Should you build your own gift box or choose a ready-made hamper?
Both can create a beautiful gift. The better choice really comes down to how much you know about the recipient and how involved you’d like to be in choosing what goes inside.
If you know exactly what they love, creating your own hamper gives you complete control. If you have no idea where to start, a professionally designed ready-made hamper takes the guesswork out of gifting.
And there’s a third option that gives you a little of both: choose a ready-made hamper you love and add a few extras to make it your own.
At About Giving, we offer all three options, with gifts professionally packed in Auckland and delivered throughout New Zealand.
Here’s how to decide which is right for you.
A ready-made hamper has already been designed for you. The products have been selected to work together, the balance has been considered and the finished gift has a particular style, theme or purpose.
A custom gift box gives you control over what goes inside. You choose the packaging and individual products, allowing you to create a hamper around the recipient’s tastes, dietary requirements and your own budget.
Neither is better than the other.
Sometimes you want the experts to make the decisions for you. Other times, choosing everything yourself is part of the fun.
Choose a ready-made hamper when you’re not sure what the recipient likes or simply don’t know where to start.
Perhaps you know you’d like to spend around $100 on a birthday gift, but beyond that, you’re stuck.
That’s exactly what ready-made hampers are for.
At About Giving, our hampers are designed thoughtfully and intentionally. We consider how the products work together, how the gift will look and the overall experience for the person opening it.
Many of our food hampers include a balance of sweet and savoury products so there’s a variety to enjoy.
Others have a very deliberate theme. If you choose something like our Chocoholic hamper, for example, balance isn’t the point — glorious amounts of chocolate are!
The important thing is that there’s an intention behind the selection.
If you’re unsure what to choose, you can trust that work has already been done for you.
A build-your-own gift box is particularly useful when you know something specific about the recipient.
Maybe:
It’s also ideal if you simply want full control over the gift.
At About Giving, our Create Your Own service currently offers more than 100 individual products across sweet, savoury, beverages, home & beauty, and toys & baby, giving you plenty of freedom to create something around the person you’re buying for.
You choose the products. We take care of turning them into a beautifully presented gift.
It certainly can be.
There’s something special about taking the time to choose each product yourself.
You might see a chocolate and immediately think of the recipient. Add their favourite type of wine. Spot a hand cream they’d love. Choose the most delicious-looking treats you can find.
By the time you’re finished, you’ve created something that couldn’t have come straight off a shelf.
That’s one of the things we love about Create Your Own.
The process itself becomes part of the gift because you’ve taken the time to make those choices specifically for them.
Absolutely not.
Personal doesn’t have to mean individually selecting every product.
If you’ve found a ready-made gift that perfectly suits the person, there’s no reason to rebuild it from scratch just for the sake of customisation.
You might look at a particular hamper and immediately think, “That’s them.”
That’s a good gift.
The card message can also provide the personal element. A few genuine words explaining why you’re thinking of someone can have more meaning than changing the contents of their hamper.
Yes — and this is where you don’t necessarily have to choose between ready-made and Create Your Own.
If you find an About Giving hamper that’s almost perfect but you’d like to make it a little bigger or more personal, you can add extra products.
Simply add the ready-made hamper to your cart, then head to our Create Your Own section and select anything else you’d like included.
Perhaps you’d like to add:
When we receive your order, we’ll see the hamper and additional products and package everything together.
You don’t need to purchase another gift box.
It’s one of the easiest ways to personalise a gift without starting completely from scratch.
Yes, but contact us first.
Our website isn’t designed to automatically remove one product from a ready-made hamper and replace it with another.
If you want to make significant changes, it may actually be easier to create your gift from scratch using Create Your Own.
Alternatively, get in touch with our team and tell us what you’d like to change. We can help work out the best option.
For important substitutions, we don’t recommend simply leaving instructions in your order notes and hoping they’ll work. Talk to us beforehand so we can make sure your request is possible and arrange it properly.
Yes.
That’s the whole idea behind Create Your Own.
At About Giving, the process has three simple steps:
1. Choose your packaging.
Select a signature gift box, wooden crate or felt gift bag.
2. Choose your products.
Browse more than 100 options across sweet, savoury, beverages, home & beauty, and toys & baby.
3. Check out.
We’ll take it from there.
You don’t need to work out how everything will fit together or whether you’ve selected the right-sized packaging. Our team looks at the complete order, determines what it needs and professionally picks and packs the finished gift.
Not necessarily.
There isn’t a premium simply because you’ve chosen the products yourself.
One of the advantages of building your own gift box is actually the control it gives you over your budget.
If you’d like to spend $60, you can build around that. If you’d like to create a much larger and more generous gift, you can do that too.
Ready-made hampers are available across different price points as well, so the decision doesn’t need to be based on which option is cheaper.
Choose based on which shopping experience suits you.
Yes, and this is one of the situations where Create Your Own can be particularly useful.
If the recipient is vegan, gluten free or dairy free, choosing individual products gives you greater control over what they’re receiving.
About Giving identifies relevant Create Your Own products as GF, DF and V, making it easier to find suitable options while you’re shopping.
The same principle applies to preferences that aren’t formal dietary requirements.
If you want no nuts, no added sweet treats or no alcohol, you can simply build the gift accordingly.
Yes.
Whether you choose a ready-made hamper or build your own, About Giving can professionally package the gift and send it directly to the recipient in New Zealand.
There isn’t a slower service simply because you’ve created the hamper yourself.
We work around the dispatch date required for the order, regardless of whether you’ve chosen something from our existing range or created something completely custom.
You choose what you’d like to send and when you need it sent. We handle the packing and delivery.
Both options work for corporate gifting too.
A ready-made hamper can be particularly convenient when you’re sending the same gift to a large number of staff or clients.
But businesses aren’t restricted to our existing designs.
We can also create custom gifts for corporate orders, whether you need a particular budget, different recipient preferences or something designed specifically for your business.
For larger or more complex orders, it’s worth speaking with our team so we can help determine the simplest way to achieve what you need.
Create Your Own products aren’t limited to traditional gift hampers either.
If you love one of our living tree gifts but want to make it more substantial, you can add additional products from the Create Your Own range.
You might add Champagne to celebrate a milestone, chocolates for a birthday or pampering products to a sympathy or care gift.
We’ll package the complete order appropriately.
It’s another way to start with an existing About Giving gift and make it your own.
If you’re still unsure, ask yourself one question:
How much do I know about what this person likes?
Choose ready-made if:
You don’t know what they like, don’t know where to start, have a budget in mind and would prefer to trust an experienced hamper designer.
Build your own if:
You know their tastes, need to avoid particular ingredients or products, have specific items in mind or simply love the idea of choosing everything yourself.
Choose ready-made + extras if:
You’ve found a hamper that’s almost perfect and just want to make it a little bigger or more personal.
All three can result in a thoughtful gift.
After decades of creating gift hampers, we’ve learnt that people approach gifting very differently.
Some customers love scrolling through products and choosing the most delicious-looking treats one by one.
Others want to tell us their budget, choose a beautifully designed hamper and know it’s taken care of.
Both work.
That’s why About Giving offers both ready-made gift hampers and fully customisable gift boxes, with more than 100 individual Create Your Own products currently available across food, drinks, home & beauty, and baby gifts.
You can even combine the two by adding your own extras to an existing hamper or living tree gift.
The important part isn’t how you choose the gift.
It’s that the finished gift feels right for the person receiving it.
If you know exactly what they’d love, build your own gift box and have some fun creating it.
If you’re unsure, browse our ready-made hampers and let our experience do the work for you.
And if you find something that’s almost perfect?
Start there and make it your own.
Whichever way you choose, About Giving will professionally pick, pack and present your gift before sending it on its way to your recipient in New Zealand.
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