air shipping to ensure that your chocolate arrives in great condition.   

You can check UPS’ time in transit map here.

If you’ve read our recommendations and prefer Ground shipping we can do that, too.  Just type us a note in the Comments section on the Shipping page or tell us on the phone when you call.

Do I Have Enough Time??

Chances are the answer is yes!  Standard processing is just 3 business days, plus shipping time in transit.  But since there is a procrastinator in most of us, Carson offers Rush Processing and Overnight shipping to help you make sure you receive your favors on time for your event.  So if you wake up Friday morning and realize you forgot to order birthday favors for your party on Saturday call us!  Our Customer Service associates can review Rush processing and Expedited shipping options and costs with you.

Check out this link for more information on processing time.

Cost of Chocolate & Pricing

On March 27th I mentioned an article discussing the cost of cocoa was somewhat unstable, and surmised that an increase in cost of chocolate was probably on the horizon. This is one case where I wish I had been wrong.  The Hershey Company announced last week that a price increase of 5% would take effect immediately on its standard size chocolate bars. Since these are our most popular selling bars, it will impact us greatly, I am proud to say we have no intention of raising prices anytime in the foreseeable future, which makes our products even a greater value for our customers.

My Chocolate Cats

My name is Chase Frederick and this is my first blog article that I will be writing for Carson. I’m not really sure what to write, but I’ll try to figure it out. I have two cats named Coco and Mocha so that goes with the chocolate theme. I got Coco for my birthday and we got Mocha because we thought that Coco wanted a buddy. We chose their names because they both have chocolate brown fur. They are Burmese and Coco is 3 and Mocha is 2. They are half sisters from Atlanta, Georgia. I will probably tell you more about them when I write more for the blog. Thanks for reading this article!!!

WOW! That's a lot of chocolate

What’s the largest order you have ever handled ? That is a question I often get when giving someone a tour of our facility.

While we have had many orders between 25,000 to 50,000 custom wrapped candy bars for some of our larger corporate customers, the largest order we have wrapped and shipped was for over 180,000 standard size Hershey’s bars that shipped to over 990 department stores nationwide.

The order involved a sweepstakes contest  and the attorney for the customer came to our facility and carefully placed the winning “Golden Tickets” inside random wrappers before we boxed them to ship.

The shipping was facilitated with UPS so that each order arrived at the same day to every store regardless of where it was located in distance from our Ohio facility.  Basically a semi left our building with all orders individually packaged,  and hit the UPS shipping channels within hours.

That is perhaps one of the greatest aspects of our business.  We never know who might call us on any given day and ask that we create a large custom order for their business and where we may be shipping it.  Promotions, giveaways, “Golden Tickets”, trade shows and Casinos.  We have done many interesting orders for some of the best companies in the world.

Hershey’s Chocolate ‘Round the World’

We have a giant map of the world hanging in our customer service center with a flag pin to mark the locations of our international shipments.  We have over 45 flags marking destinations from our neighbors in Canada to Stuttgart, Germany…Athens, Greece… Mumbai, India… Cairo, Egypt…Jakarta, Indonesia…Osaka, Japan!

With UPS Worldwide Express shipping we can deliver personalized versions of the All-American Hershey’s bar just about anywhere. 

Where in the World is Carson Sending Chocolates

We ship packages to a lot of different places. We ship to all 50 states, to 6 of the 7 continents, and everywhere in between. One such place is Shannon, Ireland.

Shannon is a town in western Ireland located in the County Clare. It is home to the Shannon Airport, beautiful scenery and around 8500 residents. Shannon was developed in the 1960's, which makes it a fairly young town, and is one of only two towns in the whole country that was actually planned and designed to be a town.

On March 26, 2007 we shipped an order to Shannon, Ireland. The customer ordered 210 standard sized bars with our SHINING HERETHEYARE^® wrapper. The package weighed 26 lbs and it traveled a total of 3585 miles. Join me next month to find out where else in the world we are sending chocolates.

El Blogo

Hello, my name is Ellis Frederick. I'm thirteen years old and I am the daughter of the owners for Carson. The first one (and the better one, I think).

To introduce myself, I will use a survey that I made up. It shall reveal much, but you won't know much until I really start blogging.

Facts
Full Name: Ellis Anne Frederick
Gender: Female, HECK YEAH!
Occupation: 7th Grader
Birth Date: 11/13/93
Age: 13... durrrrr.
Income: $20 per every 6 months (because my parents never pay me my allowance
(I'm hinting something, mom!)
Eye Color: Hazel
Hair Color: Auburn with blonde highlights
Height: 5'1"
Shoe Size: 7, depending on the brand
Pets: Two female cats named Coco and Mocha
Household Members: Sharon (mom), Scott (dad), Chase (sister)

Favorites
Color: Blue, lighter shade prefered
Number: 13
Fruit: Apple
Vegetable: None, are you kidding?
Candy: BUTTERFINGERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS
Movie: Cars
Band: Rascal Flatts
Duo: The Veronicas, The Wreckers
Female Singer: Jordan Pruitt, Carrie Underwood
Male Singer: Justin Timberlake, John Mayer
Song: Candyman - Christina Aguilera

Basically, you'll learn more as we go on. Well, more later. I have a life to live to the fullest.

xx<3Ellis

Recommendations for your Spring Events

Wow, March flew by and here we are again… I can’t believe spring is here!
I have so many parties and events to plan for this year with my brother’s graduation and my niece’s First Communion. I don’t recall ever being this busy.  Since I started working for Carson Wrapped Hershey's, my family and friends now expect me to coordinate all the party gifts.  But I don’t mind so much…it’s actually fun.

Of course I have my favorites in mind…

For my brother’s graduation, I’ve selected the gold and silver candy bars to put on the tables at his party.  He will be more interested in eating the chocolate while everyone else oohs and aahs over the fancy wrapper on the front.

For my niece’s first communion, I’m thinking about candy favors too but I think it would be cute to have her picture on it.  I was going to customize the back wrapper as an invitation to announce the time and place of the reception.

Don’t forget…Easter’s a hop, skip and a jump away.  My friend called me at work the other day to ask if we had any favors for Easter.  I had to laugh…of course we do!

Anyway, I told her to tune in to the Blog and I’d answer her question.  She’s an activities coordinator for a non-profit organization.  They are looking for Easter favors to hand out for their upcoming event.

Carol, here are my recommendations…
You can use one of our Easter candy bars to remind everyone about your event.

Here is an idea for a party gift under $4.00 to give away as door prizes with bright fun colors.

And finally, you asked about a larger gift for everyone to enjoy during the event. You could place these on a registration or beverage table.

You also asked if we can add your organization’s logo on the wrappers for a more personal touch…yes we can!

…I hope your event is a success! 

Stay tuned for more…